identity politics

• IDPOL (abbreviation)

identity politics (uncountable)

1. (politics) Politics focusing on the self-interest and perspectives of people in various groupings, such as ethnicity, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

   Synonym: identitarian polititics

   • 1997, Richard Dyer, White, →ISBN, page 8:

     The history of identity politics has however been marked by the increasingly strong and heard voices of, for instance, non-white and working-class women, lesbians and gay men, who do not entirely recognise themselves in these ‘As a…’ claims.

   • 2000, George Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power: The New Politics of Europe, page 9:

     There are those who contest the very idea of identity politics or try to reduce it to a minimum. They would prefer that rights be derived wholly from function and reason. Then, there are those who like some identities but not others. Ranged against them, as it were, are the identity politicians, who insist that all problems are derived from identity and should be solved by the criteria of identity.

   • 2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian‎:

     Muzzling Kelly also elevates a semi-professional obscurantist to the status of free speech martyr, and that invites a cacophonous pile-on from the rightwing bobble heads who screech about the left’s obsession with identity politics while shovelling identity politics at their audiences.

• identity politician