After Identity

Contributors explore the continuing relevance of identity in twenty-first century politics and culture: changing patterns of identity formation; the continuing problems of English national identity; the links between work, consumption and identity; the problems for those on the receiving end of identity wars; England's morbid obsession with empire, and its emerging multiculture of conviviality; G.K.

Chesterton's regressive model of Englishness; the spate of recent attacks on multiculturalism; and the relationships between individuals and society as understood in complexity theory. Soundings 29 also includes Sarah Benton on politicians and truth; John Grahl on globalisation; Edward Fullbrook on post-autistic economics; John Callaghan on politics after Thatcher; Steve Munby on living with New Labour; Marilyn Strathern on audit and inspection; and Andrew Pearmain on memory and the left; plus poems and reviews.