A New Look at Cultural Group Identity

While looking around the internet for resources for my research on rights consciousness within the abled differently community in the United States and abroad I wandered upon a marvelous site called Exactitudes®.

Link to the site Here. 

Now before I say anything more, I want to preface this by saying that this site works to identifying various social groups that seek to set themselves apart from their conglomerate cultures. 

Below are some excerpts from their shows:

Museum of Photography, The Hague

"Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 19 years.... Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element."

21_21 DESIGNSIGHT TOKYO

"Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek classify random people whom they see in cities around the world according to particular characteristics of their appearances and attitudes. They create categories which comprise of people who share the same attributes, and give each catagory unique names. This is the artwork they developed together for more than 15 years. We always belong to some sort of groups. But when we are classified into a certain "tribe' by a third party, ignoring that reality, most of us shall be surprised to find out how different other people see us from the way we see ourselves, thinking "so this is me in other people's eyes". This gives us an opportunity to realize again how we are perceived in other eyes, irrespective of our will or intention, or reality.
What's more interesting is that despite the fact that our real selves are left behind, we find other people very satisfied with their classification, which was based on the appearance and attitude we have not necessarily been aware of before."

However, what I am interested in is how various groups are seen by cultures. Namely what are the characteristics that societies seek in order to distinguish these groups and how they shape group and personal identity. I am interested in the conceptualization of group identities as an objection of conglomerate culture that seems to be central to this project because many subcultures are the foundations of the cultures they oppose.
As seen within the United States, disadvantage cultures are often the fodder for entertainment, clothing, and other cultural aspects. One only needs to step into any clothing store to see the gross cultural appropriation of African, First Nation, and Latino cultures (with the first two being some of the biggest) within the American project. Along side these, though to a lesser problematic degree, is the adoption and appropriation of other subgroup cultures into the American project. Examples such as counter-culture movements like hippies, anarchists, environmentalists, and the Queer community have all become normalized, corporatized and absorbed back into the culture they were ostracized from (voluntarily or not) even as their core values and identities are still considered deviant. This photo collection highlights parts of this process, where group values are separated from their consumable culture, and serves as a good foundation for cultural study.