Categorization: Identity, Social Process and Epistemology

Categorization is central to all classification and knowledge. It is also central to sociology. With respect to social identity - the classification of humans - it is defined as the identification of others (in contrast to self- and group identification). Social identification, involving both similarity and difference, is constituted in a dialectical interplay between internal and external identification. The latter is categorization. The impact on identity of categorization depends not simply on cognitive internalization, but also on its consequences, and the capacity of actors to make their identifications of others count. Conceptualizing the social world as three orders - the individual, the interactional, and the institutional - categorization is central to understanding each. Following a consideration of a range of institutionalized social contexts in which categorization is significant, the critical implications of this approach for recent discourses about `difference' are outlined.