"Identity policy means defining yourself through your own identity as an African American, Jew, woman, lesbian or worker, for example - and at best also organizing and standing up for your own rights. But although this form of identity policy formed the basis of countless social movements, it was radically questioned by Queer and Postcolonial Theory at the latest and rejected as unifying and exclusive. But the reference to identical categories is not only challenged theoretically, but is now also criticized sharply within the left as an almost counter-revolutionary: Identity politics harms the class struggle, the argument goes. The struggles for recognition of cultural differences would only distract from the central and universal struggle against social inequality. But even in the early workers' movement, identification of the workers was fought for. And in feminism and the black liberation movements since the 1960s, the category plays an even bigger role. The many pitfalls of a positive reference to collective identity - the exclusions and standardizations - were criticized and discussed within the movement. From the theoretical roots of the term>identity<to the debates on identity politics in the left after Trump's election as US president, the book offers an undogmatic overview of the discourse and history of left-wing identity politics"--Provided by publisher