Why and how do contemporary questions of culture so readily become highly charged questions of identity?The question of cultural identity lies at the heart of current debates in cultural studies and social theory. At issue is whether those identities which defined the social and cultural world of modern societies for so long - distinctive identities of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, class and nationality - are in decline, giving rise to new forms of identification and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. How does this `crisis of identity' relate to the wider process of changes which are problematizing modern societies and undermining the frameworks through which people relate to institutions, each other and themselves?Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of these issues, Stuart Hall outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling, and yet so problematic. Individual contributors interrogate different dimensions of the crisis of identity providing both theoretical and substantive insights into its contemporary manifestations. Rather than privileging any one approach to the problem of identity, the book opens up a number of significant questions and offers insights into different approaches to understanding identity. In doing so it both illuminates and advances debates about identity and its futures. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in cultural studies and sociology and across a wide range of the humanities and social sciences.