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Editorial Note: identity and establishing the meaning of life

The struggle for the control of the meaning of life is at stake during every moment when identities are acted out, re-enacted and performed in the private and public domains of social life (Hountondji 2002). This struggle for ‘selfinscriptions’ is first and immediately felt in two areas. The first is the context of social relations that people enter into willingly or involuntarily. This physical space is acted out in real life, and is a site of ideological contestation for influencing societies to follow some paths of socio-political development and not others. This physical space is aptly described by Gramsci (1971) as the territory of ‘hegemony’ where those with enormous economic and political power are constantly engaged in a struggle for the control of the meaning of life with those over whom they may happen to rule. Beyond theories of ‘domination’ that grossly suggest that the masses of people are powerless in the face of ruling classes, the space of ‘hegemony’ allows one to imagine the capacity of the masses to negotiate their identities in hostile social situations. Beyond ‘cultural populist’ theories, which suggest that the masses have unlimited power to influence the direction of social existence, the ideological space of ‘hegemony’ allows us to imagine that some of the interests of the masses can be realized in the social policies and visions of those with power while the real interests of the masses are in fact permanently undercut by powerful social groups. The second level at which the struggle to control the meaning of life is felt is the space of narration, where different social groupings indulge in contests representing their interests to themselves and to other social groups. The ability to name for oneself the individual or collective aspirations of a group is implicated in the discourse of power and the power of discourse. The discourse of power and the power of discourse can influence how people see themselves in the struggles for authorizing and controlling meaning. Discourses are ultimately linked to political struggles for, as Mbembe (2001) correctly reminds us, discourses and representations have materiality, even when they have the power to become reality in itself.