Collective Identities, Empty Signifiers and Solvable Secrets

• In Event: 454 - Regular Session. Political Culture 2

Abstract

In modern societies collective identity is both an empty and a sacred center: even as its existence is taken for granted, what is or should be is subject to a host of different and often conflicting interpretations. Yet the empty signifiers of collective identity are not considered mysterious; these signifiers are seen rather as a problem that is in principle amenable to solution, as something that ought to be (re)solved. Our paper identifies public and private modes of dealing with empty signifiers – through collective traumatic repressions, private resentments, public discourses adhering to argumentation ethics, and individual fabulations.

Authors

• Bernhard Giesen, Universität Konstanz, Germany

• Robert Seyfert, Universität Konstanz