Abstract

Identity construction is subject to pre-existing meaning systems and values attached to these meaning systems. Race, like class and gender is imbued with meaning which has been given to it through historical circumstance and event, global and local relations, and national policy and ideology. The impact of these forces gives meaning to the discourses which contribute to identity construction. These discourses, in recent critical analysis, have borrowed metaphors of geography, space in particular, in order to gain insight into the particularities of identity construction, how this identity is politicized and the tools necessary to subvert the essential categories of these politicized identities. This study argues that space, as a metaphorical tool, is indispensible in understanding the way in which political identity is constructed, particularly in relation to race and the way in which race is politicized.