Spaces of identity

The notion of ‘spaces of identity’ foregrounds the role of the subject and how affective bonds, norms and affiliations are formed - through the agency of individual subjects, through the agency of collectives, and through the agency of others who seek to define particular collectivities, often in unfavourable ways, for their own benefit. While the notion of identity may foreground the individual, its formation is an innately social process. Conceptions and categories of identity frequently become concretized in institutional and social structures, producing structural patterns of both privilege and oppression. In an increasingly urban world the formation of identities, the exercise of privilege and oppression on the basis of group identities, and the contestation of those power relations are increasingly urban processes.