Identity Work Research Articles

Addressing diversity in flux: identity work, identity negotiation and intersectionality insights

PurposeDiversity 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/approachOur 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.FindingsThis 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/valueThis 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.

Exploring identity work of LGBT+ volunteers in sport through personas: the advocate, the community-minded and the sportsperson

ABSTRACT Research question Sport volunteering can be a valued and meaningful way to engage in sport beyond participation, but sport volunteers lack diversity in the UK. Specifically, there has been a lack of insight into experiences and identities of LGBT+ volunteers in sport. Therefore, this research explores how LGBT+ volunteers construct, negotiate and manage their identities over time and through the use of personas. Research methods Using identity work as a theoretical lens and from a social constructionist perspective, this study employs topical life history interviews of 16 sexually diverse sport volunteers to explore identity work strategies adopted by participants to navigate their volunteer experiences. Results and findings Using constructivist grounded theory analysis, the study identifies three personas (1) advocate, (2) community-minded and (3) sportsperson – through which identity processes are expressed, illustrating the shifts in these personas as participants navigate their volunteer experiences. Implications By acknowledging the fluidity of identity processes and the influence of socio-political contexts, sport organisations can create more inclusive environments that accommodate the varying needs of LGBT+ volunteers. Theoretically, the study contributes to the broader discourse on identity work by demonstrating how personas emerge as outcomes of this work and how they are sustained over time, offering a nuanced understanding of identity processes within sport volunteering.

Communities in Coworking Spaces: Boundary Work and Social Identity Work by Community Managers

AbstractThe use of coworking spaces – flexible, shared workplaces for mobile knowledge workers – has gained popularity among entrepreneurs, small‐business owners, and freelancers over the last decade. Coworking spaces shape a social setting for a community, within which mobile knowledge workers can network, collaborate, and share ideas. This study adopts a social‐symbolic work perspective to explore how founders and community managers create and curate the communities in their coworking spaces. Based on qualitative data gathered from 16 coworking spaces, we elaborate on how founders and community managers can integrate boundary work and social identity work in their social‐symbolic work practices to create a sense of community.

Identity work responses to workplace stigmatization: Power positions, authenticity, religious coping and religious accommodation for skilled practising Muslim professionals

AbstractDespite the challenges Muslims face because of their stigmatized religious identity, little is known about how they navigate that identity in the workplace. Adopting an interpretivist perspective of identity work, this study investigates this issue by building on two‐round in‐depth interviews (35 in round‐one and 21 in round‐two) with skilled practising British Muslim professionals. It extends work on power positions to show the privileges those in senior managerial positions have, including assertiveness and control over workplace interactions and outcomes. It further advances understanding of authenticity, revealing that, despite their experiences of stigmatization, these professionals tend to remain true to their religious identity, openly practising their religion in the workplace. They perceive identity re‐interpretation to be part of authenticity, and a responsibility to contest religious stigma. Importantly, this study conceptualizes proactive religious coping as an identity work response to workplace stigmatization, theorized in this organizational context as turning to God and religious rituals for meaning, comfort, resilience and reconciliation, whilst also being proactive and fighting to challenge experiences of stigmatization. However, unlike for other stigmatized groups, inclusive organizational practices, particularly religious accommodation, are not a driver for authenticity, but rather a signal for environment‐fit and authenticity is instead driven by religious identity.

Mission (im)possible – le traducteur en tant qu’ambassadeur de l’art

This article introduces the translator involved in the translation of art titles and art albums as an ambassador for art. Given the role of painting titles in the process of interpreting a work of art, but also in identifying it from other art products, the translator, as the artist’s spokesperson, has to perform a number of actions to enable the correct interpretation and identification of the work in the target culture. This is a very arduous and responsible task, which is particularly difficult in times of new media and the unlimited possibilities of digital reproduction and distribution of cultural goods. Based on the examples of translations of the titles of paintings by selected French painters published in Polish-language albums, the author shows the translator’s responsibility for the promotion and, above all, for the protection of the identity and integrity of works of art, especially those that belong to the public domain and are therefore deprived of proper protection.

“Muchakang Pangkalawakan”: Queering Engagements with Bakla of the Philippine Tropics

The performance of participants in the Miss Gay Muchakang Pangkalawan [Miss Ugly Gay Universe] in Quiapo, Manila, reflects characteristics of the flamboyant and effeminate bakla. However, these stereotypical depictions may not always be consistent with how participants view themselves. This study argues that an introspective understanding of how participants make sense of their identity work engendered by ever-turning tropes reveals slippages that can liberate them from existing oppressive stereotypes. By utilizing personal narrative and ethnographic reflexivity, this study deconstructs the participants’ performances, revealing identity-making that may reinforce or resist dominant discourses on the bakla under which these narratives are produced. Taking into consideration the deep affectional connections and intersubjectivity among bakla, the study contends that the obscure pageants of the “ugly” are not merely sites of gender self-discovery and contesting of local stereotypes but are also queer tropical arenas that resist hegemonic views.

Mod Installation as Reclaiming Representational Diversity: The Role of Aesthetic Agency in Stardew Valley

Media (e.g., film) are often designed around cisgender, heternormative logics and are not representative of the multiplicity of identities and identity expressions that exist in the world. Thus, media impedes the identity expression and performance of the communities who use them, as we do not see many parts of our identities represented or find that our identities are misrepresented. Video games, which are a genre of media, are especially problematic in how they perpetuate heteronormative normative logics. Unlike most media, however, video games give people agency over the aesthetics of game worlds--the characters and narratives--through the installation of mods. We conducted a content analysis coupled with a triangulation of mods through personal experience focused on the widely popular farming simulation game Stardew Valley. Drawing on a conceptual lens bringing together theories of identity and aesthetic agency, we highlight how the aesthetic agency afforded by mod installation provides opportunities for reclaiming representational diversity in game worlds along the following dimensions: sex and intimacy, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and body diversity. We discuss the implications of mod installation, exploring its potential relationship with identity work and identity play. We then propose design guidelines for achieving aesthetic alignment.

Utilizing the Advantages of Ideological and Political Work of Party Building to Promote Cultural Construction of State-owned Enterprises

At present, with the continuous changes in the global economic situation and fierce market competition, state-owned enterprises, as an important pillar of the national economy, are facing the challenge of accelerating transformation and upgrading, and constantly innovating and developing. Playing the advantages of ideological and political work of party building can activate the endogenous power of the development of state-owned enterprises, and further promote the better and faster development of state-owned enterprises. Party building work and enterprise culture construction have the role of mutual promotion and facilitation, play a good party building ideological and political work advantages, help to improve the ideological understanding of enterprise staff, promote the formation of excellent enterprise culture in line with the actual development of the enterprise, help to enhance the sense of responsibility and sense of identity of state-owned enterprise workers, further focus on the center, serve the overall situation, and promote the high-quality development of state-owned enterprises.

"Accepting the Poem of Destiny": Identity Reconstruction in a Chinese Online Depression Community.

As online health communities become important platforms for people with depression to express themselves, digital narratives provide a lens for understanding their identity work. Drawing on the communication theory of identity (CTI), this article explored the members' identity reconstruction by analyzing their narratives posted in a Chinese online depression community. The four levels of identities constructed by the members include "laggard" and "pioneer" at the personal layer, "idler" and "fighter" at the enacted level, "stress-maker" and "escaper" at the relational layer, and support providers and receivers at the communal layer. These identities at different levels usually interact in the narratives, showing that identity gaps exist among the members. The study shows that the members' autobiographical accounts of depression entail multiplicities and ambivalences, denying the dominant and stigmatizing representation of it by common sense and the media as a reductionist downward and one-way experience that is valueless and offers no possibility for personal growth. The findings regarding the communal level of identity show that narratives can help the narrators to create bonds of solidarity of an experience that is often marginalized.

Black excellence: the affective experiences of Black working-class young people in an English secondary school

ABSTRACT Affect and habitus are used in the paper to harness the intermingling of race and class in the young people’s everyday identity practices at school, as they aspire to embody ‘Black excellence’. This paper draws on ethnographic data collected with working-class Black-British young people aged between 16 and 18. Through the careful management of identity and reputation, the young people in this paper negotiate affective struggles to attain and secure a high academic status within a deeply neoliberalised school context. The paper argues that the identity discourse of ‘Black excellence’ connects dimensions of class and race in the young people’s identity work. Black excellence is described as classed and racialised reflexivity which helped the young people pivot their identity as they sought to maximise their educational opportunities to transition into elite universities.

Research on the impact of land transfer out on the citizenship identity of migrant workers: evidence from China

Enhancing the citizenship identity (CI) of migrant workers (MW) is a crucial avenue for fostering the development of new urbanization. This paper, based on data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), examines the impact and mechanisms of land transfer out (LTO) on the CI of MW. The study finds that LTO significantly promotes the CI of MW. After addressing endogeneity issues and performing robustness checks, the conclusions remain significantly valid. Mechanism tests reveal that LTO can notably increase the degree of family reunification and boost total household income, both of which substantially elevate the CI of MW.

“I’m a Monster, but I’m Not a Monster”: Symbolic and Social Identity Work Among Child Sexual Exploitation Material Users

Child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) users elicit strong negative reactions from society and people within their networks. There are symbolic and social boundaries that these individuals have transgressed, and subsequent identity work involves the negotiation of self and self-presentation. This article combines results from two studies to explore negotiation of identity, symbolic and social boundaries, and associated narratives among 103 CSEM users. One study was an anthropological ethnography with 17 months of UK fieldwork in community-based group programs, and the other involved four months of interviews in sexual offense treatment units of a US prison. Participants’ identity work had commonalities: distinguishing between acts vs identities; differentiating crimes from identities; comparing offenses to others viewed as worse; framing childhood experiences as influencing offending; and situating both offending and post-offending identities within larger society. Results are discussed in the context of debates about risk, treatment, prevention, harm, denial/downplay/minimization, and reintegration. Furthermore, we highlight how identity work occurs within potentially competing/contrasting personal, judicial, treatment, media, and societal reactions to and expectations of individuals who have committed sexual offenses. Finally, we demonstrate the methodological and analytical value of cross-disciplinary comparative qualitative research by showing similarities across participants from different countries, settings, timeframes, and interventions.

A THEORETICAL MODEL OF STUDENT LEARNING IN AN ACADEMIC SERVICE-LEARNING COURSE: DIVERSITY AND CIVIC OUTCOMES

A qualitative-quantitative mixed-methods longitudinal research study was conducted to measure differences in civic and diversity outcomes in a cross-sectional sample of 138 undergraduate students. The quantitative results indicate that students improve their social justice attitudes, awareness of White racial privilege, racial-cultural-ethnic identity, and interests in multicultural work from the beginning of the semester. The qualitative findings replicate and extend the quantitative results. Career development and opportunities for growth were detected as unexpected themes that emerged from the data. The use of the mixed-methods approach provided an opportunity to conceptualize how students reformulate their diversity attitudes and acquire civic skills in an academic service-learning course. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0799/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

‘Re-coupling site’ of social media and the workplace in digital nomadism: Chinese female workers’ self-produced vlogs with class and gender connotations

ABSTRACT We observe that a new, minor genre of resistance has emerged among female worker vloggers. Whether working in manufacturing plants or on construction sites, these female worker vloggers actively produce videos about the laughter and tears of their work lives. Their workplaces constitute the central source of their daily vlog production. We develop a concept of ‘re-coupling site’ to explore how these female vloggers transform conventional workplaces into novel digital sites, simultaneously turning themselves into digital laborers, to articulate their voices, perform their work identities, and enact their daily resistance. This concept helps induce a new interpretation of place and placed experience to fashion our understanding of working-class digital nomadism in the Global South context, where digital and cultural production can happen at work. Perhaps more importantly, the class and gender experiences articulated in their vlogs have been translated into collective practices that potentially foreground the formation of class-based online communities.

Beyond the academic imposter syndrome: A feminist relational discourse analysis of accounts of (un)belonging from UK working-class women academics

ABSTRACT Previous research utilised discourse analysis to explore institutional ideal worker discourse to find that it shapes (un)belonging and shores up an unequal and stratified academy via intersecting classed and gendered discourse. This paper develops this work by utilising Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis (FRDA) on interview data from 12, one-to-one semi-structured interviews with working-class women academics employed in UK Higher Education institutions. This analysis, first, identified a dominant discourse; ‘being a fish out of water’ that drew on a contemporary iteration of the ‘psy complex’ construction of the ‘imposter syndrome’ to obscure systems of power underpinned by gendered and classed portrayals of who embodies the ideal academic. Second, the analysis produced I Poems which uncovered hidden accounts of how this dominant discourse silences via a coupling with sufficient/deficient academic discourse to individualise – and make private – shameful and painful emotional experiences of unbelonging. Conversely, simultaneously voiced accounts attempted to resist and rally against individualised deficient constructions. This study evidences the utility of FRDA to uncover the unheard and silenced voiced accounts that are intimately connected to discursive systems of gendered and classed power, while illuminating counter-narratives that challenge individualised discourse of inequalities to claim rightful citizenship in the UK Academy.

Salesperson intra-career mobility perceptions: Exploring the role of professional versus organizational identities

Salesperson career paths have evolved from traditional to boundaryless models, as salespeople are moving between sales organizations with greater frequency. In this new landscape, it is crucial to consider how salespeople’s perceptions of their employers and the sales profession impact their mobility. While previous research has focused on salesperson identification with their organization, identification with the profession remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 57 sales professionals to better understand their work identities. They offer a theoretical model illustrating how professional and organizational identities become more or less salient, influencing intra-career mobility (i.e., job movement within the sales profession). When salespeople experienced a mismatch between their work realities and desired identities, they redefined their sales roles around a core work value. This process shifted their focus towards their professional identity over their organizational identity, affecting their perceptions of mobility within the sales profession.

The mobilisation of self-created workplace artifacts for management accountants’ identity work

This paper investigates how self-created workplace artifacts complement management accountants’ identity work towards managers. Analysing qualitative data collected in three organisations, I illustrate how self-created artifacts can support management accountants in establishing identity-compatible interactions with managers through (1) mediating interactions and (2) formalising the division of tasks. Moreover, I suggest that producing artifacts that are both occupations-generic and speaking (Cacciatori, 2012) can support management accountants in establishing identity-compatible interactions. By introducing self-created artifacts as an additional resource for identity work, this paper nuances our knowledge of how management accountants navigate towards the achievement of (fragile) identity aspirations. Moreover, it improves our understanding of the dynamics between workplace artifacts and management accountants’ identity (work), emphasising how artifacts can play a central and active role in this regard.

Revisiting the gendered ideal worker norm: An ethnography in Chinese non-governmental organizations

ABSTRACT This study revisits the concept of the “ideal worker,” situating it within the context of the re-traditionalization of Chinese gender relations and the contemporary landscape of Chinese NGOs, thereby offering novel insights into the gendered division of labor. The study provides a critical analysis of the feminization of Chinese NGOs, challenging the notion that it represents a progressive social movement. Instead, this study reveals how this trend inadvertently reinforces the intertwined structures of organizational dynamics and gender relations. This study also explores how demanding and low-paid work environments in Chinese NGOs create an imbalance between family and work responsibilities leading to the emergence of “ideal worker” archetypes that represent employees who dedicate long hours to work, with family responsibilities taking a secondary role. These archetypes, embodied by both men and women in actual work settings, are subject to markedly different societal evaluations. While the man ideal worker is often celebrated and rewarded, the woman ideal worker faces criticism for her non-traditional, feminist lifestyle choices. Overall, the study empirically demonstrates the unique formation of the gendered ideal worker in Chinese NGOs and illustrates how gendered norms are perpetuated in both professional and domestic settings.

Family intergenerational stress: Concept exploration and development via coping and identity management.

The sandwich generation faces dual responsibilities of supporting parents and raising children, resulting in heightened levels of stress and negative work-related outcomes. Despite a wealth of research on the sandwich generation, few studies have examined the specific nature of the multigenerational needs of the sandwich generation. Accordingly, we introduce a new concept termed family intergenerational stress (FIS), which refers to the interaction and integration of stresses from elder caregiving, child-rearing, and associated challenges with self-definition. Through the lens of FIS, we collected interview data from 137 sandwich generation employees, secondary network data, and field observation data from 21 employees. We further used grounded theory to explore employees' stress and coping responses to dual family responsibilities. Findings indicate that employees with both elder caregiving and child-rearing responsibilities experience FIS. This, in turn, threatens their identity as an ideal worker and is associated with lower work engagement. Findings further reveal that in coping with FIS, employees adopt different identity-based strategies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of social identity in a suicide prevention programme for construction workers in Australia.

Each year, more than 700 000 people die by suicide globally, the majority of whom are men. The United Nations and World Health Organization have set targets to reduce suicide rates by one-third by 2030. While large-scale suicide prevention programmes are required to meet these targets, diffusion of these types of initiatives is difficult-particularly with male populations. This qualitative study investigated the MATES in Construction suicide prevention programme in Australia. Guided by Social Identity Theory and the Social Identity Model for Collective Action, the study aimed to understand why construction workers chose to volunteer and advocate for industry-based suicide prevention programmes, and how their worker identity, solidarity and relationships impacted their volunteering and advocacy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 participants who had chosen to engage with MATES as volunteers. Data were interpreted using a reflexive approach to thematic analysis, and four themes were constructed from the data relating to feelings of belonging, connection and solidarity between workers and their industry; how specific context and roles impacted identity while existing within an overall sense of identity and solidarity; how industry mateship supported engagement in suicide prevention; and how the role of lived experience, mateship and responsibility provided hope for change. Providing intervention skills to workers, particularly workers with a lived experience of mental ill-health, empowered them to believe that they could make a difference by acting collectively. The MATES engagement model described in this study may have applications for other health promotion prevention programmes targeting male cultures.