1 INTRODUCING IDENTITY David Buckingham Published in D. Buckingham (ed.) Youth Identity and Digital Media MIT Press 2008 Identity is an ambiguous and slippery term. It has been used – and perhaps over- used – in many different contexts and for many different purposes, particularly in recent years. As we shall see, there are some diverse assumptions about what identity is, and about its relevance to our understanding of young people’s engagements with digital media. The fundamental paradox of identity is inherent in the term itself. From the Latin root idem, meaning ‘the same’, the term nevertheless implies both similarity and difference. On the one hand, identity is something unique to each of us, that we assume is more or less consistent (and hence the same) over time. For instance, as I write, there is an intense debate in the UK about the government’s proposed introduction of identity cards, and their potential for addressing the problem of ‘identity theft’. In these formulations, our identity is something we uniquely possess: it is what distinguishes us from other people. Yet on the other hand, identity also implies a relationship with a broader collective or social group of some kind. When we talk about national identity, cultural identity or gender identity, for example, we imply that our identity is partly a matter of what we share with other people. Here, identity is about identification with others whom we assume are similar to us (if not exactly the same), at least in some significant ways. Much of the debate around identity derives from the tensions between these two aspects. I may struggle to ‘be myself’ or to ‘find my true self’ – and there are many would-be experts and authorities who claim to be able to help me to do this. Yet I also seek multiple identifications with others, on the basis of social, cultural and biological characteristics, as well as shared values, personal histories and interests. On one level, I am the product of my unique personal biography. Yet who I am (or who I think I am) varies according to who I am with, the social situations in which I find myself, and the motivations I may have at the time – although I am by no means entirely free to choose how I am defined. An explicit concern with questions of identity is not a novel development, although it has undoubtedly taken on a new urgency in the contemporary world 1 . Identity is not merely a matter of playful experimentation or ‘personal growth’: it is also about the life-or-death struggles for self-determination that are currently being waged in so many parts of the world. According to the social theorist