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The idea that identity is socially constructed has been explored across many fields using a range of approaches. Scholars have shown how categories like mental illness, citizenship, sexuality, kinship, class, childhood, and adolescence often feel natural or self-evident, yet are shaped by social, political, and historical forces. These categories have long, contested histories that reveal how they are created, reinforced, and sometimes resisted. Explore these and other categories in greater depth, from a range of perspectives and authors, in our catalogue.

So far, we’ve focused on how identity categories are made. But we haven’t looked much into why these categories were constructed in the first place, who had the power to define them, and what purposes they were meant to serve. This brings us to the politics of identity: forces that were always present in this section's materials but remained in the background. In the next section, we bring those forces into sharper focus. Read on to “Identity: Shaped by Whom?” to continue.

Once we see identity as constructed, we have to ask: constructed by whom? And to what end? All identity categories, whether racial, indigenous, gendered, religious, or national, are shaped within systems of power. Communities and cultures are not outside those systems, they are part of how power is organized, reproduced, and sometimes resisted. Identity is never just a neutral description; it carries the imprint of the historical and social forces that made it necessary. Labels like “Black,” “Immigrant,” “Man,” or “Minor” �徱���’t simply describe people, they helped determine who deserved land, legal protection, mobility, or personhood. Even seemingly neutral or bureaucratic terms (like “non-status,” “at-risk,” or “visible minority”) function to encode difference and justify unequal treatment. Identities shape what people are allowed to have, how �ٳ���’r�� seen, and what rules apply to them, often before �ٳ���’v�� had any say in the matter.

Identities come from power, not nature. Throughout history, those in power have crafted markers of difference — gender, race, class, and others — to justify unequal access to resources, authority, and freedom. Over time, their origins are hidden, and these categories are passed off as eternal truths about “biology,” “human nature,” or “evolution.” But identities are not fixed. They shift, disappear, and reappear in new forms, constantly adjusted to serve the needs of those who benefit from them. Once we see this, we can start asking sharper questions: who is deploying these identities, to what end — and how can they be disrupted, challenged, and seized to redefine on our own terms?

Explore the history and power dynamics of these and other categories in greater depth, from a range of perspectives and authors, in our catalogue.

So far, we’ve explored how identity categories are shaped by those in power to justify inequality and maintain control. But that’s not the whole story. People don’t just accept the identities imposed on them — they also contest, resist, and sometimes reclaim them on their own terms. This brings us to the struggles over identity, the ways communities have turned imposed labels into sources of pride, solidarity, and resistance. In the next section, we bring those struggles into focus. Read on to “Identity: Claimed and Contested” to continue.

Over time, many of the categories once used to mark people for exclusion have been reclaimed. Terms like queer, black, crip, or fat, once deployed to shame, regulate, or marginalize, have been redefined as sources of pride, solidarity, and political clarity. The Black Power movements of the 1960s and ’70s, for example, reframed Blackness not as a deficit but as something beautiful, powerful, and worth celebrating. More recently, terms like mad or neurodivergent have been reclaimed to challenge psychiatric authority and affirm difference.

Reclaiming identity offers affirmation and a sense of belonging. It is also a form of resistance, a way to transform stigma into strength and to take back language on one’s own terms. Yet reclaiming identity is not always easy. It often requires an ongoing struggle to have that self-definition seen, heard, and respected, and it can mean working within categories shaped by histories we did not choose. Read, listen, and watch more below to learn about some these struggles, their victories, and achievements.

Reclaiming identity is never simple or uncontested. It repairs harm, builds solidarity, brings forth contested views and affirms that there is something worth defending and fighting for, even as it provokes resistance from those who want to keep things as they are. But that struggle is the point. It brings into view the people, norms, and institutions committed to preserving these unspoken definitions that keep us down and unseen divisions that stop us from changing things. Once the battle lines are visible, we can ask the next question: what exactly are these institutions protecting, and how do the systems they are part of actually work? Only then can we be sure we are taking up the right struggle, one that confronts the structures that produce our oppression and exploitation, not just the individuals who enforce them and are easily replaced.

As struggles for recognition, representation and reduced disparities have become mainstream, questions remain. Does being seen by those in power bring real autonomy, or just reshuffle who belongs while systems stay intact? Are we fighting for better treatment and representation in prisons, more equitable leadership, and better supports for low wage work or are we trying to create a world where prisons, obedience, and poverty are no longer necessary? Will repair and self-affirmation disrupt exploitation, or do those dynamics endure regardless of our self-perception or how others perceive us? In the next section, we will start to explore these questions and more. Read on to Identity: The Need for More to continue.

Challenging inclusion and reform as ends in themselves is never easy or comfortable. It unsettles what feels like progress, exposes hidden bargains, and asks whose interests our victories really serve (despite our best intentions), all while drawing fire from those invested in keeping the game as it is. But that discomfort is the point. It forces us to see the systems beneath the surface: the ways policies are reversed when power feels threatened, the way inclusion is used to buffer rather than disrupt, the way visibility and repair can leave the deepest inequalities intact. Once we see the rules for what they are, we can ask ourselves what it would mean to not just have a place in the system, but to create a world that no longer needs to be managed this way?

Beneath every policy and reform lie the unspoken rules: the quiet interests, assumptions, and systemic pressures that shape not only who benefits and who pays, but also how institutions and their leaders must behave to survive. Even those we think are in charge are often just responding to the logic of the system they serve. Too often, fights for fairness end up polishing those rules instead of breaking them. What happens when we stop asking how to make the system more inclusive and start asking what it exists to protect, and why even its gatekeepers can’t escape its demands? The next section explores how systems work, why so many gains prove fragile, and what it really takes to confront the structure, not just its surface.

Click here to read on to our next module: Systems.