Paradoxes of identity change: integrating macro, meso, and micro research on identity in conflict processes

Abstract

Identity change is a core element of political conflict and transformation. Most relevant are changes towards and away from dyadically opposed identities. Defining an enemy', narrowing, or broadening the inner and outer circles of belonging to include or exclude the Other, are integral to conflict processes at international, state, group, and individual levels. This Special Issue brings together scholars with varied sub-disciplinary interests to engage with a set of common paradoxes surrounding identity change, in order to generate more synthetic comparative understandings of these processes. It aims to synthesize insights from different approaches and to show how change from dyadically opposed identities takes place in different contexts.