The essence that is belonging together : identity, embodiment, and skillful coping during the 2015 Greek referendum

Abstract

In the forward of Heidegger’s Identity and Difference, Joan Stambaugh proposes that in his statement “identity is belonging together,” the emphasis ought to be placed on the word belonging. By emphasizing belonging rather than together, one is better able to jettison thinking that centers identity as a fundamental trait of Being, the traditional view of identity held by metaphysics. This article will explicate this idea by drawing from a series of unstructured interviews conducted with young people in Athens during the 2015 July 5th Greek Referendum. This article argues that with attention devoted to the practice of skillful coping, the essence of identity, rather than a reflective cognitive undertaking, correlates to what Heidegger refers to as the event of appropriation. When finding the self affected by the world, what becomes revealed is an intimate identification with the world and things within it as it unfolds. With mobile media technologies, we are privileged to witness a particular way of being affected by the world, one where material and immaterial locations (such as social media arenas) converge together and whose perceptual distinctions become inseparable. Subsequently, we can also witness how the act of skillful coping, the motivated relationship between the body and the object, stands as the principal site where engulfment and investment become unconcealed.