Communications and Media

The world carries ones body. The body carries the self while the self carries the world. If this is the case, then one may be compelled to ask where the world is and his or her position in it if it is also within the self. The unit of analysis of comprehending how human worlds are meaningful is not the individual in isolation but nor the world in itself but rather the serial dialogic transaction between the self and the world. I am in the world and the world is also in me. Together, each expands or limits the other. The question of how one can find his way in the world as perceived and the world as known and comprehended is a problem of navigating the humanized and human society. We construct and humanized the world. We also establish symbolic worlds that are developmentally founded in the world as we view it and move in it. The individualized symbolic worlds not only contain us but are also us. Whatever they are, we are. The concept of me encompasses my-self and my world. My self plays a very specific role in my world. It defines my course. My self in this sense is among other things a locative system. In this regard, it is organized with parts, changes and functions.

The idea of location as it refers to the self can be conceived in two general senses. There is the being in place and the idea of location that influences how the self is thought and referred to, and the degree to which these ways of thinking and talking about self establishes the reality of self as it is considered and talked about. This paper deals with the second sense.

The construction of the self occurs within a particular environment. Central to this construction is beliefs. Our system of belief is fundamental to the construction of identity. How we handle ourselves and what we encounter on our travel through life basically depend on our beliefs about ourselves, our world and the world of others. Beliefs are acquired system and what we believe is dependent on our culture.

The view that the individual self is constructed within culture based on shared cultural resources is a subject that has received wide consensus. Culture is critical in the formation of not only the self but also of identity. However, this does not imply that the role of various other important factors such as genetic in influencing dimensions of our lives is overlooked. According to Couldry (2000, p.34), cultural resources implies a broad range of things including language, the manner in which we hold and use our bodies, ethical codes and imaginative realms, ways in which we conceive of ourselves as unique persons, among other things.

However, even though there is much agreement concerning the view that the self is constructed within culture, there are still difficult issues that need exploration. Such questions include the degree to which what is referred to as the individual self is a single consistent entity and whether the forms of culture or cultural formations that people are assumed to belong are indeed stable and consistent entities.

The Individual Concept of Self
We all exist through time like every other thing does. Things happen in sequences. However, as opposed to any other thing, humans have the ability to remember occurrences especially those that they were directly involved. This is an important thing in the sense that past events not only influence the present but that the individual who experiences them explicitly constructs them. Such reconstructions are instances of episodic memory. If the events that are remembered appear to have played an important role in the life of the actor, it becomes an autobiographical memory and may consequently form part of a life narrative. The importance of life narratives lie in the fact that they are one of the ways through which the self can be defined.

The aim of this paper is to explore how the self is constructed by culture, social environment and historical events. Of much importance in this analysis is the role of life narratives. Life narratives are in most cases defined as if they are the only ingredients of the self. According to Neisser and Fivush (1994, p.46), life narratives are the foundation of personal identity and self understanding that are important in addressing the question of the self. The claim extends further than this. Knowledge of the self heavily depends on perception, conceptualization, and private experiences as well as the narrative (ibid, 49).

Even when individuals strive to provide accurate accounts of self narratives, what is normally remembered may not be just what happened.  There is need to differentiate between actual events, the event as it was experienced by the individual, and the act of remembering the event. The various categories involved in autobiographical memory according to Neissser and Fivush (1994,p.56) are the actual past events and the historical self who took part in the events, the events as they were experienced then which included the individuals perception of self at the time, the remembering self, the and remembered self constructed during that occasion. Self narratives do not entirely depend on episodic memory. Individuals often start narratives with their own birth even though they have no memory of it. At times, they begin with the deeds of their forefathers.

Even though the differences appear to be obvious, they are not without controversy. There is no universal agreement that that it is important to speak of actual historical events, or a historical self. The original life course hardly generates objective records. Even when such records do exist, they are always subject to more than a single interpretation. Reality as such is not so much a phenomenon against which memories can be checked as something founded by these memories themselves. Conversational remembering of every day is primarily concerned with the need to construct an acceptable, agreed and a communicatively successful interpretation of what really occurred. This is a clear indication that the construction of the self has much to do with culture, society, and historical background upon which we find ourselves.

Formation of the Self
The self undergoes remarkable changes in a world that is reflectively organized, infiltrated by abstract systems, and in which the reorganization of time and space realigns the local with the global (Giddens 1991,p.78). On the level of the self, the basic component of everyday activity is that of choice. There is no culture which eliminates choice in day-to-day affairs. Actually, all traditions are products of choices emanating from an indefinite range of patterns of behavior. Yet, life is ordered by tradition or established habit within relatively set channels. Today, the individual is confronted by a complex diversity of choices and owing to the fact that the current world is non-foundational, it provides very minimal assistance as to what options one should select. This is thus followed by various consequences.

One such consequence concerns the importance of lifestyle and how the individual agent cannot avoid it. The concept of lifestyle appear superficial since it is in most cases conceived in terms of trivial consumerism that is, it is indicated by lustrous magazines and advertising images. However, there is something much more basic that is taking place than the view suggests. In the conditions of the present world, we not only respond to and follow lifestyles but also in some remarkable sense forced to do so. In other words, there is no choice left to us but to choose. A lifestyle can be conceived of as an integrated set of practices that one adopts not because they satisfy utilitarian needs but because they offer material form to a given narrative of self identity (Abbinnet 2003, p.23).

Lifestyle is a concept that is more applicable to the modern times that the traditional cultures owing to the fact that it implies making a choice within a multiplicity of possible options, and is embraced rather than being handed down. Lifestyles as such are practices that have been made a routine. These routines are integrated into dressing habits, eating habits, modes of acting and preferred environments of meeting others. However, these adopted routines are reflexively subject to change in the light of the dynamic nature of self identity. Every small decision that an individual makes everyday contribute to such routines. These choices are deliberation of not only how to act under particular situations but also who we desire to be. The more one becomes engrossed in modernity, the more lifestyle become concerned with the very basics of self identity, its construction and reconstruction.

Speech Act Theory
Within the realm of the society, the self can be conceived as a performer. The performativity of identities have been understood through the use of discourse theories. Such theories explore the ways in which social reality is a continuously created phenomenon through the use of language, gesture and other symbolic social signs (Butler 1993, p.110). Illocutionary speech acts are a good instance of speech act theory. They are speech acts that brings into existence events rather than representing the events. The self may thus be altered through the force of speech such as pronouncing a man and a woman husband and wife. In making the pronouncement, the status of the couple becomes altered within the society they live. The existence of the two actors is changed by the words of the priest thus establishing a new social reality. According to Butler (1993), a performative within the speech act theory is a discursive practice that ordains that which it names.

There are various ways through which linguistic constructions can establish our general reality through the speech acts that we continuously employ in our day-to-day interactions. In the process of performing the conventions of reality, those artificial conventions seem to be natural and indispensable. We make them real. For instance, the enactment of gender norms carries with them actual consequences which include the establishment of our sense of subjectivity. As much as we may hold that our actions are a product of our subjectivity, Butler (1993, p.90) argues that this sense of autonomous, self-willed subjectivity is a myth. By performing a gender, we establish the sense that we are being a gender. Gender in this regard is an act which constructs the social fiction of its own psychological interiority (ibid). One is not simply composed of a body but in some major sense, one manipulates his or her body in a unique way that is different from his or her peers.

Multiculturalism
Cultural identity appears to be regarded by liberal tradition as a private affair. That is, as much as the various cultural practices and traditions are valid, they should be conducted in private realms such as homes. The public realm should be neutral in the sense that every individual ought to have equal rights regardless of their ethnic, cultural or religious background. The result has been the politics of assimilation whereby particular cultural identities are absorbed into universal values of the state. Critics of this theory have argued that there is need for multicultural citizenship rights in multicultural societies. This obscures the domination of one cultural group by another. According to Kymlicka (1991), there is need for cultural groups to have unique rights so as to avoid the disadvantages emerging as a consequence of distinction from the dominating culture.

Proponents of this position have argued that multiculturalism results in a literal integration and assimilation because it makes provisions for a more active participation by individuals who might otherwise feel left out. The major question that arises is what this means for the self and identity. According to Castells (2009), identity is a social construct that is dependent on context. It is the source of meaning and experience for individuals. It can be internalized, founded on cultural attributes, individual or collective. Its major function is to provide explanation for the purpose of actions.

Conclusion
The beliefs about the nature of an individual espoused by particular culture, and the relationship that one has with the society he or she lives are transmitted through the economic, social and political institutions and the daily norms, customs and practices. Starting from the home, children are shaped by their parents and families into the kinds of persons that the society values. The construction of the self and identity therefore begins with the basic social microcosm.

The ideas of culture and identity are far from being mere abstract philosophical constructions. The self that takes part in day to day social interaction on does so through the acknowledgement of particular cultural norms, ideal and values. The I in this sense is not conceived as an existential entity that if forever entangled in questions of authenticity but is instead the self that develops through the conflicts and negotiations that define the area of human culture. In this regard, the main concern of this paper is the relations between the self, seen as a reflexive agent, and the established structures of economic, cultural and social recognition.

Generally, this relationship has been characterized by modern philosophy in terms of the subjects performativity. In other words, the extent to which an individual who is involved in the substantive culture of his or her nation state managing to exercise a critical reflection upon the cultures established structures of collective identity (Abbinnett, 2003). It has often been claimed that the possibility of such a judgment emanates from languages communicative structure. As linguistically competent individuals, every person is capable of recognizing how the structural organization of social relationships has appeared to inhibit the free discourse of the ends of modernity. For some scholars, the rise of political groups founded around single matters symbolizes the emergence of an increasingly reflexive public realm. More conventional Marxist analysis of cultural identity economics have centered on the manner in which the individual has been reproduced as part of the masses. A moving account of how new image technologies have impacted on the reflective autonomy of individuals have been presented in numerous literatures.