Commissioned Book Review: Brown R, Henri Tajfel: Explorer of Identity and Difference
| Author | Stephane J Baele |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211044014 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(3) NP15 –NP16
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1044014PSW0010.1177/14789299211044014Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
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Commissioned Book Review
Henri Tajfel: Explorer of Identity and
Difference by Brown R. London: Routledge, 2020
302p. £38.99, ISBN 9781138589810.
For now 50 years, social identity theory (SIT)
has been one of the major frameworks stimulat-
ing research in social and political psychology,
unlocking a vast research agenda on intergroup
perception, prejudice, opposition and violence.
The many theoretical offshoots that grew out of
the SIT root in one way or another (self-catego-
rization theory, system justification theory, etc.)
have unveiled crucial insights into processes
such as discrimination or the role of collective
emotions in conflict; their empirical applications
have shed light on phenomena ranging from
depressed entitlement effects to large intractable
conflicts (e.g. the Israeli–Palestinian conflict).
The theory, however, is hardly used and taught
in political science and international relations;
Henri Tajfel, its architect, even less so. Such is
the perverse nature of disciplinary boundaries.
Brown’s Henri Tajfel: Explorer of Identity
and Difference is the very first biography of
the man who developed SIT on the basis of a
range of experiments that sought to isolate the
very essence of intergroup attitudes, some of
them implementing one of the most powerful
ideas ever designed in the social sciences: the
‘minimal group paradigm’. The book there-
fore fills an important gap: although Henri
Tajfel is widely seen as a founding father of
contemporary social and political psychology,
alongside scholars like Gordon Allport,
Stanley Milgram or Muzafer Sherif, only frag-
mentary information on his life and intellec-
tual journey was until now available. Written
on the occasion of what would have been
Tajfel’s 100th birthday, the monograph articu-
lates the results of an impressive investigation
using numerous interviews, in-depth archival
work, visits to key locations and reading of
Tajfel’s correspondence. In so doing, Brown—
himself a major social psychology scholar and
Tajfel’s PhD student in the 1970s—offers a
fascinating and fine-grained picture of both
the man and the scholar which should catch
the attention of political scientists and interna-
tional relations scholars, for three main rea-
sons.
First, Brown examines Tajfel’s pre-aca-
demic years in a way that demonstrates the
impact of socio-political contexts and life
courses on the development of social theories.
A Polish Jew growing up in the 1920s and
1930s, his itinerary was inevitably marked by
discrimination, exile and, eventually, the exter-
mination of most of his family; Tajfel himself
was ‘lucky’ enough to be detained as a prisoner
of war (PoW) throughout the war. Tajfel’s post-
war work in orphanages is also vividly
described in what are perhaps the most fasci-
nating and touching pages of the book. The
author’s efforts to shed light on this period are
not gratuitous; they locate the origins of Tajfel’s
later research concerns, a link already sketched
but never revealed in a comprehensive way.
Much like the man he studies, Brown proves to
be himself an ‘explorer of identity’.
Second, the depiction of Tajfel’s rise to aca-
demic fame from a difficult start reveals a man
of extraordinary ambition, a hardworking indi-
vidual driven by an urge for recognition and
prestige. The book lists countless stays in for-
eign universities and participations to confer-
ences, describes Tajfel’s relentless drive to
expand his team and international networks and
discusses his ability to attract external funding
and negotiate with universities (how this frantic
activity and absences impacted his family is a
puzzle that the book unfortunately never
answers). These chapters are no panegyric; they
constitute a frank and nuanced account of a bril-
liant but in several respects flawed man. For
example, Brown does not gloss over Tajfel’s dis-
regard for teaching, the controversy surrounding
the real paternity of the minimal group paradigm
idea, his cultivation of an intimidating atmos-
phere during research seminars or his bitter
feuds with rival colleagues. More significantly,
the book partakes of the recent reckoning about
Tajfel’s sexual misconduct, sharing testimonies
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