In his chapter for the Deaux and Philogene book on social representations in 2001 (Duveen,
2001) Gerard Duveen set out his theoretical orientation with respect to identity in his first
paragraph: “social identity appears as a function of representations themselves”. Among
other propositions, he suggests that “identity is as much concerned with the process of being
identified as with making identifications”, that “identities can be construed as points or
positions within the symbolic field of culture, in other words, identities are constructed
externally and not simply elaborated internally”, that “representations always imply a process
of identity formation in which identities are internalized and which results in the emergence
of social actors or agents”, and that “identities provide ways of organizing meanings so as to
sustain a sense of stability”. In some respects this is a classical social psychological position,
echoing Williams James and George Herbert Mead, though it is more sophisticated in its
analysis of the ways “the other” structures the conceptualisation and the practical realisation
of the “self”.