Postmodern(ized) Identities Postmodern(ized) Identities (manuskript)

Identity has become a much-used word. The term captures the dilemma of self, for it describes and seems to explain the contradictions of living in a society that appears to be in constant change. Similarly, 'postmodernism', 'postmodernity', and 'postmodern' have become widely-used terms in public life as well as in the social sciences. In this context, indentity-construction and maintenance in the 80s has been discussed in terms of 'identity-work' as well as 'identity-management', where reference to Erving Goffman has often been made. Postmodern theories and descriptions of identity focus on the floating, playful, and non-binding part of the so-called 'handicraft-biographs' or 'patchworkers'. In this notion, for several decades a process of informalization has been going on presupposing the emancipation of straight rules and external control. As an effect, 'life as a whole has become a sport or an art, the sport and the art of everyday life' (Wouters, 1989, cit. in: Hochschild, 1989: 444). As I do not hold this view, I wish to demonstrate something different in this article: Against the background of those postmodernized 80s, the funny side of identity has given way to far more serious games today. Based on increasing economic and professional uncertainties and competition (e.g. globalization), due to loss of clear patterns of orientation and regarding ecological as well as health-specific uncertainties, social constraints in labour and everyday life increasingly require contributions on the part of individuals. Integrating different requirements has become a crucial condition for staying afloat. Identity construction and maintenance are hard labour to be expressed and performed in a playful and easy way. If it is true that the constraints of social and economic rationalization models require an adapted identity which kind of identity is it which meets such different requirements?