Beyond postmodernism: a non-western perspective on identity

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article offers a critique of the Eurocentric nature of postmodernism and argues that it is necessary for non-Western peoples and cultures to go beyond postmodernism in their quest for their own identity in the globalization era. Non-Western ideas and ideals of personhood are important and valuable alternatives to the Western individualistic self-concept when it comes to reconsidering and reconceptualizing what it means to be fully human in the world. The article, therefore, aims to theorize the nature and dimensions of identity from a non-Western perspective. This article first contends that the conception of self in Eurocentric traditions of modernism and postmodernism are not apt to accurately and adequately capture selfhood in non-Western societies, which is predicated on radically different ontological and epistemological assumptions. By using a culture-as-living-tradition approach, then, the article delineates the Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) and Confucian modes of selfhood as an example of non-Western theorization of identity. More specifically, this article identifies five common dimensions of these African and Asian ways of being human: (1) collectivity, (2) morality, (3) sensitivity, (4) transformability and (5) inclusivity.