1. MULTIPLE IDENTITIES – NEGOTIATING INNER PERSONAL DIFFERENCES AND
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION
Every year during carnival in the hills of Trinidad, one of the traditional mas characters,
the Blue Devils, hold a special performance in their spiritual home of Paramin. These
characters are depictions of escaped African slaves who on their recapture were
thrown into boiling pots of molasses, which caused their skin to turn blue, after which
they were believed to have become tortured souls. While attending this celebration
earlier this year, I recognised a traditional Yoruba folk tune the accompanying
drummers were playing and in the interlude commented on this to one of them, who
excitedly called his colleagues over. Apparently this tune had been passed down
through the ages, the translation becoming diluted with every next generation until
neither original meaning nor even the language of the song was known to the singers
anymore. Yet it remains a strong central part of the people’s culture and a potent
reconnect between their present and their past.
This story raises various questions which are central to the issue of Multiple Identities.
These include questions of the co-embodiment of often conflicting identities, cultural
‘authenticity’, the power to legitimise identities, processes of identity construction,
romanticisation of memory, cultural dislocation, institutional responses to hybridity and
questions of tolerance and community cohesion; all of which are pertinent to the topic
at hand of AfroCulture. These are questions asked of all people who proclaim their
multiple identities: What does it mean to be simultaneously one thing and another?
Brazilian and Yoruba? Trinidadian and African? Or as Stuart Hall asked –“...are the
unities that cultural identities appear to constitute the result of what we might call a
‘practice of narration’, the invention of the cultural self, producing a fixed belongingness
in rather the same way we construct, after the event, a persuasive, consistent
biographical ‘story’ about who we are and where we came from?”
The first thing we should recognise is that we have agency in establishing and
maintaining the boundaries of our individual and collective identities. We are as much
players as we are played. While the boundaries seem defined for us, we do
consistently probe it for weaknesses and points of convenient permeability. And even
while we make the distinction between our social identities and subjectivity, (i.e. the
contextual mobilisation of identity performances and processes), the main questions
this topic will always speak to are ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Who are you?’
To highlight the complexity of the situation, let me attempt to answer these questions
from a personal perspective. Where am I from? - I was born in England to Nigerian
parents. I spent the first seven years of my childhood with white foster parents in a
village in Essex, England. I then spent the next 15 years in Nigeria, and returned to
England at age 23. I discovered several interesting things at this point. The first was
the experience of being recognised not just as Olu Alake anymore, but indeed as Olu
Alake, a Black Man! The political process of this unofficial ‘naming ceremony’ is one to
which I shall duly return. Race or ethnicity does not appear as a salient identity until
one is embedded in a system with other national or ethnic groups. It is the contrast, the
interaction with dissimilar others, that makes a personal identity out of some personal
characteristic.

2. To establish the importance of this topic, we have to deconstruct it, and recognise the
constituents of ethnic groups and identity processes. Weber defined ethnic groups as
‘human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of
similarities of physical type, or of customs, or both, or because of memories of
colonisation and migration.’ ‘Memories of a shared historical past’ are generally
described as being an important indicative characteristic of an ethnic group.
While there is a difference between social and cultural identity, these are often used
interchangeably. Social identity refers to ‘social expectations, normative rights and
obligations ascribed to individuals’; cultural identity relates to the modal points of
cultural meaning, most notably class, gender, race/ethnicity, nation and age’. There is
an inextricable link between these two, as there is a simultaneous subjective and social
nature to identity. There is also a close linkage therefore between individual and
collective aspects of identity.
Identity is a story one tells to oneself and to others. That story is partly objective and
real, partly imagined and subjective. Giddens writes about a people’s identity as “a
narrative about themselves”. One might say that identity is both consciously
constructed and ‘given’. This fundamental observation of a dialectic between
imagination and reality in most identity claims is be kept in mind. Identity is a narrative
but it often refers to a certain content. Factors contributing to and constitutive of an
individual’s identity include: origin, gender, age, anatomical peculiarities, beliefs,
spirituality, psychological traits, etc.
Identity is therefore not to me a pure, inherent, or transparent human characteristic;
neither is it a single or isolated category within the inner power of the individual.
Identity is an uncertain, problematic, and complicated trait; it is an interaction between
the individual and the social contexts we live in. It is influenced by forces such as race,
class, politics, religion, language, gender, and sexuality. These components work
together with one another and do not necessarily fall into neat unified combinations.
There is also a hierarchy in their relationships, with some prevailing at certain times and
situations.
Identity therefore matters because social groups and self-identification within them
stand in status in relation to one another and are often in competition for resources,
rights and power. There is social, political and economic resonance to identity and the
inhabitancy of multiple identities complicates this picture with potentially serious
ramifications, not just to the individuals, but to the very fabric of society. Identity matters
because it has the powerful effect on everyday living realities of self-perception,
tendency for group co-operation and conformity of attitude and behaviour. Identity may
enable positive resistance to perceived alienating structures and policies, thus
presenting interesting and positive economic and political alternatives based on
identity.
An important but often overlooked characteristic of identity is its mutability. Cultural
identities shift over time. These changing times are presaged by changes in individual
locations within the group and the group’s sense of collective belonging and positioning
within wider society. Ethnic identities vary across space and change across time –
Yorubas in Bahia are different to Yorubas in Nigeria. The past is always constructed
through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth. As Stuart Hall observed, “there are

3. critical points of difference which constitute ‘what we really are’ and ‘what we have
become’. Cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being”.
The traumatic colonial experience explains how ex-colonials were constructed as
different and ‘other’ within the limits of Western knowledge, and therefore began to view
themselves accordingly. The unstable and in fact destabilising political structures ex-
colonies inherited at ‘independence’ have reaffirmed this sense of otherness and
explains why a group of people marginalised (economically, socially, or culturally)
within their own country would seek the solace of an immutable identity as an anchor
by which to locate themselves and make sense of their place in the world. There is also
a historical apposition of cultural identity, which I am evidence of – My prime
identificator while living in Nigeria was as a Yoruba person, then as a Nigerian, then as
a West African. On my return to the UK, the main identificator was as a Black man,
then a Black Briton.
Propounding the concept of Diaspora to question the understanding of identity, leads to
recognition of these underpinning notions of fluidity and contingency, i.e. identity being
formed in particular historical circumstances. Therefore, black identity is never just a
cultural or ethnic trait that the British or American Blacks inherit from Africa. It is formed
in the new geographical and political contexts and in interaction with peoples of other
ethnicities and cultures. Gilroy calls this transnational consciousness the black Atlantic.
Another interesting point for me on return to England was the sense of unease I
suddenly felt about a question I had never really paid much heed to – ‘Where are you
from?’ This was indicative of my developing a ‘double consciousness’, which W.E.B
DuBois described as ‘the sense of looking at one’s self through the eyes of others...’
The answer to this question therefore varies contingently.
As has been stated, social identity construction is never a process of ‘being’ but always
a process of ‘becoming’. The question though is a process of becoming what? Answer:
whatever you want it to be. Sometimes, whatever you need it to be. This process of
‘becoming’ is the dynamic which state policy struggles to contend with and hence
always boxes people into identity straitjackets which pay little heed to their everyday
living realities. Some time ago, a right-wing UK politician dismayed at the sight of
British-born South Asians supporting India against England in international matches,
developed his now infamous ‘cricket test’ of national allegiance. By this test, all citizens
of a country from any Diaspora community should always express their loyalty to their
new residential-nations even if they are up against their ‘home’ nations. So, by this test,
I would not be allowed to support Nigeria if they were playing against England. By the
same test, Brazilians in Diaspora in the UK would have to support England against
Brazil in the World Cup! It is a measure of the desperation of the times we are currently
in that this test, long buried as under-thought, have been resuscitated and mobilised as
potential weaponry in the ‘war against terror’.
Ultimately, what some people cannot see is that how you describe where you are from
and identify yourself is a factor of where you think you belong. As importantly, where
are you allowed to belong? How easy is it for people who inhabit different identity garbs
to truly feel that they belong in any one place? In belonging everywhere, are you really
saying you belong nowhere? Black British people have been told that we can be British
but never truly English, because we are not ‘of the land’. I daresay that such spurious

4. claims of authenticity would have been levelled by certain groups in this country as
well. These cannot be dismissed, as there is a power dynamic that also comes into play
which renders this a very serious matter indeed.
The anchors that tie an individual or group to any particular environment will therefore
entail a complex socio-political framework which that group needs to actively engage
with to either subvert the majority positioning or to reconfigure it in accordance with
their own interests. Allied to this question of power in the UK especially, is the issue of
class. In Brazil, I understand you have an ideology of "racial democracy”, where racism
assumes an existence of a multitude of socially ranked racial distinctions which refer
both to appearance and to class-linked behaviour, meaning that racial identity is in part
ascribed and in part achieved. In both countries’ cases, social and cultural identity
formation processes become even more important.
Regardless of the power dynamics, groups still participate in their own identity
construction and reproduction in different ways, including establishment of
organisations, promotion of research into ethnic history and culture, retelling of official
histories in new ways that recognise and celebrate the ethnic group and redefine its
past; re-establishment of defunct cultural practices or maybe even invent new ones.
There is a reciprocal, dynamic interaction within the group itself in the creation of these
identities. Identities have little influence on group members until they involve more than
simply the consciousness among members that constitute a group. What links group
members are shared interests, shared institutions and a shared culture. Shared culture
requires a commonality of conceptual systems, practices and beliefs etc. To have a
shared culture, we need to be aware of how we define this culture, as well as who has
access to it. While the case for a strategic essentialism can be discerned from my
aforementioned comments, it is a common and often tragic mistake made that in
seeking to empower oneself, the very institutional subversives that facilitated
marginalisation are indeed replicated.
There is a disturbing propensity to racialise the issue of multiple identities i.e. making it
strictly a ‘colour’ issue. While the importance of race in the identity debate cannot be
understated, especially given the power dynamic that permits the right of ascription by
others, this does not render the identity simply a ‘Black’ or ‘White’ issue, as we all
inhabit multiple identities at any point in time – gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, social
class, economic status – all these are loci of identity which anyone in the appropriate
circumstances will mobilise. We are not always aware of them, but they are still there,
like dormant volcanoes, just waiting for the right shifting of our own and society’s
tectonic plates for their eruption. Our loci of identity each brings with them not only
cultural sensibilities but also claims for loyalty and corresponding, and often conflicting,
sets of values. Choice often have to be made between the pull of these conflicting
values and loyalties, and as a result one particular element can come to dominate
one’s sense of personal identity. Identity must thus be seen as a set of individual
choices and practices made by people whose everyday lives are the arenas in which
they organise the world and transform received worldviews.
Hence we are simultaneously men/women, Brazilian/British/Nigerian,
heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual, Christian/catholic/muslim/orisha etc. But this does
not mean that the relevance of any one of them is rendered less important at any
moment in time. It is part of our responsibility as 21st
century human beings to
negotiate these multiple identities and ensure a right compatibility ‘fit’. With such an

5. understanding of the compatibility of multiple identities that were long perceived as
mutually exclusive, new questions will emerge regarding the extent to which multiple
identities relate to each other.
So how does the state react to multiple identity claims? The state makes subjects who
fit into social categories such as citizen, ethnic group, taxpayer, thus focusing on the
individualising dimensions of state formation. Such a framework sets out the central
terms around which contestation and struggle can occur. A common myth is that
people’s ethnic identities compete with their attachment to the state. This need not be
so. Individuals can and do have multiple identities that are complementary, as well as
citizenship. Identity is not a zero-sum game. There is no inevitable need to choose
between state unity and recognition of cultural differences. Citizenship – a legal status
implying definite rights and obligations – has in this case been reduced to simply an
“identity”, among others. This conflation can also be read as implying that the other
“identities” should likewise be legally formalised and furnished with specific rights.
Some states argue that if other “identities” are being elevated to a status similar to that
of citizenship, then they ought also to be burdened with specific obligations. Again
recent global events have caused a blurring of the recognition that “minority rights” are
not really a matter of “rights” in the customary legal sense of the term, and the
imposition of any such additional obligations for supposed members of the “minorities”
in question is likely to be counterproductive and reinfroce marginalisation and
inequality.
Cornell and Hartmann recognised six critical construction sites as social arenas where
identity is created1
. Both policy-makers and the groups themselves need to consider
the ramifications of their activities and plans in these arenas on the AfroCulture project.
It needs to be recognised that while each of these sites are potential anchors that the
groups utilise to hold themselves in and be recognised by their temporal social
environment, they can also be used as discriminatory sites by the dominant class to
subjugate the minority groups. The mobilisation of ‘cultural diversity’ as a conceptual
framework with which to promote an integrated society has, like multiculturalism before
it, floundered on the fundamental aspects of failing to recognise the inherent diversity of
all people and the inability or institutional unwillingness to recognise and respect
difference before claiming to celebrate it. The current traumatic self-examination of
what it means to be British in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London is but indicative
of these past failings. If such interrogations had been paid more credence in the recent
past, maybe Jean Charles de Menezes' would still be alive today.
Multiplicity is not inherently dysfunctional. So long as there is co-consciousness and no
loss of memory, so long as the various "selves" can communicate and negotiate with
each other, multiple identities can lead happy and productive lives. It is mere prejudice
and bigotry to insist that everyone have a single "self". National integration projects
should learn these lessons of the failings of multiculturalism in seeking to absorb
human differences.
The motto on the Jamaican coat of arms proudly states the motto - ‘Out of many, one
people’. This is one of the grandest statements of comfortable co-existence of multiple
identities any nation-state could make. Implicit in this is also the notion of ‘in one
person, many’. In identity politics, normal rules of mathematics do not apply. My
1
These are politics, labour markets, residential space, social institutions, culture and daily experience.

6. daughter is thus 50% Nigerian, 50% Jamaican, yet still 100% English, and describes
herself as an ‘African Princess’. Identity questions make most sense in the context of
global transformations which characterise contemporary life. You go so far only to find
yourself. Yet, what do you find when you get there, wherever that is? That we are all
children of Olodumare (God). That we do not need to seek permission or apologise for
being human. That we can indeed revel and rejoice in our multiple identities and in the
evidence that this provides of our being so wonderfully alive.
Hence I am Yoruba, and Black, and British and European and African. So, embrace
your Afroculture, but do not be limited by it. Adopt a ‘Double consciousness’ as
polychromatic lenses through which you view and navigate the world. The Blue Devils
of Paramin were telling us something: We are here, not just because they were there,
but because we are. Cultural identities are not fixed, but shifting and subject to the play
of history and representation, mainly unified only by those retrospective processes that
narrate them as such. But we should remember that today’s decisions also constitute
tomorrow’s history. The reasons for these decisions should be acknowledged and
respected, but never allowed to straitjacket us As Bob Marley eloquently put it: Who
feels it knows it.
The question of cultural identity is not so much ‘who are you?’ as much as ‘what can
you become?’ The imperative is not so much ‘where are you from’, rather ‘where do
you want to be?’ Afroculture should not be an ‘essence’ – rather a positioning. Look at
how our children now live their lives. Through processes of globalised popular cultures,
for better or worse, today’s youth are increasingly more comfortable in their identity-
positions than many older people. In the words of Derek Walcott, ‘There is no nation
now but the imagination...’
Olu Alake
September 2005.

7. daughter is thus 50% Nigerian, 50% Jamaican, yet still 100% English, and describes
herself as an ‘African Princess’. Identity questions make most sense in the context of
global transformations which characterise contemporary life. You go so far only to find
yourself. Yet, what do you find when you get there, wherever that is? That we are all
children of Olodumare (God). That we do not need to seek permission or apologise for
being human. That we can indeed revel and rejoice in our multiple identities and in the
evidence that this provides of our being so wonderfully alive.
Hence I am Yoruba, and Black, and British and European and African. So, embrace
your Afroculture, but do not be limited by it. Adopt a ‘Double consciousness’ as
polychromatic lenses through which you view and navigate the world. The Blue Devils
of Paramin were telling us something: We are here, not just because they were there,
but because we are. Cultural identities are not fixed, but shifting and subject to the play
of history and representation, mainly unified only by those retrospective processes that
narrate them as such. But we should remember that today’s decisions also constitute
tomorrow’s history. The reasons for these decisions should be acknowledged and
respected, but never allowed to straitjacket us As Bob Marley eloquently put it: Who
feels it knows it.
The question of cultural identity is not so much ‘who are you?’ as much as ‘what can
you become?’ The imperative is not so much ‘where are you from’, rather ‘where do
you want to be?’ Afroculture should not be an ‘essence’ – rather a positioning. Look at
how our children now live their lives. Through processes of globalised popular cultures,
for better or worse, today’s youth are increasingly more comfortable in their identity-
positions than many older people. In the words of Derek Walcott, ‘There is no nation
now but the imagination...’
Olu Alake
September 2005.