Mainstream conviviality theory assumes negotiation dissolves fixed identities

Evidence

Neal et al. gesture toward a plural understanding of negotiation when speaking about ‘processes’ of living together. Nonetheless, the work they present as emblematic of this approach – particularly that of Paul Gilroy, Les Back, and Ash Amin – has tended to imagine processes of negotiation as leading in a relatively singular direction: towards the deconstruction or transcendence of fixed identities. From this perspective, living with difference, or within environments that are open and inclusive, is understood as cultivating a (reflexive and/or habituated) understanding that identities are contingent, fluid, and dynamic, rather than given, bounded, and stable. — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others, 21

Categorization

• QUESTION: The author is setting up a critique: what alternative directions might negotiation take besides deconstruction of identity? Worth noting for the chapter’s argumentative spine.
• XREF: The insistence that identities are contingent and fluid rather than bounded is the liberal-universalist reflex this critique targets — echoes Achebe’s treatment of fixed versus negotiated identity in Things Fall Apart. — connects to: Pure-identity frameworks cannot grasp cultures defined by intermingling — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 377; Diasporic people negotiate multiple, hyphenated identities across cultural difference — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 355; Convivial relations carry radical openness that undermines fixed and reified identity. — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 23 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 21

Related

• Conviviality’s transformative force lies in stepping beyond bounded identities, not in inhabiting them. (similarity 0.84)
• Convivial relations carry radical openness that undermines fixed and reified identity. (similarity 0.83)
• Specific relational modes offer more analytic traction than generalized conviviality. (similarity 0.79)
• Farhan Samanani — Conviviality and its others for a plural politics of living with difference (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Diasporic people negotiate multiple, hyphenated identities across cultural difference #exemplifies (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 355
• Pure-identity frameworks cannot grasp cultures defined by intermingling #exemplifies (0.82) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 377