So... this post started out as a comment on Chloe's post. But then it kind of snowballed. So, I felt bad and moved it here.
I guess I am curious about all this real Chloe and authentic Chloe. It sounds as if we are talking about some deep buried kernel of a self, like an Eden, and if we could just get to it... well... then, then things would be good. Perhaps this is a bit radical of a claim (then again, perhaps not), I don't know that I believe in that kernel. For anyone. I/we/he/she/it is multiple, enacted in each different performance. Each facet of our ecology might lead us to enact a different I, but we (or I) don't have to present them all at once. It would even be disadvantageous to do so at times. Or more often pointless to. (Why should I bring up LARPer-James-persona Zukie, a love-able, charismatic, and idiotic orc, in this post?)
I think that kernel might be what Kells is trying to get at with "how do students enact... who they are," but think that misses part of the point. And it is connected to the rights-based approaches to fixing exclusions of representation within modern liberalism. Modern liberalism relies on centralized identities (that kernel) to extend rights and representation to groups that were formerly excluded. For example, in America, originally only white men could vote - then black men - then white women - then black women... And we see protections from discrimination extended in a similar way - race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. Proponents of this system say, oh, yes, it's flawed, but it's getting better each time it expands. Just give it time. This is true. It does get better with time, and there have been enormous improvements.
In this system the individual must take a feature of their personhood as (at least a major part of) the kernel of their identity. By doing so, they gain the stable ground (in a group, after a long struggle) to pressure for representation within and protection by the modern liberal state. With this approach come the problems and complications of identity politics and coalition politics. But I think Chloe's, may I dare say it, angst about representing herself - her identity- her, shall we collectively shudder, authentic self - a self she "can't really remember" - also emerges from this. Rather than leaving identities dispersed, asynchronic, multiple, and constructed by the relations and interactions with various and sometimes conflicting aspects of one's ecology, centralizing a identity that is supposed to capture all of these aspects is impossible. Something is always left out. This could create a nostalgia or a sense of loss, a desire to cling to who one really is. A desire to create a homogeneous history of one-self rather than an asynchronous we-self that exists at certain points, then doesn't, then does again, never lost, just not present. Centralizing identity removes the focus from presentation in its full multiplicity, making the beautiful play of presentation into a cheap and tawdry farce, a performance that always leaves us (me?) wanting more.
I don't actually know that that makes any sense writing this out. But... I'm going to continue anyway.
Within a Kellsian approach as we are talking about it, we seem to be talking about finding our own language (see Kristi's comment). Wasn't the point of Gallagher's activity several weeks back that we all speak many languages and Englishes. Wouldn't a translingual approach - or any approach that really appreciates difference rather than similarity - be less about mashing them into one voice - even for one person - and more about celebrating the various kinds that can be put to use in various ways as a resource? The act of centralizing them into one voice - even if we give up the idea of one, authentic Chloe - seems to accomplish the same thing as centralizing identity. Especially since we have a drive to connect language with culture and voice with self - another odd set of connections that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. Does this make any sense to anyone else?
I'm not sure what to do about feelings in this though. I think some of our feelings about identities could be explained by this process of centralizing identity and language in modern liberalism. The worry about not being "black enough" or "gay enough," feeling a pressure to perform in certain ways. The drive to excavate a history of a social group - revision historiography - would create a sense of continuity that the multiple, distributed, and asynchronic identity does not.... I don't know that I like this as of yet.
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