The Negotiation of Personal Identity

"In this book Meena Dhanda presents an account of personal identity as a complex of which moral identity and practical identity are the two most important elements - "moral identity as ones sense of identity as a person as such" and "practical identity as one or more of the structured ways in which one expresses ones moral identity". Taking as her main example the situation of Indias Dalits, Dhanda argues that overall personal identity is to be understood as the outcome of an on-going process of negotiation above all between these two elements. Given the centrality of the roles played by different and often over-lapping conceptions of what constitutes identity not only in the world of theoretical debate, but also in that of political and personal practice, Dhandas arguments in favour of seeing these matters in terms of negotiation rather than in those of simple and mutually un-comprehending conflict will be of very great interest to all concerned with the many problems of personal and inter-communal experience to-day." Alan Montefiore, Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.