Drama at Disney: A Thematic Analysis of Creative Worker Identity Negotiation and Identification in the Documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty

Orientation: Domestic workers constitute a vulnerable workforce and one from which we can further our understanding of marginalised gender identities at work. Moreover, they represent an understudied context for exploring work identity. Research purpose: This article explored the work identity of domestic workers in South Africa with a particular focus on the multiple contexts in which they develop and maintain a sense of identity. Motivation for the study: The aim of the study was to increase our understanding of the role of context in the development, regulation and negotiation of work identity in a non-managerial sample. Research approach/design and method: Using a multiple case study design, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six domestic workers, to explore their identity negotiation in context. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Main findings: We combined extant understandings of work identity and context to examine domestic work identity in the relation to the contexts and multiple identities involved in its construction and negotiation. We identified three contexts in which identity-related sense-making occurs – the job, the employment context and the broader national societal context. Within these contexts, we pinpoint multiple social identities the participants develop and negotiate. Practical/managerial implications: These findings can guide policy makers in regulating the domestic worker employment sphere. Contribution/value-add: We have developed a nested model of identity contexts to illustrate the complexity and interrelatedness of domestic worker’s identity work which can serve as a basis for understanding other forms of contextual identity work.

Identity work has been a dominant metaphor within the identity literature, while ‘identity play’ has yet to be fully developed. The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of the relationship between play at work and identity play. Contributions to date have proposed and outlined its theoretical potential principally by drawing upon work in other fields such as child development and relevant aspects of psychology and sociology. In contrast this study seeks to address a (creative) work situation directly, introduce empirical insights into identity play within the organisational and creativity literature, and deliver theoretical insights into the relationship between (identity) work and play. The empirical focus of this study is on an area where play is central to the work and identity, that of the lived experiences of street and graffiti artists, where there is a strong connection between the identities and the work (play) created. Using a life history methodology, I seek to explore creative (identity) work and play within the street and graffiti art context, and what (work and play) identity outcomes can occur as a part of their artistic practices.

Purpose Diversity management literature is at a crossroads with limitations in producing novel insights due to its heavy reliance on the etic approach and surface-level diversity. This paper reviews identity work, identity negotiation and intersectionality to propose an interdisciplinary lens that offers new insights and suggestions for future research that will advance the diversity management literature. Design/methodology/approach Our paper advances methods in the diversity management literature by reviewing interdisciplinary research using a dual approach: a bibliometric analysis of the vast literature examining 323 papers published between 1987 and 2023, supplemented by a summary review of the identified thematic clusters. Findings This study identified seven thematic clusters around identity construction, transformation and navigation processes. The study highlights significant research gaps in (1) context-specificity, (2) deep-level forms of diversity, (3) lack of focus on meso-level stakeholders, and most importantly (4) lack of focus on the interplay of micro-level and meso-level interactions. Originality/value This paper contributes in three ways. Firstly, it pioneers a dual approach to comprehending the research landscape on identity work, identity negotiation and intersectionality, employing bibliometric analysis and summary review. Secondly, with its interdisciplinary reach, it advocates for a more inclusive diversity management approach, exploring micro-meso-level interaction through new lenses. Lastly, it offers theoretical and practical contributions by proposing an integrated multiple lens to better address the challenges and tensions of an increasing diversity of the workforce.

This paper elaborates processes of identity construction and avowal among homeless street people, with two underlying and interconected objectives in mind: to advance understanding of the manner in wich individuals at the bottom of status systems attempt to generate identities that provide them with a measures of self-worth and dignity and to shed additional empirical and theoretical light on the relationships among role, identity, and self-concept. The data are from an ethnographic field study of homeless street people. "Identity talk" constitutes the primary form of "identity work" by means of which homeless street people construct and negotiate personal identities. Theree generic patterns of identity talk are alborated and illustrated: distancing, embracement, and fictive storytelling. Each form contains several subtypes that vary in usage according to the length of time one has spent on the streets. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical implications of the findings and suggesting a number of grounded propositions regarding the relationship among role, identity, and self.

In this paper, we advance the argument that sustainability in organisations is constructed through actors’ negotiation of identities and boundaries in complex systems. The paper offers a process-based, practical approach to understanding and constructing sustainability in a complex systems framework, to our knowledge for the first time. Theoretically we draw from complexity theory, systems theory and social constructionism in building our perspective. Practically, we assert that boundary critique and identity work, both established methodologies in the social sciences; become core tools of the sustainability-minded manager. The paper aims to make three contributions. First, we present a conceptual framework for understanding sustainability from a systems perspective, specifically within the context of complex adaptive systems (CASs) and social construction. Second, we advance boundary critique and identity work at the edge of chaos as the means and locus of constructing sustainability, demonstrating our approach through original examples from our own research. Third, we discuss the implications of our arguments for practising managers and offer suggestions for further research.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the experiences of permanent liminality of academics and the associated multidimensional processes of identity negotiation.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws upon a three-and-a-half-year at-home ethnography. The first author – as insider, participant and researcher – investigated the consequences of an organizational redesign that pushed members of a local university department into a situation of permanent liminality.FindingsThe paper describes how academics simultaneously followed multiple trajectories in their identity negotiation as a response to ongoing experiences of ambiguity, disorientation, powerlessness and loss of status.Practical implicationsManagement decisions in higher education institutions based on administrative concerns can have adverse effects for academics, particularly when such decisions disturb, complicate or even render impossible identification processes. University managers need to realize and to respond to the struggle of academics getting lost in an endless quest for defining who they are.Originality/valueThe paper highlights the dual character of identity negotiation in conditions of permanent liminality as unresolved identity work through simultaneous identification and dis-identification. It further shows the multidimensionality of this identity work and argues that identity negotiation as a response to perpetual liminality is informed by notions of struggle and notions of opportunity.

The social construction of identity has associated certain identities and bodies with entrepreneurship and as enterprising and constructed other bodies as non-enterprising. In this study, I explore how stigmatized and racialized bodies constructed as ‘unentrepreneurial’ use the agency of hard work to negotiate stigma associated with their identity and project a coherent self-identity that is congruent with their entrepreneurial identity. By conceptualizing hard work as identity work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and embodiment, I theorize the body as a performative site of entrepreneurial legitimacy and identity negotiation. I argue that although hard work is critical to ventures’ growth and success, hard work can become racialized. Racialized hard work is excessive, overbearing and disempowering. A good proportion of the work done within the black migrant economy under the disguise of entrepreneurship is done as identity work. This study contributes to the research in identity work by identifying hard work as an intersectional site of identity work.

BackgroundExploration of client identity negotiations during treatment for Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a relatively new area of research. Research suggests that difficulties with identity negotiations may present as a barrier to treatment. This study sought to explore individuals’ identity negotiations during therapy sessions using Compulsive Exercise Activity Therapy (LEAP) combined with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa (CBT-AN). Analysis focused on moments in therapy where individuals’ identities were dominated or defined by AN and where alternative identities could be generated.Method40 in-session transcripts from sessions at early, mid and end points of the CBT-AN (with LEAP) treatment were qualitatively analysed for nine of the 78 participants in the original randomised control trial. Through a constructivist framework, thematic analysis was used to identify surface and latent meanings and discursive material participants used to negotiate their identities in the context of therapy sessions.ResultsAnalysis of in-therapy transcripts generated two themes pertaining to identity negotiations: (1) troubled identities and (2) rebuilding identities and lives outside of AN. Early therapy sessions explored fragmented and AN dominated identities, including how AN was troubling to participants’ sense of self, contributed to conflicted identities, positioned them outside of normality, and was associated with isolated and othering identities. Within therapy sessions, participants engaged in a recursive process of shifting relationships with AN and themselves and building identities and lives outside of the AN identity. This included generating hopes for recovery and the future more frequently in mid- to late- therapy sessions.ConclusionIdentity negotiations evident in the therapeutic conversations aligned with the key components of the CBT-AN intervention, including addressing (1) the characterisation of oneself as ‘an anorexic’ and (2) the diversification of roles and activities to broaden and enhance self-concepts. Future developments of therapeutic interventions for AN would benefit from greater consideration of ways to assist individuals to more comprehensively address problematic identities, including uncovering identities hidden by the AN identity and generating preferred identities.Trial Registration: Ethics approval was obtained at the time of the initial study and for this embedded research by the HREC at the Western Sydney University (HR777332).

The aim of this study was to examine the publication characteristics and development of Journal of Advanced Nursing during its 40-year history. Bibliometric studies of single journals have been performed, but to the best of our knowledge, bibliometric analysis and bibliometric mapping have not yet been used to analyse the literature production of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Using descriptive bibliometrics, we studied the dynamics and trend patterns of literature production and identified document types and the most prolific authors, papers, institutions and countries. Bibliometric mapping was used to visualize the content of published articles and determine the most prolific research terms and themes published in Journal of Advanced Nursing and their evolution through time. We were also interested in determining whether there were any 'Sleeping Beauties' among the articles published in the journal. The study revealed a positive trend in literature production, although recently, the number of articles published in Journal of Advanced Nursing has slightly decreased. The most productive institutions are from the United Kingdom, which ranks in the highest place in terms of successful publishing in the journal. Thematic analysis showed that the most prolific themes corresponded to the basic aims and scope of the journal. Journal of Advanced Nursing contributes to advances in nursing research, practice and education as well as the quality of health care, teamwork and family care, with an emphasis on knowledge transfer and partnership between various healthcare professionals.

The number of individuals diagnosed with ADHD is rapidly increasing in Sweden, with approximately two-thirds of diagnosed children being boys. However, among older adolescents, ADHD now appears to be more common among girls. Despite this, girls remain an understudied group. The purpose of this study was to explore how girls with ADHD described their identity work amid the tension between norms of socially appropriate female behavior (conceptualized as the Me) and their true selves (conceptualized as the I). Ten participants aged 15 to 18 years were included. A thematic inductive analysis was conducted, complemented by an abductive approach incorporating a dramaturgical perspective and the concepts of Me and I, impression management, and social camouflaging. The findings broaden the understanding of identity work among girls with ADHD through four analytical themes: adjusting and suppressing behavior, navigating emotions and stereotypes, struggles in the school context, and the impact of medication. The results highlighted how participants struggled to conform to the roles expected by society, particularly within the school system. In their identity work, they also navigated the emotions that arose when confronted with the school's idealized role model of a "female student." Stereotypical thinking further extended to perceptions of the ADHD diagnosis. The school system played a significant role in shaping identities and influencing the participants' experiences and self-perceptions. This process was reported to be both demanding and challenging. Schools often initiated the ADHD assessments. Following diagnosis, medication was prescribed, which, while offering some benefits from an educational perspective, also came at a cost. The price to be paid was an identity transformation-becoming someone other than who they truly were. This process infused their identity work with reflections on who they really were versus who they were expected to be in a society that places high value on academic achievement and performance. From a Swedish ADHD perspective, social factors-such as roles, norms, standards, and ideals-must be considered in relation to the rising number of diagnoses. There may be a tendency to quickly seek medical explanations for deviant behavior, particularly in school settings, which can profoundly impact identity work, especially for girls on the ADHD spectrum. Some solutions may lie beyond the medical approach and instead be sought in organizational, pedagogical, and resource-based changes. Considerably more research is needed on the understudied group of girls with ADHD to better understand their identity work and the role of both society and schools in the increasing prevalence of diagnoses.

What is considered to be creative work? Is creative work always recognizable as in artistic work, or is it something where inventions come into being, or simply any task at hand? How does creativity construct individual identity, especially work identity? And how does gender become defined in creative work leading to innovations? Creativity is in some ways surely part of every work task and its performance, from even the most repetitive and standardized job tasks to the most unpredictable problem solving and unique artistic performances. Given this wide definition, the value and importance of creative work in the contemporary economy is omnipresent. This concerns the gendered nature of creative work in relation to innovations also: the technological solutions we have discussed in earlier chapters, from the washing machine to the fitness and wearable technologies, show how embedded creativity is in the innovation, design and production of material and immaterial goods and services. This chapter examines the complexities of gender, technology, care and creativity in contemporary work and economy.

Mergers as a type of organizational change call attention to questions of identity. In this article, the authors ask: How do people collectively reconstitute their group identities for themselves and others, and in particular, how do they renegotiate understandings of sameness and difference called into question by merging? The authors draw on qualitative case data from two different merger contexts within the health care sector to develop rich descriptions and a deeper understanding of the identity struggles of four groups of employees. They identified four patterns of identity work ranging from more proactive forms of positioning as “mavericks” or fighters” to more passive forms as “adapters” or “victims” as each group struggled to navigate an altered, fluid, and emerging landscape of potential resources for self-understanding and affiliation. The authors show how identity regulation and identity work manifest themselves in three domains of language, practices and space, and how identity regulation and identity work mutually interact. Thus, the negotiation of identity in merging is a dialectic process in which managerial identity regulation aimed at enhancing convergence across groups may be undermined both by groups’ attempts to reestablish differences and by a countervailing managerial need to accommodate (and thus sustain) differences in order to enable groups to locate themselves in the emerging entity.

Objective: The objective of this study is to explore the role of cultural adaptation in interfaith marriages, focusing on how couples navigate religious differences, integrate cultural practices, and manage identity negotiation. Methods: This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with 20 participants who have been in interfaith marriages for at least three years. Participants were selected using purposive sampling to ensure diversity in cultural and religious backgrounds. Data were collected until theoretical saturation was achieved and were analyzed using NVivo software. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify key themes and subthemes related to communication strategies, religious practices, cultural integration, emotional support, and identity negotiation. Results: The analysis revealed five main themes: communication strategies, religious practices, cultural integration, emotional support, and identity negotiation. Couples employed various communication strategies such as open dialogue, conflict resolution, and non-verbal communication to bridge cultural gaps. Joint religious practices and celebrations, as well as respectful handling of dietary restrictions, were crucial in fostering mutual respect. Cultural integration was facilitated through adopting traditions, adapting attire, and engaging in social networks. Emotional support from spouses, families, and communities played a significant role in maintaining marital stability. Identity negotiation involved balancing individual and joint identities, dealing with societal perceptions, and educating others about their interfaith marriage. Conclusion: The study underscores the complex and nuanced strategies interfaith couples use to navigate cultural adaptation. Effective communication, mutual respect in religious practices, cultural integration, emotional support, and identity negotiation are critical for the success of interfaith marriages. The findings highlight the need for supportive legal frameworks and societal acceptance to facilitate the thriving of interfaith unions. This study contributes valuable insights into the broader processes of cultural adaptation and integration in a globalized world.

Trailing spouses who relocate to support their partners' careers abroad often experience a threat or challenge to their sense of identity. Prior studies have shown that because expatriation processes reinforce traditional gender roles, expatriate mothers are involved in intensive mothering practices and ideologies, often as a way of finding new meaning in their lives. The current study aimed to explore how motherhood and professional identity intersect in trailing wives, and specifically, whether expatriate‐related developments in professional and mother identities reciprocally influence each other. In addition, the study explored whether these identity development processes may be intertwined with current sociocultural norms of motherhood. The study included in‐depth interviews with 14 trailing mothers of children under the age of 12. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset. Three main themes emerged capturing participants' experiences of their identity processes: negotiating the model of intensive mothering, mutual influence of mother identity and work identity, and empowered mothering. Together, these themes demonstrate how, through the subjective construction of their work and mother identities, expatriate mothers deconstruct the oppressive mandates of motherhood, reclaiming their power and agency.

Performing arts computing environments have received little attention in the educational sphere; yet, they offer opportunities for learners to validate their efforts, ideas, and skills through showcasing their work in a public-facing performance. In this work, we explore an out-of-school dance and computing educational program run by the organization, STEM From Dance. The organizational mission is to create an equitable learning experience for young women of color to engage with computing while exposing them to STEM careers. Through an analysis of eleven interviews with youth participants, instructors, and the executive director, we examine how the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the learning environment facilitate identity work in computing and dance. Our findings point to three primary activities used by the organization to promote equity: (1) providing psychological safety through a supportive community environment, (2) meaningfully engaging with learners’ social and cultural context through creative work with constructionist artifacts, and (3) actively promoting identity work as women of color in computing and STEM through both artifact work and community events. Applying the constructs of identity and psychological safety we explore the tensions and synergies of designing for equity in this performing arts and computing learning environment. We demonstrate how the seemingly contradictory elements of a high-stakes performance within a novice learning environment provides unique opportunities for supporting young women of color in computing, making them non-negotiable in the organization’s efforts to promote equity and inclusion. Our work illustrates how attending closely to the sociocultural dimensions in a constructionist learning environment provides lenses for navigating equity, identity work, and support for inclusive computing.