Patterns of Identity Innovation: An Emancipatory Potential

Everyday identity innovation is an important dimension of social change. It is at once personal and socially patterned. This working paper introduces the concept of identity innovation, proposes a typology of its patterns and shows that it provides a useful analytic tool in discussion of social division, conflict and conflict transformation. The argument is general, but builds on a range of microlevel studies undertaken by the author and others.