A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy

http://csp.sagepub.com

Critical Social Policy

DOI: 10.1177/02610183030233002 2003; 23; 322 Critical Social Policy

Shona Hunter Social Policy

A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in

http://csp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/322 The online version of this article can be found at:

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:Critical Social Policy Additional services and information for

http://csp.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:

http://csp.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://csp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/23/3/322 Citations

at University of Leeds on December 9, 2008 http://csp.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://csp.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://csp.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

http://csp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/23/3/322


❑ S H O N A H U N T E R

University of Birmingham

A critical analysis of approaches to the concept ofsocial identity in social policy

AbstractThis article seeks both to highlight a current imbalance in approaches tosocial identity in social policy and to make suggestions as to how thismight be redressed in future work employing the concept. The conceptof identity and specifically social identity is increasingly employed inthe discipline of social policy as a theoretical device with which tobridge the individual/social divide. The argument presented here sug-gests that the concept is, however, unevenly deployed in policy analysisand therefore lacks the impact it might otherwise have had. Thepredominant focus of current analysis lies on policy change precipitatedby groups of ‘new’ active welfare constituents organized around differ-entiated and fragmented social identities, whereas the identities ofwelfare professionals also involved in the policy making process havedisappeared from analytical view. The current emphasis on the dis-cursive context of policy formulation perpetuates an unacknowledgedmisconception concerning the asociality of those involved in policymaking, whereby their principal role is perceived as the maintenance ofthe status quo in terms of social policy responses to welfare constituents’needs. Redressing this false dichotomy between those developing andthose using welfare services might be avoided by further exploring theconcept of relational identity.

Key words: difference, sameness, welfare professional, welfare subject

Introduction

The concept of identity has had a chequered history in social scienceanalysis, falling in and out of disciplinary favour according to

Copyright © 2003 Critical Social Policy Ltd 76 0261-0183 (200308) 23:3SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 23(3): 322–344; 034520322


www.sagepblications.com


predominant trends in analysis. Furthermore, when discussing iden-tity, there remains a considerable lack of clarity as to the focus ofdebate (for a full discussion, see Gleason, 1983). The latest phase inthis history is characterized by the ‘remarkable centrality’ of questionsof identity across the human and social sciences. While there isgenerally interdisciplinary agreement with regards to the ontologicalfallacy of subjects as ‘ “free agents” directed by a sovereign andintegral consciousness’ (du Gay et al., 2000: 1–2), this is matched byconsiderable disagreement over the conceptualization of identity inrelation to antifoundationalist critiques of the subject. It is preciselyat this historical moment that social policy has begun to add its ownparticular concerns surrounding the welfare subject to the ongoingdebate.

This historical moment to which I refer finds its antecedents inthe emergence of new social movements in the 1960s and 1970s.These movements were organized around forms of identity other thanclass (traditionally the terrain of social policy analysis) and precip-itated new forms of social critique. One aspect of this critique was tohighlight the principal flaw in (critical) social policy analysis at thatjuncture: a failure to critique the model citizen – the ‘white, British,male, able-bodied, worker/father/husband’ (Clarke et al., 1998: 385;see also Taylor, 1996). As social movement critiques have developed,this flaw has been located in a focus on structural accounts of the fixedrather than fluid relations between social collectivities (see Croft andBeresford, 1996). As a result of these cogent and increasinglywidespread critiques of traditional social policy analysis (see Williams,1989), there is now a discernible strand of research committed toincorporating an understanding of ‘new’ welfare subjects as histor-ically constructed through a complex web of social relations (seeClarke et al., 1998: 384–6).

Exploring identity is an important element of understanding wel-fare subjectivities (see Lewis, 2000a). Those social policy analysts whohave most successfully taken this on board suggest that, approachedfrom a social relations perspective, the role of identity is important in‘marking the relationship between the individual and the social’(Williams and Popay, 1999: 167). The ‘old’ welfare paradigm iscriticized precisely for its inability to understand the complexities ofcontemporary welfare in that it cannot account for inconsistencies andambivalence created by active welfare subjects who are nevertheless in

323H U N T E R — S O C I A L I D E N T I T Y I N S O C I A L P O L I C Y



subordinate social positions. Identity, from this perspective, is the siteat which these contradictions are played out. It represents the point atwhich the structural determinants of welfare and individual agencycoincide.

The aims of this article are twofold. First, it aims to show how asocial relations approach to identity and welfare subjectivities, havingattended to current epistemological and ontological debates withinthe wider social sciences, has been integral to opening up thediscipline of social policy. Using current and ongoing work (Taylor,1998; Williams, 2000a, b), I outline the ways in which the concept iscurrently deployed and some of the problems that persist. From asocial relations perspective, Taylor (1998: 333) suggests that identityis relevant to welfare on a number of levels. General, ideal identityconstructions operate as ideological markers of users’ legitimacy andillegitimacy. Specific identity constructions operate as markers ofusers’ entitlement to services. Interests are attributed to welfare userson the basis of abstract universal assumptions about links betweenidentity and behaviour. The physical structures of material andinstitutional provision assume these same particular identity construc-tions. The principal concern for analysis has been to deconstructsubordinated identities in order to redress an imbalance in the focuson welfare users as problematic by virtue of their ‘abnormal’ identitiesand to explain the occurrence and impact of ‘bottom-up’ challenges topolicy.

Second, the article suggests that, wideranging as this agenda foranalysis is, important elements are missing. Current frameworks forunderstanding identity fail to explore the traditional notions of policymakers that remain implicit in contemporary analysis, but that areintegral to understanding the reproduction or challenge of seeminglyillusive ‘discourses of power’ through which categories of (user)identities are purportedly articulated. Deconstructing problematicidentity constructions attributed to those in positions of relativedisempowerment is vital, but an equally important goal is to examinethe identifications of those in positions of relative power in relation topolicy making. Building on and exploring the concept of relationalidentity (Williams, 2000b) may provide an appropriate basis fromwhich to start exploring the subjectivities of welfare professionals asthis potentially encompasses the destructive and non-rational ele-ments of human behaviour.

324 C R I T I C A L S O C I A L P O L I C Y 2 3 ( 3 )



Identity and social policy

The convergence of new social movement critique and postmodernsocial theory has centralized issues of difference, identity, particularityand the subjective variability of historical experiences on the socialpolicy agenda. The result is a ‘refusal to treat social differences as pre-social or as essential characteristics of particular groups or individ-uals’, in turn drawing attention to welfare subjects as ‘the outcomes ofprocesses of subject formation’ (see Lewis, 2000a: 15; emphasis inoriginal). Both critiques challenge the view of ‘rational “man”,characterised by “his” mastery over nature’ (Archer, 2000: 18), whoseidentity is a singular and complete entity that both guides behaviourand accounts for social context in its entirety. Postmodern accountsfacilitate an understanding of identity as consistently reconstitutedand constructed in specific historical and cultural moments, whereasvariants of new social movement theory illustrate the potential foridentities to constitute a basis for social challenge (see Martin,2001).

Some of the less desirable implications of postmodern socialtheory and related conceptualizations of endlessly fractured and purelysocially constructed identity have been debated within social policycircles (see Hewitt, 1994; Taylor-Gooby, 1994; Thompson andHoggett, 1996; Williams, 1992, 1994). The principal problemhighlighted by these debates is an epistemic and ontological relativ-ism that lacks a basis on which to build mutually acceptableguidelines for symbolic and material redistribution. Although thesepotential pitfalls remain, there are conceptualizations of identity (anddifference) that are not only compatible with the redistributive aimsof social policy, but that may also be crucial to moving forward ananalysis of emancipatory social change and the changing socialrelations of welfare.

The role of social identity in social policy

David Taylor’s (1998) work incorporates elements of postmodernsocial theory, highlighting the way in which social identity becomescentral to understanding welfare. He explores both how welfaresubjects’ identities are (negatively) constructed (most commonly, butnot exclusively, by state agencies) and how welfare subjects (pos-itively) identify themselves. Social identity therefore takes on the form




of a mediating concept useful in explaining aspects of state structuresand subjects’ agency. He proposes that identity be conceptualized asboth categorical and ontological. Categorical identity relates to the socialcategories of ‘race’, gender, age, and so on – sameness; ontologicalidentity relates to a coherent sense of self – uniqueness. Identityoperating along this axis becomes relational and enables an under-standing of identity as both individual and social. If the sameness(categorical) and difference (ontological) aspects of identity are placedon the same axis, the recognition of difference is impossible withoutsameness and the recognition of sameness impossible without differ-ence. Identity construction therefore becomes interdependent.

According to Taylor (1998), the central tension in the identityproblematic in relation to social policy occurs when identity is treatedas synonymous with difference within the context of a myriad ofpossible social differences and identities that are not recognized eitherwithin policy or by the new social movements that challenge this. Inboth cases, a certain categorical identity is constructed that subsumesontological identity. Welfare struggles based on political identitiesconforming to this logic have tended to represent difference aspositive, but nevertheless fixed, preventing an understanding ofoppression as interrelated (Williams, 1994). A well-documentedexample of this process operating has been identified in ‘second wave’feminism. By according primacy to gender, other aspects of ethnic andsexual identity that may be experienced as modes of oppression intheir own right, but that also impact on how gendered oppression istransmitted, become marginalized (see, for example, Bhavnani andPhoenix, 1994; Yuval-Davis, 1994). Equally this process fails tochallenge the basis of structural definitions of difference. As Taylorsuggests:

The key, then, is the recognition that difference categories do notrepresent the totality of identity and that the formation of identity isboth an historical process and an individual project. It is one whichtakes place, none the less, within relations of power which constructcategories of identity as dominant and subordinate. (1998: 346; em-phasis in original)

Both social and individual identities are therefore processual, fluid andconstantly in flux, dependent on the social, political, economic andideological aspects of the situations in which individuals and col-lectivities find themselves (Bhavnani and Phoenix, 1994; Hall, 1996).




Conceptualizing identity as relationally produced, as Taylor (1998)suggests, creates space for both commonality and difference withinthis.

Integrating identity and subjectivity: relational identity

The key questions, therefore, are how and in what form does thinkingabout identity move social policy analysis forward? Taylor’s con-ceptualization of social identity as categorical and ontological isprimarily geared to exposing the role of social policy in ‘setting theideological and material conditions for the realisation or foreclosure ofparticular identities’ (1998: 333; emphasis in original). As a result,exploring the way in which ontological identity enables subjects toenter into political agency is an important but underemphasizedaspect of Taylor’s account. Fiona Williams (2000a, b), building onTaylor’s initial work, approaches the issues from the opposite direc-tion. Taking challenge as her starting point, she seeks to understand

the ways in which the welfare claims from grassroots campaigns,organizations and movements have contributed to a rethinking of socialpolicy. . . . In so doing they have highlighted a critical political questionof whether it is possible to combine a commitment to universalism inpolicies whilst respecting a diversity, or particularism, of identities,practices and beliefs. (Williams, 2000a: 338; emphases in original)

When discussing the related work of the Economic and SocialResearch Council’s Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA)project,1 Williams (2000c: 1) extends this to include a focus on thepotential contributions that these campaigns and organizations maketo welfare reforms and any subsequent ‘moral reordering’ of society. Itis arguably this moral reordering (to which I will return later),highlighted by Williams and others committed to rethinking welfare(see, for example, Clarke et al., 1998; Lewis, 2000a), that underpins arefocus on the concept of identity. However, I will go on to argue thatit is also a focus on identity in relation to some aspects and not othersof this moral reordering which is potentially problematic for socialpolicy.

According to Williams (2000b: 3), research suitable for unpack-ing this moral reordering would require the development of anemphasis on creative human agency, more complex understandings ofthe welfare subject and middle-range concepts connecting agency and




structure. In meeting these criteria, the CAVA research groupemploys concepts that fall into four interrelated ‘fields of analysis’:‘the subject, the social topography of enablement and constraint inthe intimate/informal/close/local/context, the wider discursive andinstitutional contexts and the dynamics of social change’ (for an earlieraccount, see also Williams and Popay, 1999). The field most pertinentto the current discussion is that of the subject, which draws upon therelated concepts of subjectivity, identity, subject position and agency(Williams, 2000b: 3–8). Subjectivity refers to a sense of self consti-tuted and interpreted through conscious and unconscious experience.Identity refers to a sense of belonging(s), the ways in which individ-uals attach themselves to the social world. Subject position refers to anindividual’s positioning within the social world, and the ordering ofthese subject positions constitutes their social relations. Finally,agency refers to ‘people’s capacity to act’ and is implicated in theproduction of and constituted through each of the other elements ofthe subject: subjectivity, identity and subject position. Importantly,all four elements of the subject are identified, to a greater or lesserextent, as being relational; that is to say that none of these elements isentirely constituted by an atomistic unconnected self – the develop-ment of the subject is always embedded in and constituted throughconcrete relationships.

Williams’s account of identity is useful for a number of reasons.First, she retains the categorical and ontological aspects of identityintroduced in Taylor’s (1998) version, suggesting that it is ‘partlybetween these two that the discursive construction of subject positions are[sic] resisted/reproduced/resignified’ (Williams, 2000b: 5; emphasesadded), therefore maintaining the idea that identity involves adialectical play between the individual and the social. Her account,however, has more analytical utility than Taylor’s in that it furtherexplores the concept of subjectivity which she marks out as differentto ontological identity: ‘Ontological identity signifies the process ofcreating coherence from experience whereas the span of subjectivity ismuch broader: its reach extends beyond conscious experience tounconscious interiority’ (2000b: 5; emphasis added). This distinction inturn gives a further complexity to agency and claims-making on thebasis of identity; these practices can be explicit and implicit, whereimplicit claims evolve out of ‘the practices in which people engage,and these may not involve conscious reflection but be part of cultural




embeddedness – what went before’ (2000b: 7). Second, Williamsbegins to draw out the idea of relational identity constituted, incontrast to both categorical and ontological identity, through relation-ships and biography, not only situation and structure.

There is a growing body of literature on the margins of socialpolicy that suggests that more robust models of agency and identitycould draw on the type of analysis Williams seems to be developing.With regards to agency, this would involve the recognition thatnon-reflexive action can also constitute agency, that agency is notnecessarily linked to choice, but rather to change, and that includingnon-reflexive, repressed or unacknowledged aspects of action can shedlight on the potential destructiveness of human actions (see Hoggett,2001: 50–1). Where identity is concerned, this must be exploredwithin the broader context of the self, which corresponds to Wil-liams’s perspective on subjectivity. As Craib (1998: 170) suggests:

From this perspective perhaps the more sociologically interesting ques-tions are not about social identity at all and especially not about thesocial construction of identity, but about the nature of the socialconditions which encourage individuals to ‘close down’ their psychicspace around one or another social identity and the social conditionswhich encourage an opening up of psychic space in an attempt toexplore oneself and one’s relationships.

His criticisms of sociological approaches to a purely social identity arefocused on the connections between these and identity politics which,in his view, perpetuate narcissistic alliances and conflicts betweendifferent interest groups. In Williams’s account, the relational elementof identity is psychosocial (see Hollway, 2000; Mason, 2000). The basisof this type of identification is not confined to the recognition of socialdifference or sameness, but rather created and revised through ‘closerelationships with others through which we have a particular “sense ofbelonging” ’ (Williams, 2000b: 10). It represents the point at whichpotential contradictions between categorical and ontological identityare negotiated. By drawing on psychosocial approaches, Williams(2000b) begins to grapple with criticisms directed at sociologicalapproaches. However, the stated focus of the CAVA project does notexploit the full potential of her framework. This is, to some extent atleast, based on the predominant emphasis in this account on claimsmade on the basis of social identities at the ‘grassroots’ level.




Conceptualizing policy making

What has been emphasized thus far is the utility of further exploringthe relationship between agency, identity and (social) structure forunderstanding subjective agency. One way of exploring this is todevelop understandings of how new forms of social identity areemerging from new social movements and underpinning new forms ofindividual and collective agency, which potentially influence develop-ments in welfare policy. This is the approach adopted by CAVAtowards the ‘grassroots’, ‘moral reordering’ of welfare arrangementsand follows a growing trend towards encouraging user involvement inboth policy making and academic research (see Barnes and Prior,2000; Croft and Beresford, 1996). Whilst I would not want to detractfrom these important developments, what is not clear is how we moveon from here. Welfare users are no longer (if they ever were) passiverecipients of state welfare and have made inroads into developingaspects of service provision, although such inroads are limited (seeBeresford, 2001). Another potentially helpful approach to issues ofagency, identity and (social) structure, yet to be explored to the sameextent, is the policy making environment.

Identity, agency and the discursive context

The limitation to theorizing identity within Williams’s framework islinked to current understandings of her third field of analysis, ‘thenational/international/subnational discursive, institutional and rel-ational contexts’ (2000b: 11–12) or the ‘institutional and discursivecontext of policy formation and implementation’ (Williams andPopay, 1999: 179). This field is geared specifically to understandingthe policy making environment. Williams and Popay suggest that:

Here, greater significance is given to the discursive context in whichpolicies are made and implemented. The notion of discourses provides away of understanding the dynamic between dimensions of the individ-ual (their identity and subjectivity) and their capacity for and mode ofaction on the one hand, and the existence and nature of policy provisionon the other. (1999: 181; emphasis in original)

Williams’s recognition that the issue of ‘with whom or what do thesignificant processes of change lie in relation to morality?’ (2000b: 12)remains implicit in the work of CAVA, coupled with the emphasis on




discourse, is problematic for two reasons: first, in relation to an aspectof Williams’s conceptualization of identity; and, second, to a broadlyheld but implicit view of policy making and policy makers potentiallyperpetuated within this account.

First, with regards to the use of discourse, I would not argue withthe proposition that this concept can be useful ‘to consider thestructural and ideological influences on people’s lives in one frame’(Williams and Popay, 1999: 173). However, poststructural discursiveaccounts of identity tend to focus on the cognitive construction ofidentity ‘within discourse’. This then perpetuates an image of ‘thesocial as a machine’, reforming and constituting everything it comesinto contact with (see Craib, 1998: 7–9). Hoggett (2000a: 142–3)makes similar observations about the emphasis on the discursiveconstruction of subjects, also observing that the tendency towardsdiscourse can serve to exclude affect and emotion in favour ofcognition and language. These inadequacies (which he and othersidentify as particularly prevalent in Foucauldian accounts) cantogether foreclose rather than open up space to theorize agency.

Nevertheless, there is currently a proliferation of work applyingdiscursive analysis to policy making, much of which draws on thework of Foucault (see Carabine, 2000; Hillyard and Watson, 1996;Watson, 2000). While presenting a more complex analysis of policyand specifically its implications for the subjects of welfare, these arenot unproblematic. Where welfare professionals or the ‘modernexpert’ are concerned, explanations as to the (assumed) negativeimpact of subjects’ agency on welfare arrangements are rather unsat-isfactory. Leonard suggests that ‘where there is welfare, in otherwords, there is expertise directed to the organisation and control(in their own interests) of those who are subjected to its gaze’ (1997: 99;emphasis added). He goes on to suggest that a tendency to abusepower by limiting the agency of others is ‘an outcome of history andculture’ and names the ‘first target’ of collective resistance as theprofessional expert. This seems a wholly insufficient basis on which toview professional involvement in welfare, providing an example of aninappropriate emphasis on the discursive rather than the subjective.Professionals are viewed as consistently operating to subordinate usersfor their own gain (as experts), and this negative agency has beenimputed to them through history and culture, reducing them to thestatus of automatons. This type of analysis conforms to what Hoggett(2001: 37) labels the ‘subject good, society bad’ assumption on which




the left tends to operate. Williams (2000b: 13) acknowledges thesecommon criticisms directed towards the use of the concept ofdiscourse. Her inclusion of the affective and psychobiographicalelements of the subject, coupled with a critical realist basis for thewhole project (see Duncan, 2000), would suggest that avoiding theexcesses of poststructuralist accounts of subjectivity should be poss-ible. What makes this framework potentially problematic, however, isthe shift from the language of identity and subjectivity in relation towelfare users or the welfare subject to the language of discourse inrelation to policy making. In maintaining a focus on identity inrelation to ‘grassroots’ welfare constituencies and a focus on discoursein relation to policy making/makers, identity and subjectivity remainemphasized as characteristics of the former. The underlying assump-tion is that welfare users’ discourses, by virtue of their identity (wherethis is categorical, ontological and relational), have the potential toconflict with the ‘dominant’ policy making discourse that seems to‘exist’, disembodied and detached, in the first instance. Policy makers,for the most part, remain unidimensional in that they would seem toadhere to the dominant policy discourse by virtue of their interest inmaintaining their powerful position within the policy making pro-cess. In the case of those involved in policy making, this does notseem to take us further than the view of the rational actor operating inhis or her own interests. One way to redress this rather perverse viewof welfare professionals would be to subject their identity to the sameinterrogation as that of welfare users.

Shifting the boundaries of professional, policy makerand user

There is currently a discernible division in the social policy literaturedealing explicitly with identity, and, as yet, neither deals satisfactorilywith the role of identity in policy making. The direction of eachstrand is explained, to some extent, by the different social andpolitical factors precipitating them. Whereas the study of welfare useridentities was precipitated by critique on the left from new socialmovements, the study of professional identities and related issues (thesecond discernible strand) arose largely in response to the changingcontext of service provision. The introduction of managerialism or‘new public management’ (see Newman, 1998) and other measuresdesigned to exert control over and ensure a higher level of account-




ability from welfare professionals were instituted by the political rightusing left critiques of ‘expert’ and professional knowledge as addi-tional justification (Jones, 2000). Research concerning the roles andidentity of those exercising policy decisions has been concerned with(professional) identity within the context of changing notions ofprofessional power, efficiency, competence and accountability, to namebut a few (see Malin, 2000). Aspects of social identity such as ‘race’and gender (if explored at all in this context) are treated as marginalvariables affecting research data rather than social relations with thepotential to impact on other aspects of identity (see Phal, 1994).

There are two obvious gaps in the prevailing approaches tostudying professional identities. Professionals are primarily studiedonly in terms of their status as welfare professionals, ignoring theirposition in other forms of social relations. This first problem exhibitsthe same tendency towards a totalizing categorical identity high-lighted by Taylor (1998), but in relation to welfare professionalsrather than welfare users. Second, the role of welfare professionals isperceived as one of delivery and is rarely interrogated in relation topolicy making. The first omission fails to take account of the fact thatideologies of professionalisms and professional identities developing asa result of these are intertwined with, or even based upon, certainnotions of gender, ethnicity and class (see Davies, 1995, 2000b).Equally it fails to explore the implications of moves by government toincrease the numbers of those from marginalized social groupsmoving into welfare professions, a current example being the Pos-itively Diverse initiative by the NHS (see NHSE, 2000). These typesof initiatives are important precisely because they potentially increasethe diversity of social identities involved in service provision and alsowithin NHS decision-making structures.

The second gap would seem an important omission within thecontemporary policy making environment identified by Davies(2000a). Policy, it is suggested, is increasingly ‘developed neitherfrom the top down nor from the bottom up, but rather from themiddle out’, involving a variety of social actors (2000a: 226). In spiteof attacks on various groups of health and welfare practitioners’ pro-fessional autonomy, they are still heavily (if not increasingly) impli-cated in formulating policy at the meso level. Taking the example of thehealth services again, with the introduction of Primary Care Trusts,welfare professionals have now been formally integrated into NHS




decision-making structures (see DoH, 2001). Practitioners within thiscontext are potentially key agents in policy development.

Developing perspectives on motivation

When linked to the concepts of subjectivity and agency emphasizedwith regards to welfare users, the important practical implications ofbetter understanding welfare professionals’ social identifications froma similar perspective become clearer. Current interrogations of sub-jective identity constructions in relation to welfare subjects areimportant precisely because they highlight their capacity and motiva-tion for action, precipitating challenges to conventional forms ofwelfare. There are a range of issues to consider when applying thisapproach to welfare professionals. First, failure to understand thedifferent aspects of welfare professionals’ social identity ignores anycapacity for action on their part, which is precipitated by aspects ofpositive identification other than their professional or institutionalidentity. In this sense, policy makers are only perceived as capable ofbeing influenced through political, professional and institutionaldiscourses. In a context where these discourses are identified asoperating (whether intentionally or not) to subordinate welfare sub-jects, the potential for critique and change within welfare systems isconfined to the ‘bottom-up’ approach.2 However, bottom-up chal-lenges to welfare, once acknowledged, are not simply incorporatedinto the policy process. The important point made in Davies’s (2000a)discussion of stakeholder welfare is that various (minority) stake-holders may still encounter difficulty in articulating new perspectivesbased on their experiences which ultimately fail to challenge theunderlying values and prior framing of policy issues.

By applying a social relations approach to welfare professionals,we can begin to explore how social divisions among welfare providers,that occur on the basis of common social rather than professionalidentifications, might challenge the underlying value base of welfareprovision. Carpenter’s (1993) work on nursing suggests that nurseshave mobilized around their social identities as women to challengethe gendered position of nursing within the health care system. Lewis(2000b) provides a useful account of how the identity constructions ofblack women social workers are used to challenge marginalizingpractices within social work. Both accounts explore the complexities




of and connections between social and professional identifications,highlighting the changing social and professional divisions andaffiliations of these groups of professionals. However, the mostimportant point made in both cases is that the women professionalsidentified cannot necessarily be assumed to share a common interest onthe basis of their gender. In the case of the women social workers inLewis’s account, gendered identification is cross-cut by racializedsocial identifications that place black women social workers as ‘at onceorganizationally subordinate and ambiguously dominant’ (Lewis,2000b: 201). Carpenter’s work dispels the assumption that commonsocial identifications between women health care professionals andwomen health care users will develop and subsequently improveservice provision for this user group. He suggests that profession-alizing movements within nursing that seek to challenge traditionalwhite, male, middle-class medical dominance through redefining therole of the ‘nurse’ tend to benefit an occupational elite, mirroringwider social divisions based on classed or raced identities. Thesemovements potentially reform, but do not fundamentally change, the‘patient’ role (Carpenter, 1993: 115–26).

In addition to the failure to examine social divisions withinwelfare professions, there is also a distinct lack of attention to the factthat welfare professionals, as well as being imbued with professionaland policy making identities, are also service users. Understandingsocial identity has been approached differently in relation to users andproviders of welfare services, reflecting a false understanding of thesetwo groups as inhabiting different social spaces. One of the mostuseful aspects of poststructural alternatives to fixed identity construc-tions is the ability to view service users and providers as one and thesame and to acknowledge their interdependence (see Biggs, 2000).Similarly, Edwards et al. suggest that there is a strong argument forapproaching these two groups in a similar way: ‘Just as people aremultiply positioned in relation to structural axes of class, gender andrace, for example, so they may occupy, at one and the same time,particular positions such as service user and provider’ (1999: 153).Edwards et al.’s research examines the perspectives of women healthcare providers and women health care users on maternity services,exploring the convergence and divergence of perspectives on provi-sion. They conclude that, while there is a considerable amount ofdivergence in relation to structural position within the provision/




consumption of services, the providers’ comments evidence an ‘identi-fication as women with the mothers they serve’ (1999: 151). Denyingthis type of interdependence is fostered by an inadvertent collusionwith what Hoggett (2000a) identifies as ‘that wider cultural orienta-tion’ cultivated by Thatcherism, whereby those working in publicservices are perceived as the ‘enemy within’. This is perpetuated by aview of those developing and providing services as ‘bearers of dis-courses of domination’ rather than as caught up in ‘the inherentlycontradictory logics of care and control, equity and rationing andempowerment and exploitation’ (Hoggett, 2000a: 147). We need toexplore the complexity and depth of provider experiences in relationto health and social care services, only one element of which is theircontinuing relative power in relation to service users. In particular,exploring professional experiences of using services might begin toform a basis for understanding how shared rather than oppositionalperspectives on service provision might be developed.

Including relational identity

Overall, the arguments for placing social identity within a frameworkfor understanding subjectivity, agency and categorical, ontologicaland relational identity, where this extends to unconscious interiority,are particularly strong. We need a thorough exposition of theassumption often made that policy makers or providers act in theirown interests. Levin’s (1997) work takes an interesting, if rathermechanistic, look at the process of policy making within centralgovernment. He makes use of four principal frameworks for policyanalysis, each viewing policy respectively as: the product of a ration-ale; a selective response to interests; the outcome of a process; and areflection of the ‘power structure’ (1997: 2). While the focus oncentral government is potentially misleading, his definition of ‘inter-ests’ is important in the context of this discussion. He suggests thatthe mechanisms identified when policy is viewed as a response tointerests are ‘to do with feeling as opposed to reasoning’. The policymaker is implicitly seen as an ‘ “emotional actor” rather than a“rational actor” ’ (1997: 227; emphasis in original). Although thediscussion of the emotional actor, experience and empathy is rathersuperficial, the fact that Levin begins to grapple with issues ofemotionality rather than assuming an inherent and recognizablerationality to decision making is significant.




Hoggett (2001: 53) suggests that non-rationalist models ofagency are able to confront paradox and contradiction more success-fully than their rationalist counterparts and that the power to do thislies in the ability to conceive of multiple, but relational selves. Whereone self can act while the other rebels against that act, we are bothresponsible and innocent. To recognize that individuals (and groups)can have negative and positive emotional capacities and that they canbe destructive towards themselves and others is a much more matureapproach to understanding the self than is offered by characterizingpeople and their actions as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In terms ofunderstanding policy making, this is vital.

The social relations of those involved in both the welfare pro-fessions and policy making have changed, but policy analysis has notfully acknowledged these changes. It is clear that welfare service usersare no longer (if they ever were) the white, male, able-bodied, worker,father, husband, but neither are those cast as policy makers or serviceproviders (if they ever were) those white, middle-class professionals ofa bygone era. Neither of these positions – user or policy maker/welfareprofessional – is entirely passive, neither affords the opportunity foragency outwith the existing, past and future relations of power and noindividual or group operating on either side of the welfare provision/consumption divide is a knowing actor all of the time. There are twosets of issues in relation to identity that spring to mind as a result ofthese complexities. First, this new context throws issues of collectiveaction on the basis of an entirely social identity into free fall. Why,when individuals share social identities, do they not always act inconcert to challenge hierarchical disadvantage on the basis of thoseidentities? While the concept of ontological identity goes some wayto understanding this, the categorical/ontological distinction, on itsown, does not go far enough. Equally, where the relationship betweenwelfare professional and service user is concerned, there may be nomeans of categorical identification through sameness, either in rela-tion to structural position in the politics of welfare or in the broadercontext of social relations. Understanding identity as only categoricaland ontological would suggest that providers and users of welfareservices have no potential common ground unless they share one ormore social locations. Overall, this oversimplifies the basis of socialidentification.

In order to thoroughly theorize social agency on the basis of socialidentification, this would have to be possible in the most unlikely




situations, such as when two people who apparently have nothing incommon – ‘no sense of belonging’ – are able to act together for thesame ends. Using the categorical/ontological distinction enables therecognition of complex and contradictory identifications. For example,Lewis’s (2000b) work provides examples of how a white womanidentifying with a black woman on the basis of being a woman witha common experience of sexism might operate within a social worksetting. However, a solely categorical/ontological approach requiresdevelopment in order to facilitate an understanding of how socialidentities are negotiated and why certain identifications became thebasis for agency other than where agency is perceived as a reactivecondition of oppression. Discussing potential explanations for thesubordinate position of women health care professionals, Wegar(1993: 184) suggests that these will only be successful if they consider‘the processes through which interests are defined and recognised byactors’. For service providers, these interests may be based on commonprofessional interests, for example improving the position of nurses inrelation to doctors, but these do not occur in a vacuum. There is noinherent connection between ‘being’ a nurse and identifying yourself asa nurse with common interests with other nurses; alternatively, ‘being’a nurse might be experienced on a number of different levels or it mayhave internal or external relevance that may differ from person toperson (see Ohlen and Segesten, 1998).

The second set of issues relates to wider discussions of identity,and not only social identity versus personal identity. First, in whatways do individuals damage (those cast as) others and thereforethemselves? And why/what conditions make it possible for them toaccept and take responsibility for this damage and encourage change?This is where the real power of employing the concept of identity tosocial policy analysis lies, in its potential to explain both thegenerative and destructive aspects of human behaviour. Celia Davies(2000b) suggests that it is recognition and connection rather thanrecognition and sameness that produce the possibility of workingtogether. Whereas sameness and difference, as concepts that underpincategorical and ontological identity constructions, tend to suggest thenotion of common or different characteristics, connection and differ-entiation and underpinning relational identity bring into focus therelationship between individuals (and groups). Relationships involveinterdependence; connection arises out of the recognition of differ-entiation and implies the potential for valuing the ‘other’ as a unique,




but connected individual (2000b: 351–3). It is relationships, there-fore, that inform social agency as a result of connection to andidentification with others in a way that categorical and ontologicalidentifications alone do not. Categorical identifications occur on thebasis of common perspectives on a given situation. Relational identi-fications occur on the basis of the relationships/connections betweenindividuals who might not come from the same perspective, but whocan still share a common purpose.

Relational identity emphasizes connection and differentiation asthe principles of social relationships. Exploring the relational identi-ties of welfare professionals therefore involves examining the ways inwhich they construct relationships and erect boundaries betweenthemselves and a variety of others, including both colleagues andservice users. It focuses on the internal and external conflicts encoun-tered by professionals over time and how the patterns or ruptures inthese guide and inform decisions about service provision. This type ofanalysis may also potentially flag up, first, strategies for overcomingboundaries and separations between these groups and, second, howconnections on the basis of relationship rather than position might beharnessed to improve welfare provision.

Conclusions

I have argued that the concept of identity is useful to social policy ona number of levels. While some of these levels have been explored indetail, the concept has not been exploited to its full potential. I haveargued that it is its value in understanding the connection betweengrassroots experience of welfare and active forms of social citizenshipthat has underpinned the deployment of social identity in social policyanalysis. While this focus is entirely appropriate, that this emphasishas almost entirely driven the theoretical development of the conceptof identity within the discipline is not unproblematic.

To deride the concept of identity on the basis of its links topoststructural social theory is to miss the point. A more robustconcept of identity rather than merely social identity is required inorder to both redress the excesses of some poststructural approaches toidentity and to conceive of a more rounded human subject in policyanalysis. Hoggett (2000b: 11) identifies the persistence to develop




understanding in terms of ‘systems of thought, meaning or representa-tion’, which still leaves us ignorant of ‘our own motives and those ofothers’. I have suggested that employing the concept of identity isintegral to bringing about such an understanding, but that what wemean by identity, what other concepts we set this within and the waysin which we deploy this concept are integral to harnessing its power.The work of Williams and the CAVA project goes some way towardsthis more robust analysis by including the relational along with thecategorical and ontological aspects of identity. However, this requiresexpansion in relation to welfare professionals and their role in policymaking in order to gain an understanding of the changing context ofservice provision.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Tony Maltby, Lena Robinson and the anonymous referees forcomments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. This work is not published in final form, constituting part of theongoing ESRC’s research group for the study of Care, Values and theFuture of Welfare (CAVA) project. Any criticisms made here aretherefore necessarily provisional and subject to the ongoing develop-ment and application of this perspective. Nevertheless, it provides themost current, developed and detailed contribution to integrating theconcept of identity in social policy and, on this basis, justifies detailedcritique. This said, there are numerous points in this account, otherthan those forming the basis of my discussion, that merit furtherattention, however my discussion is constrained by space. I am gratefulto Fiona Williams for her permission to use this work.

2. Williams (1994: 70–1), in her discussion of discourses of diversity anddifference, identifies three competing meanings. Two derive from ‘diver-sity from above’, precipitated by systematic welfare changes institutedby policy makers, first, through consumer choice and, second, throughindividual needs assessment. Williams identifies the second of these aspresenting opportunities for the collective articulation of diverse needs,but suggests that the realization of these opportunities is dependent onthe third discourse of ‘diversity from below’. This is identified as ‘local,national and international movements operating outside the statutory




services’, based on politicized user group identities. The involvement ofthese groups in defining needs assessment is the factor precipitatingchange in professional definitions of need. Although Williams acknowl-edges that the space for user involvement is circumscribed by numerousfactors, she emphasizes ill-defined notions of difference within ‘diversityfrom below’ that, it is assumed, will then automatically influencedefinitions of ‘diversity from above’.

References

Archer, M. (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

Barnes, M. and Prior, D. (2000) ‘From Private Choice to Public Trust: ANew Social Basis for Welfare’, pp. 357–65 in C. Davies, L. Finlay andA. Bullman (eds) Changing Practice in Health and Social Care. London:Sage/Open University Press.

Beresford, P. (2001) ‘Service Users, Social Policy and the Future of Welfare’,Critical Social Policy 21(4): 494–512.

Bhavnani, K.-K. and Phoenix, A. (1994) ‘Shifting Identities, ShiftingRacisms’, Feminism & Psychology 4(1): 5–18.

Biggs, S. (2000) ‘User Voice, Interprofessionalism and Postmodernity’,pp. 366–76 in C. Davies, L. Finlay and A. Bullman (eds) ChangingPractice in Health and Social Care. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Carabine, J. (2000) ‘Constituting Welfare Subjects through Poverty andSexuality’, pp. 78–93 in G. Lewis, S. Gewirtz, and J. Clarke (eds)Rethinking Social Policy. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Carpenter, M. (1993) ‘The Subordination of Nurses in Health Care: Towardsa Social Divisions Approach’, pp. 95–130 in E. Riska and K. Wegar(eds) Gender, Work and Medicine: Women and the Medical Division of Labour.London: Sage.

Clarke, J., Hughes, G. and Lewis, G. (1998) ‘Review’, pp. 376–92 in G.Hughes and G. Lewis (eds) Unsettling Welfare: The Reconstruction of SocialPolicy. London: Routledge/Open University Press.

Craib, I. (1998) Experiencing Identity. London: Sage.Croft, S. and Beresford, P. (1996) ‘The Politics of Participation’, pp. 175–98

in D. Taylor (ed.) Critical Social Policy: A Reader. London: Sage.Davies, C. (1995) Gender and the Professional Predicament in Nursing. Bucking-

ham: Open University Press.Davies, C. (2000a) ‘Understanding the Policy Process’, pp. 211–30 in

A. Brechin, H. Brown and M. Eby (eds) Critical Practice in Health andSocial Care. London: Sage/Open University Press.




Davies, C. (2000b) ‘Care and the Transformation of Professionalism’,pp. 343–54 in C. Davies, L. Finlay and A. Bullman (eds) ChangingPractice in Health and Social Care. London: Sage/Open University Press.

DoH (Department of Health) (2001) Shifting the Balance of Power in the NHS:Securing Delivery. London: DoH.

du Gay, P., Evans, J. and Redman, P. (eds) (2000) ‘General Introduction’,pp. 1–5 in Identity: A Reader. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Duncan, S. (2000) Challenging Rational Action Theory, workshop paper no. 5,workshop 1: ‘Frameworks for Understanding Policy Change and Cul-ture’, ESRC research group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare,University of Leeds. [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cava/research/strand1/paper5Simon.htm]

Edwards, J., Oakley, A. and Popay, J. (1999) ‘Service Users’ and Providers’Perspectives on Welfare Needs’, pp. 131–53 in F. Williams, J. Popayand A. Oakley (eds) Welfare Research: A Critical Review. London: UCL.

Gleason, P. (1983) ‘Identifying Identity: A Semantic History’, The Journal ofAmerican History 69(4): 910–31.

Hall, S. (1996) ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’, pp. 1–17 in S. Halland P. du Gay (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage.

Hewitt, M. (1994) ‘Social Policy and the Question of Postmodernism’,pp. 36–57 in R. Page and J. Baldock (eds) Social Policy Review 6.Canterbury: Social Policy Association.

Hillyard, P. and Watson, S. (1996) ‘Postmodern Social Policy: A Contra-diction in Terms?’, Journal of Social Policy 25(3): 321–46.

Hoggett, P. (2000a) ‘Social Policy and the Emotions’, pp. 141–55 inG. Lewis, S. Gewirtz and J. Clarke (eds) Rethinking Social Policy. London:Sage/Open University Press.

Hoggett, P. (2000b) Emotional Life and the Politics of Welfare. London:Palgrave.

Hoggett, P. (2001) ‘Agency, Rationality and Social Policy’, Journal of SocialPolicy 30(1): 37–56.

Hollway, W. (2000) Moral Intersubjectivity, Methodology and Empirical Research,workshop paper no. 15, workshop 4: ‘Methodology for ResearchingMoral Agencies’, ESRC research group on Care, Values and the Futureof Welfare, University of Leeds. [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cava/research/strand1/paper15Wendy.htm]

Jones, L. J. C. (2000) ‘Reshaping Welfare: Voices from the Debate’, pp. 8–16 in C. Davies, L. Finlay and A. Bullman (eds) Changing Practice inHealth and Social Care. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Leonard, P. (1997) Postmodern Welfare: Restructuring an Emancipatory Project.London: Sage.

Levin, P. (1997) Making Social Policy the Mechanism of Government and Politics,and How to Investigate Them. Buckingham: Open University Press.




Lewis, G. (1996) ‘Situated Voices: “Black Women’s Experience” and SocialWork’, Feminist Review 53: 24–56.

Lewis, G. (2000a) ‘Introduction: Expanding the Social Policy Imaginary’,pp. 1–21 in G. Lewis, S. Gewirtz and J. Clarke (eds) Rethinking SocialPolicy. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Lewis, G. (2000b) Race, Gender: Social Welfare Encounters in a PostcolonialSociety. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Malin, N. (ed.) (2000) Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace. London:Routledge.

Martin, G. (2001) ‘Social Movements, Welfare and Social Policy: A CriticalAnalysis’, Critical Social Policy 21(3): 361–83.

Mason, J. (2000) Researching Morality, workshop paper no. 14, workshop 4:‘Methodology for Researching Moral Agencies’, ESRC research group onCare, Values and the Future of Welfare, University of Leeds. [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cava/research/strand1/paper14Jennifer.htm]

Newman, J. (1998) ‘Managerialism and Social Welfare’, pp. 334–74 inG. Hughes and G. Lewis (eds) Unsettling Welfare: The Reconstruction ofSocial Policy. London: Routledge/Open University Press.

NHSE (National Health Service Executive) (2000) Positively Diverse Report2000. London: DoH.

Ohlen, J. and Segesten, K. (1998) ‘The Professional Identity of the Nurse:Concept Analysis and Development’, Journal of Advanced Nursing 28(4):720–7.

Phal, J. (1994) ‘ “Like the Job – but Hate the Organisation”: Social Workersand Managers in Social Services’, pp. 190–210 in R. Page and J.Baldock (eds) Social Policy Review 6. Canterbury: Social PolicyAssociation.

Taylor, D. (ed.) (1996) ‘Social Policy and Social Relations: Introduction’,pp. 1–12 in Critical Social Policy: A Reader. London: Sage.

Taylor, D. (1998) ‘Social Identity and Social Policy: Engagements withPostmodern Theory’, Journal of Social Policy 27(3): 329–50.

Taylor-Gooby, P. (1994) ‘Postmodernism and Social Policy: A Great LeapBackwards?’, Journal of Social Policy 23(1): 8–33.

Thompson, S. and Hoggett, P. (1996) ‘Universalism, Selectivism andParticularism: Towards a Postmodern Social Policy’, Critical Social Policy16(1): 21–43.

Watson, S. (2000) ‘Foucault and the Study of Social Policy’, pp. 66–77 inG. Lewis, S. Gerwitz and J. Clarke (eds) Rethinking Social Policy. London:Sage/Open University Press.

Wegar, K. (1993) ‘Conclusions’, pp. 173–88 in E. Riska and K. Wegar (eds)Gender, Work and Medicine: Women and the Medical Division of Labour.London: Sage.




Williams, F. (1989) Social Policy: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: PolityPress.

Williams, F. (1992) ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow: Universality and Diver-sity in Social Policy’, pp. 200–19 in N. Manning and R. Page (eds)Social Policy Review 4. Canterbury: Social Policy Association.

Williams, F. (1994) ‘Social Relations, Welfare and the Post-FordismDebate’, pp. 49–73 in R. Burrows and B. Loader (eds) Towards a Post-Fordist Welfare State. London: Routledge.

Williams, F. (2000a) ‘Principles of Recognition and Respect in Welfare’,pp. 338–52 in G. Lewis, S. Gewirtz and J. Clarke (eds) Rethinking SocialPolicy. London: Sage/Open University Press.

Williams, F. (2000b) A Conceptual Chart, workshop paper no. 16, workshop4: ‘Methodologies for Researching Moral Agencies’, ESRC researchgroup on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare, University of Leeds.[http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cava/research/essay1.htm]

Williams, F. (2000c) Care Values and the Future of Welfare: Developing aCommon Moral Vocabulary of Care and Intimacy from a Diversity of Practices,ESRC research group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare,University of Leeds. [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cava/research/essay1.htm]

Williams, F. and Popay, J. (1999) ‘Balancing Polarities: Developing a NewFramework for Welfare Research’, pp. 156–83 in F. Williams, J. Popayand A. Oakley (eds) Welfare Research: A Critical Review. London: UCL.

Yuval-Davis, N. (1994) ‘Women, Ethnicity and Empowerment’, Feminism &Psychology 4(1): 179–97.

❑ Shona Hunter is a PhD student in the department of social policy and

social work at the University of Birmingham. Her PhD is funded by an

ESRC studentship (ref. R42200124257) and is entitled ‘Health Policy

Making and Social Identity: The Implications for Policy and Practice’.

Address: Department of Social Policy and Social Work, School of Social

Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT,

UK. email: [email protected] ❑




A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy

Documents

Transcript of A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy