Mind the Gap! On the Discursive Construction of Collective Political Identities
By: Sebastian Moreno Barreneche
| ARTICLE INFO: Volume: 06 Issue: 02:2020 ISSN: 2459-2943 DOI: 10.18680/hss.2020.0019 Pages: 11-27 Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
KEYWORDS: political identities collective identities political discourse social semiotics polarization |
ABSTRACT
This article explores, from a theoretical perspective, the dynamics underlying the discursive construction of collective identities within the political domain. Specifically, it: (1) presents a general mapping of political sphere studies carried out from a semiotic perspective; (2) attempts to bridge different paradigms within the semiotic tradition; and (3) establishes a dialogue between political theory and semiotics through the analysis of certain ideas belonging to the former whose semiotic nature has not yet been adequately examined, even if they are of a discursive nature. The article pays particular attention to the role that the ‘political gap’ – i.e., the space of indetermination between the various collective political identities that compete against each other in the ‘contest over meaning’ of politics – plays in the discursive construction of those identities. Arguing from a constructivist premise, establishing relational differences is a constitutive feature of the meaning-making, dynamic, and gaps between collective identities, a necessary precondition for their discursive emergence and the political sphere’s existence.
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