Week Review 7
Two courses in one semester – not only twice the work, but also twice the fun. Especially when activities on both courses intertwine. This is what I read:
“Being recognized as a certain “kind of person,” in a given context, is what I mean here by “identity”. In this sense of the term, all people have multiple identities connected not to their “internal states” but to their performance in society.” (Gee 2001, 99)
As our contexts, as communities change, we have different identities in different groups. These communities can now also be found online, as Lister points out. (Lister 2009)
And although Kozinets asks for a more complex analysis of our identities, he still clings to the concept of clustering:
“We need alternatives to the rather essentializing clustering of all members of online communities into a single category of membership or non-membership.” (Kozinets 2010, 133)
Already four years ago, working on my BA in Primary School Education at Humboldt-University Berlin, I opposed the idea of viewing individuals as having multiple identities or grouping them, as this leeds to biases in assessing the individual student.
Additionally, as individuals, we should not wear masks, thus adopting different identities behind which we can hide.
I funnily twittered about this, I engaged on MOODLE, I (partly jokingly) adopted a different identity in my Ethnography. And I keep repeating myself:
We should be who we are wherever and whenever we are.
Gee, James Paul. 2001. “Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education.” Review of Research in Education 25:99-125.
Kozinets, Robert V. 2010. Netnography : doing ethnographic research online. London: SAGE.
Lister, Martin. 2009. New media : a critical introduction. 2nd ed. ed. London: Routledge.
