Lamont - Culture and Identity
Lamont, M. (2002). Culture and Identity. In Turner, J. H. (Ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory (pp. 171–185). New York: Kluwer Academic; Plenum Publishers. ISBN: 978-0387324586
Lamont holds the view that the constitution of personal and collective identity is relational in nature and analyses this relational process by studying inductively boundary work, i.e., how people define ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Her research suggests that identity is constructed but bounded by the cultural repertoires to which people have access and the structural context in which they live. Lamont's work largely consists of analysing the meaning-making process by which groups create boundaries. Lamont demonstrates how the meanings given to boundaries vary across class, race, nation, and so forth, depending on the cultural and structural contexts that shape these groups’ lives. This focus on meaning-making in the drawing of boundaries across groups leads to new empirical insights in comparative sociology and the sociology of inequality that eschew flattening out differences in definitions of status and in the criteria of evaluation used across groups. The discussion revolves around identity and symbolic boundaries, comparative sociology and collective/national identity, self, inequality, and resistance, and boundaries and racism.
Michèle Lamont “Culture and Identity”