Ambivalent Identity Research Articles

Passing Before ‘Passing’: The Ambivalent Identity of the Narrator in Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man is considered by many as an early seminal censure and commentary on the contested racial issue of African American in the United States of America. This paper argues that the ‘invisible’ protagonist of the Novel has passed for white as early as his childhood years. The narrator relinquishes his black identity for the conveniences and supremacy that the white identity entails. This paper brings to question the credibility of narrative in the novel; also, it proves that the narrator contradicts himself. The invisible narrator appears not to have a firm stance regarding the atrocities suffered by his own people—African Americans. People of color in the United States were caught between two cultures, identities, and lives. The un-named narrator has taken the least troubled road. He announces his passing for white at the end of the novel. This study contends that he has done so long time ago before he literally announces his passing.

Writer Identity in Narrative and Argumentative Genres: A Case of Korean Students in the United States

This study investigated how three Korean ESL students constructed their writer identity in narrative and argumentative genres of writing. For this purpose, the qualitative data collected from interviews, observations and written documents for eight weeks were analyzed according to a social constructionist perspective as a philosophical framework and Ivanič’s approach to systemic functional linguistics as an analytic method. The results showed that the participants constructed a confident identity in narrative writing whereas they identified themselves with a less-confident writer in an argumentative genre. Accordingly, they adopted different strategies for the difficulties they were confronted with in two genres. In addition, while narrative essays showed their ownership of Korean culture as a sojourner in the U.S., argumentative essays revealed their ambivalent identity in an academic context. These findings shed light on the importance of a narrative writing task as a stepping stone for academic writing by empowering an L2 writer in terms of constructing an authoritative voice.Keywords: L2 writing, writer identity, genre-based writing

Neoliberalization of forestry discourses in Chile

Chile is a well-studied case of how neoliberal institutions have affected the use of natural resources. However, only few studies have focused on how neoliberalization has influenced the social constructions of natural resources policy. This study aims to understand how forest policy has a contested meaning among different stakeholders. This study identifies five discourses among the stakeholders who were involved in the congressional discussion of the Native Forest Law (NFL). The main difference among the discourses is whether the target of the NFL should be the individual or should it be some collective entity. The property rights discourse, articulated by the forest industry, embraced free-market ideals. The “abandoned forest” discourse, articulated by government officials, made interesting parallels between the situation of the forests and the specific political conditions of Chile after Pinochet's dictatorship. The environmentalist discourse advocated for conservation through regulation, while the “local development” discourse, articulated by some NGOs, embraced egalitarian ideals. The peasant discourse, uttered by organizations that have the closest contact with native forest, uttered ambivalent identities. Given that the Constitution of Chile only acknowledges individuals' rights, peasants' organizations only get to claim political power when they articulate themselves as individual owners. In this way, the neoliberal reforms are influencing the construction of subjectivities in the Chilean forestry discourses.

Many journeys, many selves: the travels of Margaret Elizabeth Noble

This article focuses on three travel texts written by Margaret Elizabeth Noble (1867–1911), an Irish school teacher who came to India and was initiated into the spiritual Order of Sri Ramakrishna. As an educationist, her social work consisted in setting up a school for girls that functions to this day in Baghbazar, a locality of old Calcutta. She became involved in the Indian nationalist movement and actively participated in several underground activities against British colonial rule. This was the reason that she had to operate from outside the Mission itself though personally she remained dedicated to the spiritual vows that she had taken. Her response to Indian civilisation and culture and her critique of colonial administration do not function within the paradigms of gender and race relations usually assigned to the British women who travelled to and in India. Her travelogues explore India and her culture while inscribing the ambivalent identities that shaped her personality, thoughts and vocation.

Contested Places and Ambivalent Identities - Social Change and Development in UNESCO Enlisted Dubrovnik

Contested Places and Ambivalent Identities - Social Change and Development in UNESCO Enlisted Dubrovnik

DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY AMBIVALENCE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE CONTEXT OF PERSONAL INTEGRATIVE CONCEPT

Author presented personal integrative concept, its basic principles, scientific terms, and the structural and dynamic model of ambivalence identity in adolescence. Revealed personal methodology that includes issues of consciousness, consciousness of ambivalence. Displayed the principles of humanistic and cognitive areas of Western psychology. It is shown that an integrative approach makes it possible to combine the heritage of academic and practical psychology, phenomenological studies of ambivalence personality. Ability to simultaneously coordinate the individual weak, moderate resistance opposites ambivalence of self-creation experience wholeness and harmony (with actual, and potential positive, negative) are growing in adolescence. Powerful resistance ambivalence consistently updates the alternation of opposites, which blocks semantic integrity and harmony of the individual. The relationships of positive and negative are caused by their value to the individual, so these opposites are coordinated and uncoordinated simultaneously or alternate. Presented components of personality ambivalence form a quality hierarchy levels: harmonious low - simultaneous operation of two-dimensional positive and negative; uncoordinated average - two-dimensional fluctuations and simultaneous operation of both positive and negative; disharmonious high - and consistent one-dimensional alternating positive and negative. In the article, the idea that the ambivalence of the individual in adolescence is growing awareness of the ability to balance, harmonize, react and globally integrate its opposite side support in the components. As a result, the individual simulates harmonization of ambivalence of global I.

Branding the Alsatian Oxymoron: The Production of Ambivalent Identity

AbstractThe regional government of Alsace, France, first commissioned the development of a regional brand in 2010 with the hopes of enhancing the region’s presence in the European and international market. Yet drawing on contentious histories and communities in a region historically beset by perceived linguistic, national, and cultural difference, the brand became a platform through which to resolve and promote particular versions of historical conflict. This article traces the semiotic labor involved in one such production of ambivalent identity, which took the form of the so-called Alsatian oxymoron. Through the Alsatian oxymoron, meant to signify historical Alsatian duality, consumers, tourists, and even Alsatian citizens themselves were invited to reencounter Alsace as a place of attractive ambiguity, exotic difference, and irreducible complexity. This essay tracks this brand labor, seeking to reveal the semiotic strategies involved in such production. Particularly, I rely on Susan Gal’s (2012) formul...

Another “Paris in the Orient”: Overlapping Exoticism in Japanese Modernism around 1930

This article attempts to analyze modernism as exoticism in Japanese modernist writings around 1930, especially those concerning encounters in the East Asian cities of Shanghai and Harbin. While a Japanese writer absorbed the aesthetics and politics of Orientalism in terms of “modernization,” the framework, such as the West/non-West, the Occident/Orient, the savage/civilized, capitalism/communism, cross their borders, amplify, and overlap the contradiction or the ambivalent identity of Japanese imperialism through the process of translating Western exoticisms into a Japanese context. From this viewpoint, it can be said that “modan” (モダン, modern) signifies the encounters of the East and West in the geographical and political sense, and the Japanese modernist literature represents that struggle that took place on the cultural-political stage in East Asia. This is modernism in Japan, and could be modernism itself.

Ambivalent Biographies in Adolescence

Despite the fact that vocational adolescents are in a disadvantaged position regarding their post-secondary high school routes, research has highlighted the resistant and innovative ways they set in motion so as to grapple with their estranging schooling experiences. Our article aims to contribute to this research area by focusing on how adolescents’ narration of their schooling frames their life planning. In particular, we explore a major finding of our research—namely, their defending of vocational training—by means of the notion of ambivalent biographical identity. We argue (a) that today’s adolescents do not openly reject vocational training, and they try to transform the unofficial skills and knowledge obtained in their cultures into official cultural capital capable of making them enter the job market and (b) that their life planning is tied up with a biographical identity formation through which they try to coherently reconcile their embodied cultures with the vocational qualifications they aspire to acquire.

The Ambivalent Identity of Eighteenth-Century London Clubs as a Prelude to Victorian Clublife

De la fin du dix-septième siècle à l’époque victorienne, les clubs de gentlemen ont toujours oscillé entre norme et dissidence. Cette ambivalence des clubs londoniens est perceptible à travers un certain nombre de paradoxes propres à leur identité, tels que les tensions entre intégration et exclusion, privé et public, par exemple. Si un esprit de dissidence animait les premières factions politiques qui commencèrent à se réunir dans les tavernes et cafés de la capitale pendant la Restauration, les clubs devinrent, au xviiie siècle, à la fois un contre-pouvoir potentiel et un outil efficace pour renforcer l’organisation partisane. D’autre part, en tant que véritables instruments de socialisation, les clubs londoniens offraient aux jeunes hommes un espace propice à leur intégration sociale dans un réseau d’affiliation masculine très sélectif. Être membre d’un club exigeait donc que l’on se conforme à des normes sociales (politesse, éducation, etc.). En effet, fréquenter un club était alors le meilleur moyen d’acquérir le vernis culturel et les talents sociaux nécessaires pour devenir un parfait gentleman. Cependant, alors que des règles strictes, des rituels savamment orchestrés, ainsi que le caractère exclusif (tant sur le plan social que sexuel) de ces institutions étaient supposés garantir la modération, l’ordre moral et la cohésion sociale, il semble pourtant que les manquements ou excès de certains de leurs membres n’étaient pas rares. Un comportement dissident se déclinait selon différents degrés de transgression, allant du simple mépris des normes sociales à une attitude plus provocatrice, voire criminelle. De manière surprenante, si certains hommes au comportement déviant se voyaient exclus de ces cercles exclusifs et ainsi marginalisés, d’autres demeuraient, paradoxalement, des figures sociales ou politiques de premier plan. Enfin, de par son ambivalence, le club anglais peut être considéré comme un espace de sociabilité distinct. Hésitant constamment entre norme et dissidence, cette institution unique en son genre semble refléter les spécificités du caractère national et, par conséquent, contribuer à redessiner les contours d’un modèle de sociabilité anglaise, selon de nouvelles normes. En outre, sa tradition élitiste et masculine persistante et son évolution pendant l’époque victorienne en font, indéniablement, une forme de résistance à la modernité.

Identity under challenge

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how people respond when their identity is challenged as they use computerized information systems in organizational settings. Using the critical realism perspective, the author built on the identity control theory and suggested a set of generative mechanisms that shed light on how individuals respond to the challenges that information technology (IT) poses to their identities when performing their jobs and how it affects their sense of self.Design/methodology/approach– The author conducted a field study in a Canadian health-care institution with the objective to examine how doctors and nurses coped with challenges posed by an Electronic Health Records system to their identities and how these systems shaped their identities. The author’s data are essentially qualitative. The author used retroduction as a mode off inference which combines both induction and deduction. The author hypothesized a set of identity mechanisms that are enacted as a response to a threat posed by IT in the work place. The author uses the evidence from the field study to verify the existence of these mechanisms and uncover new constructs and relationships that could enrich the understanding of the phenomenon.Findings– The results allowed to verify and provide an updated view of the proposed generative mechanisms that are triggered when identity is put to challenge by IT in the workplace. The identified mechanisms are, identity adjusting, IT threat neutralizing and emotion regulating. Their outcomes, which are, reinforced identity, redefined identity, ambivalent identity and anti-identity are much dependent on the availability and the breadth of personal and organizational resources people have at their disposal.Originality/value– The research offers a vantage point on how identities unfold in the course of interaction with technology. It contributes by providing empirically grounded mechanisms that shed light on how people response to threats posed by computerized information systems to identity and the various self-conceptions that ensue.

Middle Eastern Studies Librarians: An Ambivalent Professional Identity

This paper aims to investigate the ambivalent identity of librarians supporting Middle Eastern studies in North America (Canada and the United States), and Western Europe (France, Germany and the United Kingdom), as well as in North American and European institutions located in the Middle East (such as the Library of Congress, American Universities Libraries, or French Research Institutes) in 2014. To do so, the article focuses first on the emergence and evolution of the profession, then on the demographics, training and competencies of the professional community, and last on their perceptions of both characteristics of, and challenges faced by the profession.This research is based on the collection and analysis of primary and secondary sources. After a thorough review of the existing literature on Middle Eastern studies libraries, librarians11Although the terminology commonly accepted in the professional community is “Middle East librarians”, for the purpose of this paper I prefer “Middle Eastern studies librarians”. and librarianship, a survey was conducted among librarians working in North America, Western Europe and the Middle East between June 9 and July 6, 2014. Through an analysis of the survey answers, I sought to glean a better understanding of professionals active in this field in 2014.Middle Eastern studies librarianship, in spite of fundamental differences inherent to each area studies specialization, shares many similarities with specialized librarianship on other geographic areas. This paper could therefore be used as a model for research on librarians serving the teaching and research community on other areas, or as a base to compare Middle Eastern studies librarianship with other area studies librarianship.

The Myth of Morgan la Fey by Kristina Pérez (review)

KRISTINA PEREZ, The Myth of Morgan la Fey. Arthurian and Courtly Cultures. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. xiii, 262. isbn: 978-1-137-34025-2. $95.Presenting Morgan la Fey as the archetype of a number of powerful figures who combine nurturing and sexual roles, Kristina Perez's Myth of Morgan la Fey is an engaging study of ambivalent female identity in Arthurian romance. Perez systematically investigates the perennial mystery concerning the Morgan who both harms and heals King Arthur, and offers insightful readings of such alleged analogues as the Lady of the Lake, Morgause, and the Loathly Lady. Pursuing a subject that has generated such fine work as Lucy Allen Paton's Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance and Carolyne Larrington's King Arthur's Enchantresses, Perez finds a distinctive voice by making structural use of psychoanalytic theory (particularly that of Melanie Klein) in a survey that ranges from early-medieval Irish mythology to contemporary popular culture.Directing scholars' eyes beyond the phallocentric Oedipal Complex to the 'Oresteian Position' shaped by the 'Law of the Mother' (15), Perez reads Morgan as a transcendent figure who both allures and unnerves 'male egos' by combining the roles of 'Mother' and 'Lover' (14). To explore the profoundly ambivalent role of Morgan in Arthurian literature, Perez uses Klein's concept of the Oresteian mother as offering both the 'good' breast of the 'nurturing' mother and the 'bad' breast of sexual aggressiveness (18). Perez opens with excellent analysis of Irish mythology, as she links the Morgan myth with the Celtic 'Sovereignty Goddess' (38) whose destructivity and sexuality were linked with rituals of kingship. Perez then turns to Old French romance, presenting the Celtic 'Goddess of Death' as re-emerging in the less 'lethal' but still powerful 'Fairy Mistress' of the Breton lais (43).While Perez sometimes risks being reductive by reading so many powerful female characters, such as Lanval's 'Fairy Mistress' (82) or the Lady of Hautdesert (113), as variants of an originary Morgan, she often generates fascinating insights by seeing the simultaneously savage and sexual Sovereignty Goddess at the heart of Morgan's myth. After comparing the 'tormented maternal roots' (64) of Morgan and the hybrid fairy-serpent Melusine, Perez builds a powerful case for a late-medieval splitting of the mythical mother figure who partakes in Mary's divinity as 'Intercessor' (101) into the malevolent Morgan and the benevolent Dame du Lac of the Vulgate texts. …

Cultural Translation of a Subject in Transit:

Cultural Translation of a Subject in Transit:

HISTORICAL REENACTMENT AS STYLIZED IDENTITY AND ITS CREATIVE POTENTIAL: BAKHTINIAN APPROACH TO THE SOCIO-CULTURAL IDENTITY / PRAEITIES INSCENIZACIJA KAIP STILIZUOTAS TAPATUMAS IR JO KŪRYBINIS POTENCIALAS: BACHTINIŠKOJI PRIEIGA PRIE SOCIOKULTŪRINIO TAPATUM

This paper analyzes socio-cultural identity finding its expression in creative activity. As a methodological basis the dialogic approach of Mikhail Bakhtin is used. It allows typologizing ways of constructing and expressing identity. There are three main types: direct, object, and double-voiced (ambivalent) identity. A particular case of double-voiced identity is stylized identity, implying reproduction of some value and behavioral patterns while maintaining a certain distance towards them. Stylization-identity is considered on the example of the historical reenactment subculture. Theoretical considerations are illustrated with a case-study of creative activity of reenactment clubs from Murmansk (Russia), recreating the Viking Age. Historical reenactment is considered as a possible source for development of creative industry projects. Santrauka Šiame straipsnyje analizuojamas sociokultūrinis tapatumas, išreiškiamas kūrybinėje veikloje. Metodologinis pagrindas – Michailo Bachtino dialogo principas. Tai sudaro galimybę tipologizuoti tapatumo konstravimo ir raiškos būdus. Yra trys pagrindiniai tipai: tiesioginis, objektyvusis ir dvibalsis (ambivalentiškasis) tapatumas. Ypatingas dvibalsio tapatumo atvejis – tai stilizuotas tapatumas, nurodantis tam tikros vertės reprodukavimą ir elgesio modelius, išsaugant jų atžvilgiu tam tikrą atstumą. Stilizuotas tapatumas tyrinėjamas remiantis praeities inscenizacijos subkultūros pavyzdžiu. Teorinius svarstymus iliustruoja Murmansko (Rusija) inscenizavimo klubų, atkūrusių vikingų epochą, kūrybinės veiklos studija. Praeities inscenizacija vertinama kaip galimas kūrybinių industrijų projektų vystymo šaltinis. Reikšminiai žodžiai: kūrybos produktas, dialogiškumas, praeities inscenizavimas, tapatumas, stilizavimas.

Relationship between Spiritual Intelligence and Attachment Styles with Identity in Students at the Universities of Isfahan Province

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between attachment styles and identity styles and spiritual intelligence in Isfahan University student in school year 93-1392. The subjects were 281 students who were selected by stratified sampling proportional to size. The data collection instrument were Brzvnsky identity style, Hazen and Shour adult attachment style (1993) and Spiritual Intelligence Scale(1392). The Cronbach alpha reliability of questionnaire survey calculated .73, .51 and .97 respectively. The data obtained were analyzes in both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results showed there is a significant positive correlation(r =0.185)between spiritual intelligence information identity style. This relationship suggests that students who have a higher spiritual intelligence, the higher informational style. Spiritual Intelligence there is no significant relationship(r =0.114) with the normative identity style. This relation implies that spiritual intelligence is independent of the normative identity style.Spiritual intelligence there is no correlation(r =0.114) with diffuse identity style.This relation implies that spiritual intelligence is independent of the light diffusion identity. There is positive relationship(r =0.224)between Spiritual intelligence and commitment is significant. This relationship suggests that students who have a higher spiritual intelligence , higher commitment.Avoidant attachment style has a significant negative relationship between the normative identity style and identity information. This relationship suggests that students who have a strong attachment avoidance ,have less the informational style and normative identity style . But there is no a significant relationship between secure and ambivalent attachment styles and informational identity, normative styles and commitment .

Economic expectations and support for secession in Catalonia: between causality and rationalization

Support for independence from Spain has sharply increased in recent years in Catalonia. According to all available evidence, public opinion has shifted from an overwhelmingly pro-autonomy position to an increasingly pro-independence stance. How can we explain such widespread support for secession in a democratic context? Traditionally, national identity has been regarded as the main explanatory factor, but recent accounts tend to underline the effect of political elite’s agency as well as instrumental calculations regarding the economic consequences of secession. However, the identification of this last causal effect is subject to a fundamental challenge: the possibility that economic expectations are mere rationalizations of prior preferences. In order to overcome this identification problem, we combine the analysis of observational survey data with an original survey-embedded experiment that provides a robust test of the causal nature of economic expectations. Our results show how identity, as well as partisanship, are the main drivers of support for secession, but also that economic considerations play an independent role. Results show that economic motivations are more relevant for citizens with ambivalent identity positions and for those that have no party identification, or are partisans of parties with less clear-cut stances on the issue.

Being CBC: The Ambivalent Identities and Belonging of Canadian-Born Children of Immigrants

Immigrants from Hong Kong are one of the largest recent cohorts of newcomers in Canada. We examine the processes through which the children of Hong Kong immigrants construct a sense of belonging in Canada, their only home. In focus group discussions, the participants express an unequivocal sense of Canadian citizenship and belonging. Yet their identities project an idealized Canadian body that wears “Canadian” clothing, plays “Canadian” sports, and, above all, speaks “Canadian” English. The projection is always relational and spatialized, variable according to place, and especially according to whether the other is viewed as family, as another “Canadian-born Chinese” (CBC), as a recent Chinese immigrant, or as a dominant Canadian. Often viewed as not Chinese enough by recent immigrants, in turn, they denigrate recent immigrants as not Canadian enough and resent them for reinforcing a concept of otherness held by dominant Canadians that often includes CBCs. Many participants feel more “Chinese” in family settings where parents uphold Chinese traditions. Their sense of belonging is a set of paradoxes, of between-ness, that they negotiate through a sense of place-ness: place as the homes in which they belong but also as a set of shifting public and private contexts in which they express their identities and relationships in variable ways.

Автобографическое начало в творчестве Дженис Кулык Кифер (от романа “The Green Library” к книге мемуаров “Honey and Ashes”)

Modern society is in conditions of indeterminacy: there is a tendency to create an integrated social foundation, which would be free from racial or national prejudices and would give a powerful creative urge, – on the one hand, and on the other hand − such processes inevitably destroy the borders of national identity what causes the crisis of national identities. In this context it is very interesting to analyze works by the authors who are possessed of an ambivalent identity, what in fact inspires them to create transcultural texts with real events and historical facts assumed as the basis. That is why the article deals with the problem of autobiographical character of works by modern Canadian writer – Janice Kulyk Keefer. The study examines the correlation of the novel “The Green Library” and the memoir book “Honey and Ashes” due to the context of national identity’s crisis, which has keenly revealed in modern social globalization processes. The text of the novel is analyzed in terms of the identity’s research method. The study highlights as a result that Janice Kulyk Keefer deals with the problem of “The Old Place” history and her family roots because she is looking for an answer to the question “who am I?”, caused by the difficulty of national self-identification by the second and third immigrant generations. This article will be useful for those who are interested in modern Canadian women writing, in the problem of national identity and autobiographical character.

Exploring sexual harassment and related attitudes in Beninese high schools: a field study

Sexual harassment severely impacts the educational system in the West African country Benin and the progress of women in this society that is characterized by great gender inequality. Knowledge of the belief systems rooting in the sociocultural context is crucial to the understanding of sexual harassment. However, no study has yet investigated how sexual harassment is related to fundamental beliefs in Benin or West African countries. We conducted a field study on 265 female and male students from several high schools in Benin to investigate the link between sexual harassment and measures of ambivalent sexism, gender identity, and rape myth acceptance. Almost half of the sample reported having experienced sexual harassment personally or among peers. Levels of sexism and rape myth acceptance were very high compared to other studies. These attitudes appeared to converge in a sexist belief system that was linked to personal experiences, the perceived probability of experiencing and fear of sexual harassment. Results suggest that sexual harassment is a societal problem and that interventions need to address fundamental attitudes held in societies low in gender equality.