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, race, class and nationality - are in decline, giving rise to new forms of identification and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of this issue. Stuart Hall firstly outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling and yet so problematic.

当代的文化问题为什么以及如何轻易地成为高度紧张的身份问题？文化身份的问题是当前文化研究和社会理论辩论的核心。问题在于，那些长期以来界定现代社会的社会和文化世界的身份--性别、性、种族、阶级和国籍的独特身份--是否正在衰落，产生了新的认同形式，并使作为统一主体的现代个人变得支离破碎。文化认同的问题》对这一问题进行了广泛的探讨。斯图尔特-霍尔（Stuart Hall）首先概述了身份问题如此引人注目但又如此棘手的原因。