identitarian

English

Etymology

From identity +‎ -arian, coined 1943 by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, from the 1970s onward reinforced by French identitaire, especially after the use of the term ensembliste-identitaire by Cornelius Castoriadis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aɪˌdɛntɪˈtɛəɹi.ən/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

Adjective

identitarian (comparative more identitarian, superlative most identitarian)

1. Based on a notion of group identity; relating to the ideology of identitarianism.
   • 1943, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large, e.g:

     "The revolution in the Vendée, where peasants and noblemen had risen against the identitarian terrorists of Paris" (p. 117)

   • 2017 July 21, Jason Horowitz, “For Right-Wing Italian Youth, a Mission to Disrupt Migration”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     It began in May, when Mr. Fiato, a leader of the Italian branch of a European right-wing movement that calls itself identitarian, joined his allies in using an inflatable raft to momentarily delay a ship carrying Doctors Without Borders personnel that was chartered to rescue migrants at sea.

   • 2022, Sam Moore and Alex Roberts, “Online far-right ecologism and far-right movements”, in The Rise of Ecofascism: Climate Change and the Far Right, page 73:

     Identitarian youth movements have been linked directly to some of the mainstream parties discussed above, as well as to the terrorists in the following chapter. Their politics venerates youth (a common refrain declares a ‘war on the baby boomers’) and blames past generations for ecological crises.

2. Relating to personal identity; as racial, gender, sexual, etc.
   • 2015, Jane Ward, Not Gay, New York University Press, →ISBN, page 129:

     Sex between men is articulated as a casual act of “being free to be a man” that need not have any troubling gay identitarian consequences.

Noun

identitarian (plural identitarians)

1. One who supports the theory of identitarianism.
   • 2017 August 29, David Brooks, “How Trump Kills the G.O.P.”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Recent surveys suggest that roughly 47 percent of Republicans are what you might call conservative universalists and maybe 40 percent are what you might call conservative white identitarians.

   • 2019 August 6, Lauretta Charlton, “What Is the Great Replacement?”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     One very clever move these identitarians make — and, it has to be said, this is an exploitable opening provided to them in part by the progressive left — is to cynically proclaim their “whiteness” as just another form of diversity that is in danger of erasure.

See also

• identarian