Fluidities of Identities: Some Strategic and Practical Pathways Selected by Women

Abstract

Too often women are defined by ascribed identities that confine them to categories developed and used by others. These constrain their participation in the political process and access to economic and social resources. To succeed, women across the world continue to develop fluid identities (Abrahams 1996; Afshar 1989, 1994) that enable them to be effective both at the domestic and public levels. The static, negative identities ascribed to them place socioeconomic and political barriers in their path that may seem, at the first instance, to be insurmountable. The limitations that they impose mask, undermine, and devalue the rich diversities and the gamut of daily strategies that pave the paths of women across differing and fluid identities as they accommodate the needs of their daily lives. But, as the case studies in this volume indicate, for many women, identities are not merely choices (Sen 2009) or clearly delineated fragmented facets of selves. Identity can be ascribed rather than chosen (Parekh 2009), and women have to negotiate and struggle to move beyond the stranglehold placed on them by such ascriptions. Women recognize identities as dynamic and malleable and are able to use differing interpretations to move beyond the limitations imposed in the name of specific faiths, cultures, or socioeconomic norms. Many reconceptualize their understanding of self and move beyond boundaries that remain fluid, hard to define, and culturally and historically constructed and reconstructed within specific socioeconomic contexts (Baumann 1996, 1997).