3 Understanding the whole person

A more complex perspective on identity was explored by Stuart Hall, a highly influential cultural theorist writing in the 1990s in the UK. Hall argued that identity is not simply given or fixed but ‘a matter of “becoming” as well as of being’ (Hall, 1990). He suggested that identity is something that is never complete, and that it is more helpful to think about ‘identification’ as a process rather than ‘identity’ as a fixed state (Hall, 1990, p. 51). Hall’s ideas suggest that ‘who we are’ is strongly determined by feeling an affinity with ‘people like us’ or people with whom we share ideas, values, beliefs or experiences.

Many people will share these affinities with people who surrounded them as they grew up (family, friends and communities), but Hall’s ideas of identity allow for individuals being strongly influenced by experiences and relationships later in life. This can have equally profound influences on how we see ourselves. For example, in the context of social care and social work, it may involve a person becoming familiar with their birth heritage as an adult, developing new spiritual beliefs, or engaging with higher education and professional training, which for some may provide a strong sense of identification but for others may feel alienating. Equally, for some people, their ‘professional’ life is not central to how they identify themselves but rather is secondary to other aspects of their identity, such as their gender, marital status, language, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexuality or parenthood status.