Identity construction is an exercise of power through exclusion

Evidence

Identities, then, are constructed within power relations (Foucault 1986). Every identity is founded on an exclusion and in that sense is an “effect of power.” There must be something which is external to an identity (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Butler 1993). That “outside” is constituted by all the other terms of the system, whose “absence” or lack is constitutive of its “presence” (Hall 1996). … Each particular identity, then, is radically insufficient in terms of its “others.” “This means that the universal is part of my identity as far as I am penetrated by a constitutive lack” (Laclau 1996). — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 371

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the constitutive link between identity, exclusion, and power — a mechanism central to later Islamophobia critique.
• XREF: Directly buildable onto Foucauldian power analysis and the ‘constitutive outside’ concept that recurs through critical theory of the Other; relevant to the reader’s Orientalism scaffolding. — connects to: Identity is internally mediated by the non-identical — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1223; Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 651; Queer identity can be conceived as a bridge rather than a closet. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1270 (+7 more)