|
|
Dictionary definition: identity politics
- Article from:
- Dictionary of the Social Sciences
- Author:
Copyright© Dictionary of the Social Sciences 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. (Hide copyright information)
|
identity politics
Political activity organized on the basis of cultural, racial, gender, ethnic, or other claims that prioritize a particular group identity and experience. Usage varies as to whether identities are treated as fixed bases for politics or as themselves products of political struggle or other “identity work.”
Although markers of identity have always played a role in politics, the term identity politics is most strongly associated with the wave of political organization and contestation launched by black activists in the 1960s and then continued by the women's movement, other minority movements, the gay pride movement, and most recently by conservative identity ...