Identity politics:

Identity politics is a political approach where people of a particular gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. This can have some positive impacts on society such as allowing people to express themselves freely and making individuals feel apart of a society. However, there’s also backlash such as ‘culture wars’ which result from a divide in communities.

Culture Wars:

A culture war is when conflict between groups, especially liberal and conservative groups, have different cultural views and, beliefs and philosophies.

When looking at culture wars, it can be argued that it can cause more conflict and negative behaviour towards the groups affected rather than solving the issue. You could potentially see a bigger divide in the community, or everyone will come together to fight for what they think is right. Culture wars allow less represented communities to express their thoughts and views without being ignored.

A recent example is the debate over abortion law in America which has caused conflict but at the same time, bought the female community together to fight against the government for their rights. However, it has also caused people to get violent and aggressive with the divide in opinions.

Artists and photographers use art express themselves which can include showing the audience their political views. Social media has played a massive role in spreading awareness of the issues in the world through images being shared that ‘front line’ photographers have taken to show the world what is really happening. An earlier example of this is the the Dadaism movement, which is a reaction to the violence to World War 1.