Generation X, Y, Z: Finding generation identity in a diary

Generation X, Y, and Z, world wars, Great Depression, Elvis Presly, Beatles, Vietnam or (American) War, Punk, Michael Jackson, dotcoms, IPhone, 9/11, Anne Frank, these are examples of events, personalities and products that somehow are able to define a generation. How can one grasp the generation's identity?

Can identity of a generation be captured by a diary? Can it constitute as knowledge? Amar Singh's diary on India during the British colonization presents a subjective knowledge of a colonial on the political domination and racial superiority of Englishmen. Amar wrote regularly on his diary from 1898 to 1942, around 44 years of keeping notes of his experiences and observations. The rich articulation of the entries on the diary is argued to define the identity formation of the Indians at that time under the English empire.

The debate on social sciences about subjective and objective knowledge is situated in the "self-as-other" ethnography. There has been primacy of objective knowledge as scientific borne out of a rigorous method applied by the social scientists. However, the subjective knowledge that anthropologists gather from their key informants and their participant-observation is getting acceptance as another form of knowledge that is as valuable to social sciences as objective knowledge. The epistemological claim of the subjective knowledge is that some well-placed individuals are carriers of the truth and reality of a generation that is of interest to social sciences.

In social sciences, there is a continued blurring of self and other, participant and observer, subjective and objective. The reflexive self can be the other as the reflexive participant can be the observer. So the subjective knowledge is as valid as the objective knowledge in social sciences.

Thus, Amar Sing's diary counts as subjective knowledge that portrays the identity formation of colonial Indians. This portrayal is "liminal" which means that the identity formed is not a combination of English and Indian at one time. It is either Indian or English in one time, neither the two mixing together. The shift from one culture to the other is made possible by acceptance of this "liminality."

This subjective knowledge presented by Amar Singh's diary on identity formation of colonial Indians has contributed to the enrichment of understanding of what constitutes knowledge in the social sciences. A diary can capture the identity of a generation as Amar Singh did in his diary.