Recognition and Reception. On Pizzorno, Identity and the Mask

Starting from his early observations on the mask and drawing also on his interview on the subject, this paper considers Alessandro Pizzorno???s theory of identity building as recognition looking in particular at his last works. The metaphor of the mask helps us to understand the mechanisms of identity con-stitution, the dialectic of hiding and revealing, and with it the ambivalences of modern subjectivity. For Pizzorno, in modern societies, individuals must represent themselves as a function of the expres-sion of a deep identity; they must create their own masks and make them recognizable. The process of reception, and the circles of recognition wherein identities are embedded are the proper object of sociological analysis as it is through them that identities get entrenched.