ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the process of identity-building, wherein I aim to provide theoretical tools, other than social-psychology (especially symbolic interactionism), to help analyze the said process. Within the epistemic framework of complexity theories, I demonstrate that historical sociology provides sufficient background for understanding contemporary identity phenomena from a macro-sociological perspective. This enables the assessment of how, in the current scenario, identity dynamics can affect global phenomena and how the global social structure can affect identity-building processes worldwide. The notion of ascribed identities is, thus, crucial. In this study, I describe modernisation as a process where the ascribed characteristics (gender, religion, ethnicity) progressively lose their function of rigidly defining a person's identity, on behalf of personal achievements. Within this framework, I describe the current re-strengthening of ascribed identities and assess, through this description, which phase of the modernisation process is nowadays taking place.

摘要

本研究侧重于身份建立的过程，我的目标是提供除社会心理学（尤其是符号互动论）之外的理论工具，以帮助分析上述过程。在复杂性理论的认识框架内，我证明历史社会学为从宏观社会学角度理解当代身份现象提供了充分的背景。这可以评估在当前情景下，身份动态如何影响全球现象以及全球社会结构如何影响全球身份建立过程。因此，归属身份的概念至关重要。在这项研究中，我将现代化描述为一个过程，其中固有的特征（性别、宗教、种族）逐渐失去其严格定义一个人身份的功能，代表个人成就。在这个框架内，我描述了当前归属身份的重新强化，并通过这个描述评估了现代化进程的哪个阶段正在发生。