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Papers by Laura Pin
CJPS, 2018
This paper critiques the deployment of the term “identity politics” in Canadian political science... more This paper critiques the deployment of the term “identity politics” in Canadian political
science. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of research articles in leading English language
academic journals in the Canadian social sciences, we examine whose politics are labelled
identity politics and what intellectual work transpires through this label. Identity politics tends to
be applied to scholarship that foregrounds analyses of ethnicity, race and gender, but with a lack
of analytical rigour, indicating a degree of conceptual looseness. Moreover, the designation identity
politics is not neutral; it is often mobilized as a rhetorical device to distance authors from scholarship
that foregrounds analyses of ethnicity, race and gender, and to inscribe a materialist/culturalist
divide in claims-making. We argue that the effect of this demarcation of identity from politics is to
control the boundaries of political discourse, limiting who and what gains entry into the political.
This serves to reassert an exclusionary conception of Canadian identity.
CJPS, 2018
This paper critiques the deployment of the term “identity politics” in Canadian political science... more This paper critiques the deployment of the term “identity politics” in Canadian political
science. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of research articles in leading English language
academic journals in the Canadian social sciences, we examine whose politics are labelled
identity politics and what intellectual work transpires through this label. Identity politics tends to
be applied to scholarship that foregrounds analyses of ethnicity, race and gender, but with a lack
of analytical rigour, indicating a degree of conceptual looseness. Moreover, the designation identity
politics is not neutral; it is often mobilized as a rhetorical device to distance authors from scholarship
that foregrounds analyses of ethnicity, race and gender, and to inscribe a materialist/culturalist
divide in claims-making. We argue that the effect of this demarcation of identity from politics is to
control the boundaries of political discourse, limiting who and what gains entry into the political.
This serves to reassert an exclusionary conception of Canadian identity.