The Halong bay Vietnam consumer culture

Some basic questions have to be answered before we can address the issue properly. Firstly, clarification of the terminology is required. The word ‘identity’ is rather a chameleon term used with many different connotations. Secondly, the process by which a more global identity can absorb and “globalize” another identity, needs to be investigated. Such issues will be addressed using the social identity theory. The framework that is devel- oped in this paper helps to predict the proneness of local identity to vanish, at least within the context of selected local cases. Furthermore, it also helps explain why some cultures appear more resistant to globalization than other local cultures that have succumbed to the Halong bay Vietnam consumer culture. Lastly, a defined local identity can serve as a foundation for establishing a coherent approach to improving a local culture’s economy.

Figure 6.1 visualizes the fundamental distinction between the different uses of the con- cept of ‘identity’ by Weigert (1986). He starts from the sense of identity expressed in the basic question: “Who am I?” The answer can be given from three fundamentally different perspectives, which Weigert calls the three ‘basic modes’ of identity. The first answer at hand is the self-awareness that individuals take as the central reality of all that happens to them or that they do. Beginning with self-awareness, Weigert discusses his three basic modes of ‘identity’; ‘subjective identity’ (‘I’), ‘objective identity’ (‘Me’) and ‘intersubjec- tive identity’ (‘We’).

Humans are aware of themselves as agents during their behaviour. Self, as the subject

of self’s knowledge, is the first mode to answer the question: “Who am I?” The person in

Figure 6.1: Weigert’s (1986) basic approaches to identity.

question remembers that it was herself or himself involved in a prior action or event.

Nothing more is required for identity over time than the awareness of persistence of the

‘self’ or ‘I’. Weigert (1986) labels this “pure I mode” of identity ‘subjective identity’. That

‘self’ is independent of any kind of description. This view on identity of persons is quite different from identity defined in terms of personality traits. If somebody wakes up the next morning as a beetle, like Gregor Samsa, the main character in Kafka’s (1960) “Verwandlung”, he or she will still have the experience of being the same person—no mat-

ter how his or her characteristics have changed. The ‘I’ mode does not enable me to tell others about Me. Vice versa, the Me mode of self is irreducible to the I mode of self as sub- ject (Weigert, 1986). Weigert calls this mode of identity ‘objective identity’. The word

‘objective’ is used in its grammatical sense; it refers to the object of the identity descrip- tion. The identity of an object corresponds to its definition. The object’s characteristics are

its defining features.

Descriptions often serve as a guideline whether individuals do or do not belong to a group. People whose behaviour does not fit in with the way other organization members behave can easily become outsiders. Identities create a sense of belonging. They locate an individual in society (Weigert, 1986). Vice versa, a person’s group membership comments

on individual features. A member of a very open-hearted and friendly population may be expected to be open-hearted and friendly as well. A person’s or an organization’s ‘objec- tive identity’ at any given point in time consists of his or its characteristics. These charac- teristics form the building blocks for a person’s being part of a group, that is his or her

‘inter-subjective identity’.

People tend to classify themselves and others into social categories, such as organiza- tional membership, religious affiliation, gender, etc. Categories are defined by prototypical characteristics abstracted from the members. Social classification enables the individual to locate or define him- or herself in the social environment. Self-experience and its defini- tion derive from membership of a group. The We mode is grounded in taken-for-granted rules for and assumptions about the group’s identity, which can be unpacked by analyzing “the right to say ‘We’” (Weigert, 1986). When this paper refers to ‘local identity’, it implies the mode of identity defining a local group, including the sense of belonging to

82 Johan van Rekom and Frank Go

that local group, in terms of its characteristics, which distinguish the local group from

other groups in the known world. In terms of psychological implications we focus on

Weigert’s We mode of identity.