This essay will be describing the inequalities in the social identities and how they impact on the people within them. “Social identity an identity given by connections to other people and social situations.
Some examples are group and collective identities, situated identities, given by the immediate situation so liable to change, and relational identities, usually given by a two-sided, possibly unequal, relationship (Stephanie Taylor p. 167)”.Sociologists look at the social identity because they want to “understand the bigger picture of society, social scientist should look at the details of ordinary social life, and, second, because in focusing on what people do and how they interact”. In this essay there will description only in three in the particular: Street People identity, racial and ethnic identities and identities of residence. The first paragraph will concentrate on identities.
There are many different types of identities: one of the example will be personal identity. This identity can refer to real me. This identity can change during people’s lives in different good or bad experience. “So throughout life, people are constantly faced with fact that they need to change and transform their identities from situation to situation, but sometimes just because life throws unexpected things at them (audio)”. People have different identities during their life and not always they are equal.“People`s multiple identities are given by their similarities and the differences, and their connections with others (Stephanie Taylor p.
174)”. People can have many different identities during their live and that depends of their situation for example the woman can become a mother, when we lose the job. The first example of social identity is the Street people wholive on the streets. There are also collective identities where the differences also happen. Relationships are not always equal and of help to each other.They can involve power which is not correctly shared.
So in some identities, such as Street People there are inequalities and exploitation. This happens through the process called Othering in which marked and unmarked pairs are created and where the dominant group creates a lesser group. The unmarked identities are not noticed and taken for granted, in comparison to the marked identities which are noticed and, in most cases, have a negative value Taylor, 2009. An example of marked and unmarked identity is found in Rabanas Street People.They were the homeless living on the streets of New York; they were grouped by others (everyone else) as a collection of thieves, alcoholics, the temporarily jobless (Raban cited in Taylor p176). Another collective identity is Racial and ethnic identities” marked identities that have a historical basis and refer to (imagined) differences of colour, origin, religion (180)”.
This identity describes the immigrants from different countries who are not equal to other residents of that country.The foreigners have difficult lives in other countries which show that racist rhetoric which is “speaking or writing especially for a public audience, which talks about society as divided into completely separate, closed and unequal groups that can supposedly be distinguished by the physical appearance and origins of the people in the inferior groups(182)”. That showed that the people do not accept people from different countries. The next type of social identity is identity of residence.
” Where we live seems to say something about who we are, and often assume people who live in the same place have some collective identities(191)”.People can live in the city, country or on the street. People who live in the country are more relaxed, they are old fashioned, healthier. Over there is less crime and is closer to the nature. On the other hand there are people who live in the city where it is more noisy, people are busier, where is more money and the have better social lives at nights. “The theory of the identity project suggests that, in contemporary society, social identities have become less important and each of us makes our own identity (190)”.
Because the identities have negative values the people within them they are badly treated. The Street People for example. The act which is used in England to stop them begging has a negative impact on them. This Act is not helping them; it is not looking for any solution, but only put them in to the prison.
“The law was passed in 1824, was used most against people found begging. A total of 745 arrests were made in 2009 for this offence, resulting in 210 cautions and 469 instances of people being charged and either detained or bailed for court (The Act)”.The Act did not change for many years but the people did. The law is very cruel for homeless people because it does not look for any solution, when the people will leave the prison they will come back to the street.
The country should look for solution and for the reason why they are on the street. At the moment other people look at them as one group, but everyone is different and has different reason why they are on the street: some of the people lost their jobs, another one went bankrupt or has a mental illness. So the government should look how they can help each one in different situation.The essay has described the social identities and that these identities have inequalities as well as similarities. The essay also highlighted the situation of the people in these unequal identities and the consequences for people in these identities.
All of the social identities: Street People identities, racial and ethics identities and identities of residence, they all bringing negative quality. In this essay was only mentioned three identities but all of the other identities also have inequalities because of the way the identities are constructed.
