Sketching the Identity Politics Divide and its Implications for Transformative Education

This paper commences with an acknowledgement that feminist discourses are characterised by both theoretical diversity and commonalities. Despite the non-unitariness of feminist discourses, the debates emanating from them provide partial and tentative resolutions to the issues facing women in patriarchal and capitalist societies. Accepting that much of the diversity characterising the fissures in feminist discourses spring from women's various social positionalities, as they relate to race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, language, etc., the paper explores conceptions of identity in relation to the history and scope of identity politics by linking its emergence to wide-ranging political activism and theorising which are aimed at eradicating the disenfranchisement of women and other marginalized social groups. Central to this discussion is the ongoing tension between theorists advocating essentialising aspects of identity in order to mobilise and agitate for social rights, and those calling for the recognition of identity as multiple and in-process. As a way of reconciling the tensions between essentialist identity and multiple identities, for practical purposes, some scholars advocate the formation of provisional coalitions based on principled and strategic alliances, which could be used to mobilise for social transformation.