Social Identity as Social Phenomenon and Scientific Concept

Abstract

Social identity is now considered one of the most popular and controversial concepts in social science. Probably no other social phenomenon has received such intensive and rapt scrutiny from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists. Social identity has become a prism through which the most important aspects of social life are explored and assessed. At the same time, it is one of the most diffuse and loose concepts in social research. As Brubaker and Cooper (2000) recently argued, the term “tends to mean too much (then understood in a strong sense), too little (then understood in a weak sense), or nothing at all (because of its sheer ambiguity)” (1). In this book, I will analyze social identity as a feeling of belonging to a social group, as a strong connection with social category, and as an important part of our mind that affects our social perceptions and behavior.