We operate in different social circles of recognition, and use different identification stocks with distinctive categories and names to assign meaning in different social circles. 

Self recognition, is the operation through which individuals establish a connection or coherent continuity - an inner solidarity- among received recognitions, or ways of being 'made up'.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

'Making up people' is the concept that by studying and categorizing types of people, those classifications change to better reflect the societal views of the characteristics of individuals within that classification. By studying people we create kinds of people - ways people can be embodied - that did not exist prior to classification.

In this article, Sparti proposes that we can use the model of making up people to understand the formation of disabilities.

Making Up People - On Some Looping Effects of the Human Kind - Institutional Reflexivity of Social Control?

Sparti, D.(2001)Making up People: On Some Looping Effects of the Human Kind - Institutional Reflexivity or Social Control? European Journal of Social Theory, 2001(2001).

Identity is the product of a formation process that is shaped by societal context, personal identity is not a fixed or self-contained entity, but it is rather created through the process of naming, and recognition.

Our society works to classify individuals whose societies current system of classifications does not have a way of classifying. We create classifications to institutionalize forms of recognition and to bring individuals into societal classifications.

Transient mental illnesses are often more ripe for classification than other forms of disability.

What leads to us 'making up people'?

(a) Classification - defining something as a disorder or condition

(b) People that are exhibiting either physiological or physical distress that is attempting to be categorized

(c) Institutions - ranging from clinics, professional organizations, and the press

(d) Knowledge - the presumptions that are taught, disseminated, and refined within the context of the institution

(e) Experts or professionals who generate the knowledge, judge its validity and use it in their practice

Institutions (c ) grant these experts (e) legitimacy to place people (b) into classifications (a) that are based on existing institutional knowledge (d).


What is needed for the process of 'making up people'?

How do individuals embody the way they are 'made up'?

- Dissociative Identity Disorder
- Autism Spectrum Disorder

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