ABSTRACT
This chapter looks critically at Martin Heidegger’s concept of the human being, Dasein, and contends that Dasein be understood not only as the site of disclosure of Being, but also a critically conscious and relational negotiation of identity. In a dialogue between Heidegger’s radically anti-reified conceptualization of Being and the psychology and philosophy of identity, Dasein is situated in the multicultural context where stratified difference evokes powerful vulnerabilities and defenses, a reality Heidegger overlooks in his conceptualization of Being. To elucidate the dangers of this theoretical and psychological omission, the author examines disavowed and idealized aspects of both Heidegger’s and her own identities. This unlikely relationship between a Queer Jewish feminist psychotherapist and Heidegger, the once poor Catholic, then Nazi, and still philosophical pioneer, illuminates the interrelated aspects of social and psychological vulnerability and the resoluteness that is possible in living and languaging one’s identity. Identity is thus reconceptualized as a process of becoming—a disclosive space for being within a dialectic of mutual recognition.
