Performance can unmask identity as something performed, not essential.
Evidence
By the end of the excerpt, Wilson blatantly violates his own immediately previous identity claims by speaking in fluent Spanish, thereby unmasking himself as not ‘really’ black according to the Dominican cultural framework. This jointly produced prank undermines essentialized assumptions that black skin necessarily entails a black identity and thus denaturalizes the dominant racial paradigm in the United States. … Wilson knowingly offers false credentials only to withdraw them later, and thus unsettles the naturalized links between phenotype and ethnic identity. — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction, 99
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Goffman’s presentation-of-self and Judith Butler’s performativity, as well as the reader’s interest in identity as continually negotiated interaction rather than essence. — connects to: Visible identity markers are everyday evidence that identity is performed, not natural. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in…, 252; Identity is constituted through representation, not expressed from lived experience. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 291; Performing identity in public differs from passing by staying contained in public space — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 949 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Identity functions as a costume adaptable to context.
#exemplifies(0.88) - Identity is constituted through representation, not expressed from lived experience.
#expands(0.82) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 291 - Identity is both a source of agency and increasingly constructed rather than given
#corroborates(0.80) - Authenticity as full self-identity is impossible because iterability makes self-presence unattainable in principle
#corroborates(0.80) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 767 - Performing identity in public differs from passing by staying contained in public space
#qualifies(0.78) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 949 - The new identification produces a self that did not preexist it.
#corroborates(0.75)