“Identity politics ” is an ambiguous concept that is invoked more often than it is ref-erenced, and a phenomenon that is summarily dismissed more often than it is seri-ously theorized.1 The borders of the identity politics umbrella are ever-expanding and have come to include almost every protest movement since the late 1960s: from second wave feminism to environmental groups, from hippie sit-ins to the disability movement, from gay and lesbian activism to the “new right ” agenda, from ethnic separatism to New