Identity Politics

David Pilgrim, PhD, is Honorary Professor of Health and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool and Visiting Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Southampton. Now semi-retired, he trained and worked in the NHS as a clinical psychologist before completing a PhD in psychology and then a Masters in sociology. With this mixed background, his career was split then between clinical work, teaching and mental health policy research. He remains active in the Division of Clinical Psychology and the History and Philosophy Section of the British Psychological Society, and was Chair of the latter between 2015 and 2018. His publications include Understanding Mental Health: A Critical Realist Exploration (Routledge, 2015) and Key Concepts in Mental Health (5th edition, Sage, 2019). Others include A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness (Open University Press, 2005 and winner of the 2006 BMA Medical Book of the Year Award), Mental Health Policy in Britain (Palgrave, 2002) and Mental Health and Inequality (Palgrave, 2003) (all with Anne Rogers). His recent books are Child Sexual Abuse: Moral Panic or State of Denial? (Routledge, 2018) and Critical Realism for Psychologists (Routledge, 2020).

'This important book offers a searing analysis of the state of identity politics today and its degeneration into dogmatism at both ends of the political spectrum, right and left. Working from a range of disciplines, the author skilfully demonstrates how we have gone from mobilising on the basis of identity politics as a starting point in the struggle for social justice to regarding identity as an end in itself: an end that serves only to police dissent and to reinforce neoliberalism and hierarchical and patriarchal power structures. The warning at the heart of this book could not be starker: the chilling logic of identity politics is that it breeds authoritarianism from below and not just above. This book serves as an urgent rallying cry to re-imagine a progressive, democratic politics of solidarity based on equality and our shared common humanity in place of a politics of identity characterised by a fetish of diversity and a descent into intolerance, censorship and moral absolutism.'

• ContentsAcknowledgementsAbout the authorIntroductionThe reality of identity politicsIdentity politics and freedom of expressionSex and genderAntisocial sexual identitiesRacial politicsMental health politicsReligious identitiesClass war, blood and soilSix lessons about identity politicsGlossaryReferencesIndex