hybrid identity

hybrid identity

(U. Beck, 2000) a pattern of individual identity in post-traditional contemporary society in which individuals may move freely between multiple identities in a way partly of their own choosing, but which may sometimes lead to conflict and confusion. Beck also suggests that clearly defined roles may be in decline, social solidarity in retreat, social existence becoming ‘conflictual coexistence’, and that many of the previous traditional and industrial forms of society which nominally survive may in fact have become ‘zombie categories’, no longer reflecting actual patterns of existence. Thus, individuality in modern society ‘can also be understood as radical non-identity’.