Essentialism - our biological makeup makes us who we are (an old theory) - phrenology and physiology.
Pre-Modern Identity - institutions defined who you were, e.g. the church, school, where you worked etc.
Modern Identity - 'flaneur' (gentlemen stroller). You went out to look and be looked at, and how well you were dressed defined your personality and what sort of person you were. Emulation, distinction, the 'mask of fashion'. Georg Simmel - people can have money and be successful, but it doesn't make them happy.
Post-Modern Identity - discourse analysis. Factors like age, class, gender, race/ethnicity, home, education, income etc. define who you are.
Humphrey Spender/Mass Observation, "Worktown Project" (1937) - set up by London based upper-middle class men. They chose and observed Bolton as a northern working class town, photographed it and wrote about it. The published photographs seem quite derogatory when you look into them and regard who published them, e.g. only about six people in a theatre performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', insinuating the residents are uncultured.
Martin Parr - New Brighton, Merseyside, "The Last Resort" (1983-86). Photographs taken of a working class northern holiday destination and the people that holiday there. Parr also published a photography project called "Ascot" (2003), picturing people of a lower class 'playing at being upper class', in ill fitting and unfashionable dress at Ascot. These photographs would have been published in expensive coffee table type books that stereotypically only the middle to upper classes could afford and potentially be interesting; was this Parr's point?
Alexander McQueen - "Highland Rape" (A-W 1995-6). Depicted models staggering around the catwalk in ripped tartan garments as if they had been drugged and attacked. People criticised McQueen but he explained the idea as being the rape of Scotland by the English in the 19th Century, rather than the attack of the models themselves. (He has Scottish heritage but identifies as English).
Vivienne Westwood - "Anglomania" (A-W 1993-4). Models again wore tartan but they name of the collection gives a controversial take. Is it all about England?
*Research into Zygmunt Bauman.
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