{"id":559,"date":"2013-11-01T12:19:33","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T12:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=559"},"modified":"2014-10-28T17:08:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T17:08:11","slug":"to-which-society-do-you-belong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/to-which-society-do-you-belong\/","title":{"rendered":"To Which Society Do You Belong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a few weeks of reading about theology, I found myself wanting more of the same.\u00a0 I guess you might say I\u2019m a creature of habit!\u00a0 However, as I began to read, Contemporary Social Theory:\u00a0 An Introduction,<\/em> by Anthony Elliott, I was immediately captured by the story of Natalie.\u00a0 The question, \u201cto which society does Natalie belong?\u201d[1]<\/a> resonated with me.<\/p>\n

Many in the United States have come to identify themselves by their ethnic and racial makeup.\u00a0 It is common to hear one announce their background as a reply to the question, \u201cWhat are you?\u201d\u00a0 And the response, \u201cI am Hispanic\u201d or \u201cI am Jewish\u201d or \u201cI am Italian\u201d creates a different identity depending upon the racial and ethnic description.\u00a0 These forms of established identities are provoked through a variety of means.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever been enrolled in a public school, turned in an application for college, or filed their taxes has found boxes which ask the applicant to (voluntarily or not) check the box which best describes them.\u00a0 Are you African American?\u00a0 White?\u00a0 Hispanic or Pacific Asian Islander?\u00a0 There is a box to mark down exactly who you are.\u00a0 Many of us cling to these titles because they fit with the initial perception others may have of us, and this in turn influences the way we see ourselves.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon to ask and answer the question, \u201cWhere are you from,\u201d because this can act as an indicator of more than just locality.\u00a0 It also possesses the ability to pinpoint people\u2019s accents, cultural behaviors and their identity.\u00a0 Being from Portland, Oregon means something different for a person\u2019s identity than being from Portland, Maine.\u00a0 The narrowing of these places also occurs when we have been to those locations.\u00a0 \u201cWhat part of New York?\u201d we may say, and in our minds, who the person is may be determined by the part of the city they grew up in.\u00a0 Brook Avenue creates a different identity than Williamsburg, though they are both located in the same city.<\/p>\n

The concept of identity in the United States has become commercialized, tying itself to pop culture references such as Freudian theory and the mid-life identity crises.\u00a0 It has become synonymous with online tests to determine personality traits and gender identity to find out if you really think like your sex (gender).\u00a0 American\u2019s perception of identity can extend beyond the trivial, venturing into deep soul search that some take in order to find out \u201cwho they really are.\u201d\u00a0 While the concept of identity may be on the forefront of many American\u2019s minds in a trivial or significant way, few are aware of the multitude of theories connected to identity.\u00a0 Perhaps those who seek to know are those who are not sure of where they belong.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Whatever the reason for this particular pursuit of knowledge, many people in the social science field have come to create their own idea and have added them to the plethora of theories connected to identity in reference to where it comes from, how it is created, and what it means to society.<\/p>\n

Zygmunt Bauman describes the fluidity and instability of contemporary society as \u201cliquid modernity.\u201d Living in a \u201cliquid\u201d society means that our identities are no longer grounded in long-<\/p>\n

standing social norms and meanings but are instead transforming at a rapid pace, making us \u201ctourists\u201d in search of many fly-by-night social experiences.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Elliott points out that due to the generality and sweep of the theory of liquid modernity, what threatens to recede into the shadows is the point that all of us have multiple identities, some overlapping, some contradictory, and that at any moment these identities are interacting with \u2013 incorporating, resisting and transforming \u2013 broader social values and cultural differences, shaping and being shaped by contemporary societies.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo which society does Natalie belong?\u201d\u00a0 The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers several definitions of society:\u00a0\u00a0 a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interest; a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct.\u00a0 So according to these definitions I would have to agree with Elliott who states that Natalie belongs where she lives, her homeland, her nation, she belongs to the globe.<\/p>\n

In my own life, a Puerto Rican from New York who lives in Portland, Oregon and constantly traveling, I often find myself thinking about where do I belong?\u00a0 And like Natalie, I belong where I live.\u00a0 \u00a0In spite of the enormous social change we live in, we are very much connected.\u00a0 Our own<\/p>\n

co-hort reflects such connection.\u00a0 We are connected through our chats, tumblr, facebook, twitter, email, text, phone, etc\u2026\u00a0 Our daily lives are connected, more than ever, because of all the technological innovations.<\/p>\n

According to the Spanish social theorist Manuel Castells, the rise of information technology has\u00a0 unleashed networks that can process information in almost any part of the world.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0This rise of information technology has created a network society that has been transformed into a different kind of space.\u00a0 And this space provides a place of connection and belonging, no matter if you are in London, New York, Portland, Oregon, Louisiana, Seattle, etc\u2026\u00a0 According to Castells, network enterprises in which information, communication and people move freely within and across nodes is now fundamental to social life.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

What can the church learn from the fast pace world in which we find ourselves? \u00a0Are we providing spaces of connection in our communities of faith? I can\u2019t help but ask the question, \u201cTo which society does the body of Christ belong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/a> Anthony Elliott, Contemporary Social Theory:\u00a0 An Introduction.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Abingdon, Oxon UK:\u00a0 Routledge, 2009), p. 3.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Zygmunt Bauman, \u201cFrom Pilgrim to Tourist: A Short History of Identity\u201d <\/em>in Questions of Cultural Identity<\/em> edited by S. Hall and P du Guy.\u00a0 (Thousand Oaks, CA:\u00a0 Sage Publications, Inc., \u00a01996), p. 18<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Anthony Elliott, Contemporary Social Theory:\u00a0 An Introduction.\u00a0 (Abingdon, Oxon, UK:\u00a0 Routledge, 2009) <\/em>p. 304.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., p. 273.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., p. 276.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a few weeks of reading about theology, I found myself wanting more of the same.\u00a0 I guess you might say I\u2019m a creature of habit!\u00a0 However, as I began to read, Contemporary Social Theory:\u00a0 An Introduction, by Anthony Elliott, I was immediately captured by the story of Natalie.\u00a0 The question, \u201cto which society does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-elliott","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}