Every identity is constituted relationally through what it excludes

Evidence

Another way of putting the point would be to note that, by definition, a multicultural society always involved more than one group. There has to be some framework in which serious conflicts of outlook, belief, and interest can be negotiated, and this cannot be simply the framework of one group writ large, which was the problem with Eurocentric assimilationism. The specific and particular “difference” of a group or community cannot be asserted absolutely, without regard to the wider context provided by all those “others” in relation to whom “particularity” acquires a relative value. Philosophically, the logic of différance means that the meaning/identity of every concept is constituted in relation to all the other concepts in the system in terms of which alone it signifies. A particular cultural identity cannot be defined only by its positive presence and content. All identity terms depend on marking their limits—defining what they are in relation to what they are not. As Laclau argues, “I cannot assert a differential identity without distinguishing it from a context, and in the process of making the distinction, I am asserting the context at the same time” (Laclau 1996). — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 371

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the logic of différance as applied to cultural identity — identity is constituted by marking limits against others, not by positive content alone.
• XREF: This is the core anti-essentialist theory of identity that downstream Islamophobia readings will presume — connects to poststructuralist identity theory (Laclau/Mouffe, Butler) the reader will carry into Islamophobia texts. — connects to: Every dominant image of the human is defined against the possibilities it excludes — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 162; A relational language with no bare ‘I’ pronoun shapes personal identity. — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 729; Identities co-create each other so no category has analytic priority — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 83 (+4 more)