For Aïsha: on identity as potentiality

Abstract

The focal point of this article is identity as potentiality: how a narrated form of self-understanding can be mobilised, enacted and shared with others within unequally distributed multifaceted conditions of existence, with other outcomes than surrender to disowned and self-confirming actions of reproduced exclusion, subordination and enclosure. Concretely, this distribution demonstrates how and why identity as potentiality might come into being within the play of forces in the life of a young Muslim woman trying to incorporate herself into Swedish multicultural society. In addition, the reader will meet reflections on respectability, multicultural incorporation and the possibility of a non-injurious criticism.

Keywords:

• identity
• Ricoeur
• cultural sociology
• multicultural incorporation
• sociocultural criticism
• school achievement