Identity politics

Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class.^[1] The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel,^[2] who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.

The term identity politics dates to the late twentieth century, although it had precursors in the writings of individuals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Frantz Fanon.^[3] Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an intersectional perspective, which accounts for a range of interacting systems of oppression that may affect a person's life and originate from their various identities. According to many who describe themselves as advocates of identity politics, it centers the experiences of those facing systemic oppression;^[4] the purpose is to better understand the interplay of racial, economic, sex-based, and gender-based oppression (among others) and to ensure no one group is disproportionately affected by political actions, present and future.^[5][6][7] Such contemporary applications of identity politics describe people of specific race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, economic class, disability status, education, religion, language, profession, political party, veteran status, recovery status, and geographic location. These identity labels are not mutually exclusive but are in many cases compounded into one when describing hyper-specific groups. An example is that of African-American, homosexual, women, who constitute a particular hyper-specific identity class.^[8] Those who take an intersectional perspective, such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, criticise narrower forms of identity politics which overemphasise inter-group differences and ignore intra-group differences and forms of oppression.

Criticisms of identity politics generally come from either the centre-right or the far-left on the political spectrum. Many socialists, anarchists and ideological Marxists have deeply criticized identity politics for its divisive nature, claiming that it forms identities that can undermine proletariat unity and the class struggle as a whole.^{[9][10][11][12]} On the other hand, many conservative think tanks and media outlets have criticized identity politics for other reasons, claiming that it is inherently collectivist and prejudicial. Right-wing critics of identity politics have seen it as particularist, in contrast to the universalism of liberal or Marxist perspectives, or argue that it detracts attention from non-identity based structures of oppression and exploitation. A leftist critique of identity politics, such as that of Nancy Fraser,^[13] argues that political mobilization based on identitarian affirmation leads to surface redistribution—a redistribution within the existing structure and existing relations of production that does not challenge the status quo. Instead, Fraser argued, identitarian deconstruction, rather than affirmation, is more conducive to a leftist politics of economic redistribution. Other critiques, such as that of Kurzwelly, Rapport and Spiegel,^[14] state that identity politics often leads to reproduction and reification of essentialist notions of identity, notions which are inherently erroneous.