ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to the political implications of a broad-brush condemnation of ‘identity politics’ and elevation of a materialist alternative. It examines the category of identity, and particularly collective identity, in the study of contemporary activism. The chapter discusses the development of the literature, beginning with a brief review of the history and development of social movement scholarship on the concept of ‘collective identity’, and parsing out the associated concepts of social and personal identity. It deals with the ways in which the concept of collective identity can help illuminate the global justice movement and subsequent wave of global activism. The literature on both the global justice movement and global wave imply that identity boundaries and affinities have been constructed through confrontational encounters with ‘the enemy’ in the form of protests. Maeckelbergh is careful to indicate that patriarchal power hierarchies are embedded within neoliberalism and should be challenged by the global justice movement.
