identitarian

English edit

Etymology edit

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 edit

IPA^(key): /aɪˌdɛntɪˈtɛəɹi.ən/
Audio (UK) (file)

Adjective edit

identitarian (comparative more identitarian, superlative most identitarian)

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.
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 edit

identitarian (plural identitarians)

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.