New Forms of Identity and Groups in Postmodernity

Identity is complex—incorporating dimensions of the imaginary (body image, appearance), the symbolic (role, place in society, values, belief structure), and the real (generally opaque to the person, the libidinal dimension). The relationship of and construction of identity is based, in part, on the ways in which these different dimensions are articulated for any person. Furthermore, that process itself is dependent on historically changing social structures whose impact on the development of identity and subjectivity are both manifest and, at times, difficult to read. This is true for both individual identity and the collective identity that is the functioning of groups. In postmodernity, the symbolic order’s dominance over other orders has been replaced with novel forms of identity and groups, not necessarily mediated through the symbolic.