This text appeared in the Aotearoa (New Zeland), Anarchist journal Imminent rebellion issue #9. I think it’s quite relevant so i’ve decided to paste it in here.
This is an argument against identity politics, but it is not an argument against feminism, or queer liberation, or anti-racism work. It is instead an argument that the oppressions usually combated through identity politics — a strategy based on the affirmation of Identity — could be better fought through its abandonment, or in the least through a radical destabilisation of existing Identities. —- I believe that Identity — always mythical and invented — is in itself oppressive, and that a politics founded upon one or another particular Identity is a dangerous strategy. These dangers are numerous, and include: the creation and policing of arbitrary boundaries of Identity, rigorous essentialism, the intensification of the norms associated with the Identity, the suppression and homogenisation of difference within, and the failure to recognise commonalities across boundaries of Identity.
