Identity Troubles: An introduction

In our turbulent world of global flows and digital transformations pervasive identity crises and self-reinvention have become increasingly central to everyday life. In this fascinating book, Anthony Elliott shows how global transformations – the new electronic economy, digital worlds, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence - generatesa metamorphosis across the force-field of identities today.

Identity Troubles documents various contemporary mutations of identity – from robotics to biomedicine, from cosmetic surgery to digital lives – and considers their broader social, cultural and political consequences.

Elliott offers a synthesis of the key conceptual innovations in identity studies in the context of recent social theory. He critically examines accounts of "individualization", "reflexivity", "liquidization" and "new maladies of the soul" – situating these in wider social and historical contexts, and drawing out critical themes. He follows with a series of chapters looking at how what is truly new in contemporary life is having profound consequences for identities, both private and public. This book will be essential reading for undergraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, political science, and human geography. It offers the first comprehensive overview of identity studies in the interdisciplinary field of social theory.

ANTHONY ELLIOTT is Dean of External Engagement at the University of South Australia, where he is Executive Director of the Hawke EU Centre and Research Professor of Sociology. He is also Global Professor (Visiting) of Sociology at Keio University, Japan. He is the author and editor of over 40 books, translated into over a dozen languages