Construction Of Collective Identity Research Articles

Végétarisme, végétalisme, véganisme : des comportements (alimentaires) au service de l’identité ? Une étude qualitative en population française

IntroductionThese last years have been marked by an evolution as to how people feed themselves, highlighting a growing interest for vegetarian food. Vegetarianism at large refers to several types of food that are characterized by the partial or total exclusion of animal foods. This study aims at relating various elements associated to vegetarianism, such as eating motives, behaviors, self-perception and others’ perception, in relation with the notion of identity. MethodParticipants were recruited via vegetarian and vegan (for food and for lifestyle) groups on Facebook, once their agreement was obtained. Six interviews were conducted by a clinical psychologist around the notion of being and identity related to food, as well as the food history of the individual and his/her family. The use of retrospective investigation makes possible to establish a continuity between the past and the current eating behavior. These interviews, once manually transcribed, were the subject of a complex semantic analysis via TROPES software (version 8.4). ResultsThe results showed a major use of state's and identity's verbs (being, becoming, “I”) and the personal pronoun “we”, referring to a construction of both individual and collective identity around the diet. The commitment to vegetarian/vegan diet has been primarily motivated by ethical concern. And, positive feelings have emerged following the adoption of this type of diet, such as pride, inner purity and a sense of being healthy and holy. Despite the fact that their diet is ethically focused, participants spontaneously addressed the issue of weight and body image. Discussion/conclusionWhatever the food's history of participants, identifications to disorders related to body image or identifications to weight categories have preceded the identification to a specific diet. And the following of a vegetarian/vegan diet appears at the base of positive feelings toward oneself and a better self-esteem. So, we can assume that adopting a vegetarian/vegan diet could improve self-perception. Otherwise, the ethical choice mentioned by the participants, may be an acceptable sociable justification to control more or less the fate of their body (inside and outside). More research is needed to better understand the underlying mechanisms of vegetarian/vegan diet, to explore the personality profiles of individuals and their relation to the body.

The battle for influence: Commemoration of transnational martyrs in the Italian diaspora of the U.S. under fascism

This article analyses the role commemoration of Fascist and anti-fascist martyrs played in the battle for political influence in the Italian diaspora of the United States during Mussolini’s early rule. It is structured around two case studies: the socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, killed in Rome in 1924, and Giuseppe Carisi and Michele Ambrosoli, two Blackshirts killed in the Bronx on their way to the Memorial Day parade of 1927 in New York. Through an examination of sites of memory and commemoration ceremonies held in both Italy and the U.S., it adds a transnational element to the study of the role of secular martyrdom in the construction of collective identity, concluding that the transnational exchange evident in commemoration of both case studies added to the propagandistic power of the martyrological narrative by drawing meaning from geographical distance from Italy.

The Heroes of the Pandemic: The Discursive Construction of the Healthcare Workers Collective during the COVID-19 Crisis

Besides its impact in health, economics, and politics, the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed the emergence of phenomena of discursive nature, specifically regarding the solutions societies have found to make sense of the crisis caused by the uncontrolled spread of the virus. From a socio-semiotic approach, this article analyzes the collective identity construction process of the healthcare workers during the pandemic. After generally introducing semiotics as the discipline interested in meaning-making and signification, this paper studies four semiotic mechanisms that can be identified in the processes of discursive construction of collective identities. The aim is to explore how those have been developed during the pandemic in the specific case of healthcare workers. As it is shown, the case renders visible the semiotic mechanisms of segmentation, actorialization, generalization, and axiologization.

The Civilizational Dimension of the Structurating of Societies

The civilizational approach in contemporary sociology aims at clarifying the relationships between social structure and culture, and institutions and actors. The civilizational dimension of the structuring of societies focuses on uncovering the complex interactions between the civilizational pattern and social structure. The focus is on a historically-defined combination of interpretive models and institutional frameworks in which the social dynamics of society unfolds. The fundamental premise of civilizational analysis in sociology is the rejection of social or cultural reductionist determinism. The key moments are distinction and autonomy, and are contingent on the interweaving of the structural, institutional, and cultural aspects of social interaction. The basic concepts of the civilizational dimension of structuring societies are (a) the determination of the method of differentiation and integration of the spheres of social life; (b) the establishment of basic norms and “debentures” for the main institutional sectors; (c) the building a social center and establishing its relationship with the periphery; (d) the construction of collective identities; (e) giving order to the formation of social stratification and the social division of labor; and (f) a self-representation and the strategies of sociopolitical elites, and their management practices. The key aspects of the civilizational structuring of social formations are highlighted and considered in the examples of the Imperial and the Soviet periods in the history of Russian society. Contemporary societies in the civilizational dimension are a combination of (a) inherited local civilizational traditions (often with their own anticipations of modernity), then (b) perceived in the course of inter-civilizational encounters with cultural and institutional influences of “other” traditions and reactions to them, and then (c) develop, inherit their own, borrow, or take on imposed-from-the-outside articulations and visions of the problems of modernity civilization, including models of modernity which receive universal meaning and value.

Lviv's Uncertain Destination: A City and Its Train Terminal from Franz Joseph I to Brezhnev by Andriy Zayarnyuk

Reviewed by: Lviv's Uncertain Destination: A City and Its Train Terminal from Franz Joseph I to Brezhnev by Andriy Zayarnyuk Simone Attilio Bellezza (bio) Andriy Zayarnyuk, Lviv's Uncertain Destination: A City and Its Train Terminal from Franz Joseph I to Brezhnev (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020). 372 pp., ills. Bibliography, Index. ISBN: 978-1-4875-0519-6. In recent years, urban history has become particularly popular in Ukrainian studies. The field has been enriched with excellent publications, such as Serhii Bilenky's analysis of Kyiv's imperial development, which was awarded the American Association for Ukrainian Studies book prize in 2019.1 Reviewed here, Andriy Zayarnyuk's book about Lviv was awarded the same prize the following year. These are just two examples of numerous books and articles produced over the past decade that have been dedicated to the history of various Ukrainian cities: Odes(s)a, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipro, and Donetsk. East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies periodically devotes special issues to the history of individual Ukrainian cities. Urban history provides an excellent context for studying the practices of daily life and the evolving sense of belonging as conditioned by cultural, social, and spatial factors. These topics [End Page 252] are also central for the research program of the innovative Center for Urban History of Lviv, where Zayarnyuk served as director for a few years. I believe that the high interest in urban history reflects Ukrainian society's concern about its political and national integrity, which has been further exacerbated by Russia's invasion. Cities present a model of a modern multicultural society, so the history of Lviv or Kyiv helps make sense of the existing differences and offers a story of successful construction of local, national, and transnational collective identities. The city of Lviv has attracted the most attention from historians, with numerous studies tracing out its transformation from a Polish city to Ukraine's second capital. Among more specific topics in the histories of Lviv are its Nazi occupation, the experience of migrants during the Soviet period, and the public memory of World War II victims. In the introduction to his book, Zayarnyuk explains how his work differs from previous scholarship in at least three aspects. First, it follows the so-called material turn in historiography, taking the railway station as the central point for an "archaeological" analysis of the materiality of the four regimes that ruled Lviv. Second, Zayarnyuk departs from the tendency to discuss Lviv simply as part and parcel of the region of Eastern Galicia, thus ignoring the specificity of the urban society. Third, he criticizes historians' preoccupation with ethnic differences in Lviv, which has led them to view nationality as the primary historical factor. Instead, Zayarnyuk underscores the role of social conditions in history, given that the absolute majority of Lviv's inhabitants were wageworkers and that "this experience was far more fundamental than either ethnicity or language" (P. 10). These principles have been implemented in the book with various degrees of success. Zayarnyuk consistently focuses on the experience of railway workers under the different political regimes that administered the city, supporting his argument that the ethnolinguistic factor plays a secondary role in the urban society. This proves more convincing in the part concerning the Habsburg period, as the workers' sense of political belonging to the socialist movement outweighed their national differences. However, overall, government agencies and outstanding individuals remain the principle historical actors in the book, and these actors seem to have attributed great value to ethnic, linguistic, and religious affiliations. Contrary to the author's intentions, the narrative rather corroborates the relevance of national dynamics in the historical evolution of Lviv. This is probably due to Zayarnyuk's lack of theoretical reflection [End Page 253] on social belonging and a reconstruction of social groups' agency (I would have written "classes," but Zayarnyuk does not use this term). Taking these factors for granted, he centers the study on the railway station as if it were a neutral and selfreferential medium of social interaction or a historical object with clear boundaries and fixed qualities. But it is not, and the available historical sources concerning the Lviv railway station were produced...

חרם (ḥērem) as Israelite Identity Formation: Canaanite Destruction and the Stranger (גר, gēr)

This study examines the חרם (ḥērem) texts in Deuteronomy and Joshua, focusing on their function in Israelite collective identity construction and their relation to texts concerning the גר (gēr). Studies have argued that these texts operate metaphorically in order to differentiate the Israelite group (e.g., Crouch). This examination of the חרם texts concentrates on redaction and intertextuality within the Deuteronomic tradition, the relationship with texts concerning the גר (stranger), and insider–outsider distinctions. The חרם texts in (Dtr and post-Dtr) Deuteronomy and Joshua reshape Israelite identity around obedience to torah, communicating that Yhwh has given the land to the people grouping that embodies the Deuteronomic vision. Interrelated with these texts is an ethic of incorporating the גר as kindred, which intensifies in the Dtr and post-Dtr redactions in which חרם occurs. Outsiders play a prominent role in this drama, for (1) via the outsider these books redefine Israelite identity around torah, and (2) the inclusion of Canaanites (e.g., Rahab in Joshua 2 and 6) and the enfolding of the גר as kindred forge Israelite identity. The חרם texts function (among other things) to "hold" Israel to the Deuteronomic ethic of enfolding the stranger as kindred.

Роль культурной памяти в конструировании коллективной идентичности

Analyzed are collective identification processes that occur in conjunction with complicated, contradictory processes of glocalization, cultural exchange, emancipation of minorities, national liberation movements, etc. The paper aims to study the collective identity construction in the modern society, using the framework of cultural memory. Links between collective memory and collective identity are theoretically considered; the methodology of “imagined communities” is proposed to explore the collective memory as a resource of social integration. The article argues that the nation state is no longer the dominant basis for identity. Nowadays collectives require a shared memory of the past as the basis for social identity. The paper focuses on a high symbolic value of a remembering history, especially of a cultural trauma. The culturally constructed trauma can appear on the level of groups, and provide integration of community, based on victimization of the past. Thus, the collective traumatic memory can develop a negative collective identity, based on common traumatic experiences. Viewed from “imagined communities” perspective, social trauma is a part of politics of memory that becomes the politics of identity. Using results of sociological research, we distinguish three different versions of memorial paradigm, i.e. oblivion, displacement, and evocation. Such differentiation allows to argue that communities could manage their collective memory as a resource of social identification, and consequently integration.

INFLUENCE OF POWER NARRATIVES ON THE FORMATION OF THE US FOREIGN POLICY IDENTITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Since today the constructivist study of international relations puts the social components of their formation in the foreground, the foreign policy identity of a state becomes primary thing in determining its national interests and its foreign policy course. Accordingly, the goal of this article is to determine the complex influence of power narratives on the formation of the US foreign policy identity in the 21st century in the context of transformation of the domestic political matrix and redistribution of the influence between various political forces in this country. To achieve this goal, the author used the following research methods: the system analysis method, while determining the theoretical and methodological foundations for studying the phenomenon of foreign policy identity; the method of analogies and comparisons, while considering the power and political organization and institutionalization of the spatial structure of government in the United States; the method of comprehensive analysis, while establishing the main indicators of effectiveness of the influence of power narratives on the formation of the US foreign policy identity; the method of factor analysis, while substantiating the need to use individual approaches in building power narratives of the American politicians. As a result, the author determined that the US authorities form their narratives using an exclusive approach to the construction of collective identity of the society. However, such an algorithm is quite successful while forming stable foreign policy identity of the US.Key words: foreign policy identity, USA, power, narrative, G. Bush, B. Obama, War on Terror.

Explicating Cultural Concepts

Ethnolinguistics deals with collective identities and reality-interpreting narratives. Collective identity (beliefs, values, and their symbolisations shared by a community) is defined as a mental construct, access to which can be obtained through complementary and linguistically “externalised” images. Inquiry into identity is the most effective when it is concerned with language, both in the narrower sense of linguistic structure and textual narratives, and in the broader semiotic sense. Whichever option is selected, the important issues to be addressed include the linguistic phenomena that make up identity, the methodology of identity research, as well as the data on the basis of which collective identity can be reconstructed.In this study, attention is paid to narrative linguistic phenomena: language is viewed as a most human phenomenon and a significant social fact that contributes to the construction of collective identity. The notion of “reality-interpreting narratives” pertains to subjectivised stories of the world, more or less stable judgements, stories that interpret reality and assume the shape of cognitive definitions.In the course of thirty years of work on and with the cognitive definition, two types of ethnolinguistic description have emerged: holistic (integrated) and separated (isolated). The former is preferred in the Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols, the latter in the Axiological Lexicon of Slavs and Their Neighbours. Both types of description reveal the functioning of images (sterotypes/concepts) in a network of relationships that allows one to capture the system of values that underlies the languages and cultures being studied. These relationships are here illustrated with the Polish images of róża ‘rose’ and wolność ‘freedom’.

Boundaries, Roles and Identities in an Online Organization

Understanding what ties precarious workers to online organizations and what makes them drift away is a key issue in today’s digitalized world. In this article, we present a study of a blog portal developed for commercial purposes and show how professional and amateur bloggers engage in this emerging online community and organization. We develop new understandings of dynamic relationships between boundaries, roles and identities, and offer an analysis of how identities are (re)constructed in interaction with others in fluid online spaces. We theorize boundary work as a form of identity work, elucidate how roles influence the way individual and collective identity constructions are intertwined, and highlight the importance of emotions in conformist and resistant identity work online. Our study has broader implications for understanding identities in the age of technology and precarity.

DIGITAL CULTURE AS A FRAMEWORK OF CIVIC ACTIVISM

The basic assumption of the paper is that digital culture, regardless of how much it is based on technological progress, is not determined by it, but necessarily arises from the values, ways of thinking and acting that are grounded in that technology and by it, and that have enabled its development. Thereby, the introduction will be dedicated to a critical deliberation on digital culture as a platform for the (de)construction of individual and collective identities, analysing its participative, mobilizational and subversive potential in the context of agitation and realization of social and cultural changes, civil rights and freedoms. The main purpose of this paper is to explain from the sociological point of view how digital culture has determined, shaped and transformed the paths of civic activism, especially in the last few years in Serbia. By using secondary sources of data, the paper will analyse to which extent the Internet and social networks represent important instruments of communication and mobilization of citizens for protesting and organization of various political events. A special critical emphasis will be directed towards the effects, advantages and limitations (activation or passivization) of civic engagement in the context of digital culture. The application of the comparative method in the final part of the paper will point out how much Serbian civic activism follows or differs from European movements that also rely primarily on the Internet and social networks as a medium for mobilization.

A Consideration of the Relationship Between Music and Collective Identity: From the Viewpoint of Cultural Psychology of Music

The aim of the present study lies in an effort of converging anthropological, ethnomusicological and psychological approach to the relationship between music and collective identity. Music is considered a socio-cultural artifact, which mediates the processes of collective identity construction, and whose function in such process can be multiple. In order to understand the ways in which it is sutured into (in)formal processes of collective (self)identification, we propose simultaneous consideration of various dimensions: cultural, social, political, psychological. Although there already has been interdisciplinary research of the role of music in the emergence of identity, we advocate for a more complementary approach, by a consideration of the psychological accounts, adjusted to the needs of ethno-anthropological analysis. As the most comprehensive theoretical approach, we propose cultural psychology of music. Future empirical research on specific identity processes mediation by music as cultural artifact, should include the analysis of intersecting local and global social trends, aspects of musicological analysis, specificities of psychological development of identity, the role of socio-political strategies of identity formation, and, last but not least, cultural specificity of the community in focus of the research. We find the complexity of the phenomenon in focus to be obligatory for the complexity of the theoretical and methodological approach.

Pedagogies of Solidarity

Abstract Sociological scholarship on social movements has shed important light on the role of knowledge production for processes of collective action and mobilization. However, much of this research overlooks the question of how movement-based knowledge emerges from within institutionalized settings of formal education. Drawing on a qualitative case study, this article examines the repertoire of knowledge-building practices mobilized from within a state-based system of adult education in francophone Belgium. Building on social movement theory, it is shown how formalized sites of adult education can empower the presence of social movements in society when they adopt counter-hegemonic principles of popular education that allow them to act as free spaces which facilitate the construction of strategic capacities and collective identities.

Television, Justice and National Identity in Spain

Television dramas have an enormous discursive power to shape national identity in the form of shared experience and collective belonging. Both law and visual culture are dominant discourses constituting an imagined community, which creates meaning through storytelling and performance. Spanish television is a particularly good case study, since the medium has been a vital tool of identity construction at individual, collective and national levels in a country that lived through almost 40 years of dictatorship (1939–1975). Television was thus used as a means of propaganda (1956–1975), as primary educator of democratic values (1975–1989) and as creator of a social debate (1990 onwards). This article examines law drama, law comedy and documentary/docu-drama over two periods of production/reception – the Transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s and the first two decades of the new millennium – in order to compare changes in national culture and collective identity construction. What is most striking in all shows is the hybridisation of genres: to a greater or lesser extent all shows contain elements of workplace dramas and/or domestic sitcoms, making the private political.

Burning the Bridges: Authenticity, Innovation, and Transgression in Norwegian Black Metal

This study explores the dark side of an inherently positive construct - authenticity. Posing conformity (reproducing essential features) and differentiation (asserting distinctive features) as alternative routes to achieving authenticity, we document the escalation of the latter into normative violation. Escalation is the refusal of compromise as a way of reducing the gap between private self and public display. The research context is Norwegian black metal, unprecedented in music history in elevating extremity to a core principle of construction of artistic and collective identities. We examine two forms of escalation - as innovation in music and transgression (i.e. church burnings). Escalation was mediated through the exclusion and self-exclusion of actors with lower tolerance for extremity. Its substantive importance is in adding a layer of complexity to evaluation. That black metal’s connection to crime has contributed to its endurance suggests that escalating action defying normative scripts can be attributed authenticity when interpreted as sincere and consistent embodiment of alternative values. We paint a large canvass of the escalation process by drawing on examples in history, fiction and politics.

Time and Space of Memories of Factory Workers in Construction of Collective Identity of First Uralmash Builders

The article is the result of a long-term study of autobiographies and memoirs from the Fund of the First Builders of Uralmash, collected in 1967-1984 and dedicated to the construction of the plant (1926-1934). The question of the role of spatial and temporal markers in the construction of the collective identity of factory workers is considered. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between strong discursive practices and the “weak positions” of the official discourse, which allow authors to independently write their personal history into the history of the plant. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the Foundation's documents are viewed not as a factual source, but as a way of creating collective and personal identity of factory workers in the process of forming the concept of the FIRST BUILDER and as a body of texts, which reflects the practice of constructing the “Soviet”. It is emphasized that a special perception of space (the plant and the social city of Uralmash) and the placement of oneself in a certain historical era (with the opposition “then-now”) unite most of the Foundation's texts, among the authors of which are workers of the plant of different specialties and social status. It is proved that the texts have a common chronotope associated with the axiological picture of the world and with the practice of social communication through the text.

Trust Me, I’m Trolling: Irony and the Alt-Right’s Political Aesthetic

Trust Me, I’m Trolling: Irony and the Alt-Right’s Political Aesthetic

The Signs of Our Discontent: Framing Collective Identity at the Women’s March on Washington

ABSTRACT As organizing logics shift as the result of increasing reliance on digital technology, social movement framing also shifts. Understanding these changes is vital to shaping contemporary movement organizing. This article examines the budding anti-Trump movement at its earliest and thus far largest organized event, the Women’s March on Washington. We conduct a frame analysis of messages shared via protest signs to analyze the constructions of protester collective identity in this digitally-networked movement. Explicit appeals to collective identities framed the march as intergenerational but often aspire to, rather than embody, intersectionality. Opposition framing as Trump as a metonymy for larger social forces also helped to frame collective identity by coalescing around a common adversary. We also find that collective identity is multitudinous, fragmented, and tension-laden. Tensions are managed through construction of a master frame of resistance, which unites protestors through shared action even when the content of frames differs. We discuss the implications of our work for framing processes of collective identity in personalized and individualized networked social movements.

Does rural landowner identity shape the adoption of sustainable farming practices?

ABSTRACT The increasing proportion of rural landowners who do not identify as farmers has meaningful consequences for efforts to influence the adoption of sustainable farming practices. This article aims to contribute to the knowledge base for those responding to that challenge. A survey of 2000 rural landowners in south eastern (SE) Australia employed a 12-item collective occupational identity construct to explore the extent farmer occupational identity explained variance in landowner implementation of three recommended sustainable farming practices. Practices included the planting of perennial pasture and lucerne, testing soils for nutrient status, and the application of lime to address soil acidity. Logistic regression indicated farmer occupational identity enhanced the explanatory power of models exploring implementation of those practices. Four distinct rural landowner cohorts were identified based on farmer identity: full-time, part-time, hobby and non-farmers. Part-time and full-time farmers are similar in that they are focused on farming as a business. By comparison, hobby and non-farmers give a higher priority to biodiversity and amenity values associated with their properties. The classification and knowledge of the attributes of each cohort can be used to support more effective engagement with the increasingly diverse population of rural landholders in many of the regions in SE Australia.

Petis and Madurese Cultural Identity

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between people with food, which can reveal a lot of information about them. The choice of food is able to expose a group or a person's belief, passion, background knowledge, assumptions and personality. food choices and eating habits understood to be related to the phenomenon of socialization and social bonding, the construction of collective identity under which to show the logic of social distinction and organization of life in society.