Subjectivity vs. Identity

A clinical psychologist would speak of identity as the product of psychological and cultural processes by which we (freely) construct and express our senses of self.

In contrast, subjectivity, as the term is used by sociologists or cultural critics, signifies the ways that we as individuals must situate ourselves in relations to power—how we are “subjected” to/by the forces of economics, law, societal convention, the circumstances of history, and the physical world generally. Subjectivity is part of the process that “naturalizes” these relations and our place within them.