ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of key developments in post-structuralism and postmodernism that bear most heavily on identity studies. It deals with a brief account of structuralism, focusing on the use of Saussurian linguistics by Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan. The chapter looks at key figures in post-structuralism and postmodernism, including Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, and Jean Baudrillard, as well as some of their key interlocutors including Nancy Fraser and Anthony Giddens, teasing out key arguments that resonate most strongly to theories of identity. It also deals with a look at the future directions of post-structuralist and postmodern identity studies, with special mention of recent work on object-oriented ontology. To a large extent, the criticisms of post-structuralist and postmodern theories of identity have been launched within the realm of politics. The critique of identity put forth by post-structuralist theories was pushed to the limit in postmodern theories of identity, to the point of challenging human ontology itself.
