Muñoz’s Disidentifications Intro.
In his introduction to his writings on Disidentification José Esteban Muñoz writes that
“Disidentification is about recycling and rethinking encoded meaning. The process of disidentification scrambles and reconstructs the encoded messages of a cultural text in a fashion that both exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recircuits its workings to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications” (p. 31).
In his introduction, Muñoz is dissecting what disidentifications means prior to his analysis of the theory in his larger text. Here, specifically, Muñoz is attempting to relate disidentification into the larger world of identity politics by saying that disidentification is the process whereby discrete, coded meanings of identity can mean different things in different contexts. Muñoz begins this argument in using the words with the prefix “re” like in “recycled” meanings or in rethinking coded meanings. That is, the relationship between recycling and disidentification is linear insofar that one can reuse and rethink what meanings identities may carry. Furthermore, if disidentification is the process of re-situating meaning for an identity which is coded, what does it mean to have an identity with encoded meaning? Perhaps this “encoded meaning” relates to the social expectations and constructs that specific identities carry in society at certain times. Thus, the process of disidentification which is neither assimilation nor dismissal of societal expectations as stated elsewhere in the writing, allows individuals to rethink what their identities could mean in different contexts (p. 11). This is given in Muñoz’s saying that disidentification “reconstructs the encoded messages….in a fashion that exposes the message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations.” This reconstruction is proof that disidentification is a tool to create and generate new meaning. Here again Muñoz is saying that this process reworks the existing and flawed process of identification which is both “universalizing” and “exclusionary.” While I am unsure of the exact nature of disidentification and how it “recycles” and/or “rethinks” the process of identification, it can empower other identities by undermining those universalizing and exclusionary principles of a fixed identity. I would like to learn more about what exactly disidentification is and the process whereby it occurs. Nonetheless, I do believe disidentification means to take parts of a coded or fixed social identity and turn them into something empowering, as insinuated in the above text by Muñoz.
Hi Chloe! I do agree on your point about how disidentification is a process of turning the social identity that the majority assumes into something that is more personal and powerful. In my perspective, I think that disidentification could allow one to “rethink” his/her own identification through cracking the general assumption that the society placed, and show the identity that she/he truly holds. I would also want to understand more about the exact nature of disidentification like you mentioned in your post.
I appreciate that you’ve brought attention to the “how” of disidentification and the lack of clarity there. It’s clear that you’ve got a solid understanding for how it “[undermines] those universalizing and exclusionary principles” of stable and discrete identities, but beyond *what* it is, how does it work in practice? Who disidentifies, and how? Is it a thing that one can do or muster in times of need, or is it a hidden, unknown process of self creation and fragmentation? I think that this is worth thinking about further, so please check soon for an announcement with my thoughts on this!