WHAT IS IDENTITY (AS WE NOW USE THE WORD)?

type. These are ideal types, in that many social categories have elements of both.

Role identities refer to labels applied to people who are expected or obligated to perform some set of actions, behaviors, routines, or functions in particular situations. For example, taxi driver, toll collector, mother, father, president, professor, businessman, student. Type identities refer to labels applied to persons who share or are thought to share some characteristic or characteristics, in appearance, behavioral traits, beliefs, attitudes, values, skills (e.g., language), knowledge, opinions, experience, historical commonalities (like region or place of birth), and so on. There is a presumption that the characteristics are more than transitory, although a type identity such as “teenager” may not be permanent.

National identities, like American or Russian, are examples of type identities. There are almost no contexts in which it would make sense to speak of the “the role of an American,” except in a theatre play where “role” means part. Other social categories that are almost wholly type identities include party affiliation (e.g., Democrat or Republican), sexual identity (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, etc.), and ethnic identity.

Some identities or social categories involve both role and type. For example, “mother” is a role, but nonetheless we expect certain beliefs, attitudes, values, preferences, moral virtues, and so on, to be characteristic of people performing the role of mother (understandings that may change through time.) On the other hand, some role identities, which mainly but not exclusively comprise occupational categories, have few if any type features associated with them (for example, toll booth collector).

Both type and role identities are defined in terms of membership rules and social content, as argued above. For roles, membership rules are often formal, socially recognized procedures, such as the bar exam or the whole set of electoral contests and ceremonies that make U.S. presidents. Someone who performs the expected actions but has not satisfied the membership rules is merely “impersonating a police officer,” for example.

With type identities, membership rules are frequently less formal, though still very much social conventions. Take, for an example, ethnic identity. The membership rule that we seem to use implicity when deciding ethnic identity is this: You are member of an ethnic group X if you can claim to have parents or maybe grandparents who were also recognized 17