ABSTRACT

This book engages with the ethics and practices of identity formation in a world experiencing identity stress. It engages with crucial questions such as: What models are shaping our view of ourselves and the society in which we live? What images ground our perception of what is true and real? How have the images been historically produced? What are the effects of such models on definitions of self? Should we break free from these images if we get to know what they are? Is it possible to change our models in order to create freer identities?

Through a range of distinctive lenses, the essays in the volume deals with the ideas of the ‘liminal self’, the ‘digital self’, ‘identities in flux’, and offers up ‘anthropologies of self/selves’ that situates current identity processes within their cultures and explores strategies and dilemmas from this perspective. This key volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of literary stories, critical theory, social theory, social anthropology, philosophy, and political philosophy.

chapter 1|12 pages

Introduction

Identity and Becoming in a Plurified World

part 1|84 pages

Liminal Identities

chapter 2|18 pages

‘Who Am I?’

Vertigo and the Identity Threshold

chapter 3|16 pages

The Creative Self

Artistic Performance and the Making and Finding of Identity

chapter 5|18 pages

On the Crossroads

Hard and Soft Paths at the Centre of International Education

chapter 6|14 pages

Transilient Identities

Creating Queer Fictive Narratives for Transmodern Cultural Realities

part 2|58 pages

Digital Identities

chapter 7|12 pages

Oceanic Medium

Technology, Identity and Maritime Imagination in Vilém Flusser

chapter 8|11 pages

Virtual Belonging in a Plurified World

Online Culture and How the Formation of the Digital ‘I’ Impacts an Individual's Sense of Belonging

chapter 9|12 pages

The Soul of the Profile

The Subtle Link between the Practices of Mediation and Meditation

part 3|56 pages

Perspectives on Identity

chapter 11|16 pages

A Plunge into the Inner Self

Reflections about Spiritual Identity in Neohumanist Philosophy

chapter 12|14 pages

Transitional Self

The Other Being

chapter 13|14 pages

Identity as a Construct

Possibilities of Self-Transcendence

chapter 14|10 pages

Identity and Ahimsa

part 4|92 pages

Anthropologies of Identity

chapter 15|18 pages

Messengers and Media Messages

Learning, Knowledge and Identity of Muslim Women in India

chapter 16|19 pages

Feeling Sexy and Cool in the Diaspora

The Construction of Hybrid Identities for Young Migrants through Dressing and Dancing

chapter 17|15 pages

High Tide or Low Tide

The Navigation of Modernity, Tradition and Kava

chapter 18|17 pages

The Ayahuasca Voices

An earthly consciousness

chapter 19|10 pages

Identity, Culture, and Migration

A Personal Narrative of an Emergent Self

chapter |2 pages

Afterword