Bad stories: narrative, identity, and the state's materialist pedagogy

How do state actors teach citizen-subjects collective identities? In this article, the author argues that one important way they do so is by teaching subjects to weave into their personal stories of 'who I am' shared or public narratives of 'who we are'. But, although story-telling is an important part of how states produce identities, it is not the only way they help reproduce them. States help reproduce identity narratives by institutionalizing them: by building them into laws and norms and policies. States help reproduce identity narratives by objectifying them, as well: by building them into material forms. Illustrating with the example of racial identities in the twentieth century United States, the author argues that when states institutionalize and objectify identity-narratives, they lend them a resilience they would not otherwise enjoy.