ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role played by identity and identity transformation in the management of the commons, whereby resource conflicts trigger issues of identity, again instigating legal claims regarding resource allocation and resource management. It demonstrates how discussing identity as a fluid concept of emic and etic perspectives on who might be considered a group helps shape demands and legal claims on the commons. The chapter focuses on forum and institution shopping and highlights how actors strategically choose legal and institutional as well as ideological elements that are both nationally and internationally available for their interests. It explores the literature on ethnicity to show which elements of identity building correspond with the process of constitutionality. The chapter also discusses the strategies used by the actors to influence the political process within the institutional conditions of the nation-state. It provides an analysis of processes taking place at the local level and how the interact with national and international settings of laws.
