RUDN journal of Sociology (Jun 2024)
Levels and components of the social identity of the contemporary Russian society
Abstract
The relevance of the research is determined by the need to find ways for the consolidation and unification of the polycentric, multinational and multicultural Russian society under contemporary challenges. The author uses a complex theoretical-methodological approach combining the theory of social identity (H. Tajfel and J.C. Turner), the concepts of “self” (G. Mead) and “personality crisis” (E. Erikson), the phenomenological paradigm (A. Schutz) and the theory of cultural trauma (J. Alexander). The article presents a fourlevel structure of social identity, which includes individual, group, state and global (world) levels, and different types of social identity at each. Thus, the features of subjective and objective identities are shown at the individual level; regional, cultural, national, linguistic, professional and social-class identities - at the group level; state-civil, historical, territorial and political - at the state level; post-Soviet, Asian, European and cosmopolitan - at the global level. The author provides some empirical tools for identifying the affiliative component of social identity at the individual, group, state and global (world) levels and insists on the need to search for answers to research questions about the Russian identity in general, socialcultural differences between residents of Russia and other countries, territorial features of Russia as a state and its continent, the influence of the West and East on the Russian culture, and the impact of global openness and “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman) on the Russian social identity. The article considers “triggers” for the transformation of social identity, which initially appear either at the individual or global level, depending on the context and social source. The author argues that the study of the social-cultural core of the heterogeneous Russian identity under the extremely dynamic and nonlinear social processes affecting the key areas of Russian life can contribute to the development of a strategy for improving social well-being in the Russian society and to the search for effective ways of its consolidation given its polycentricity and multiculturalism.
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