Construction Of Individual Identities Research Articles

“Appointment” and Spontaneous Field Situations: Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Hungarian Communities of American Industrial Towns and Mining Settlements

Abstract To create context, the study first recounts, in a nutshell, the emigration history of Hungarian Americans and the main features of their American integration. In addition to discussing the specific fieldwork goals and experiences, the article seeks to present the theoretical background of the fieldwork concept of the research. The author began his research in the United States in 2006, where he has been regularly returning to conduct ethnographic fieldwork ever since. From the great emigration wave that began at the end of the nineteenth century up until today, he examines the history, institutional networks, and socio-ethnographic aspects of Hungarian communities on the East Coast and in the Midwest, including acculturation, identity change, and contacts with the homeland. When developing his fieldwork concept, for his guiding principle he chose to combine the individual identity construction model with capsule theory. Hungarian American emigrants who have been forced to switch cultures have been living their lives in a “time and mentality capsule”. The part brought from the old country resides inside the capsule, while everything outside is part of the new environment. This duality can be complemented by the potential role of the local community, which directly surrounds the individual in the alien new country. Examination of this particular capsule is only possible in the field. In the course of fieldwork, the main question becomes: to what extent do the adopted patterns of behavior, the desire to meet American social expectations, and the efforts that are internally controlled and realized, allow a look into these capsules? Such fieldwork is characterized by a duality of scheduled appointments pre-arranged with prospective informants, and spontaneous field situations. In the Hungarian communities of industrial towns, fieldwork consisted predominantly (almost exclusively) of the “appointment” type of data collection, while in the case of former mining settlements on the brink of extinction, spontaneously developing ethnographic data collection was more typical. Participation in events linked to dates and venues, data collecting at these occasions, and getting acquainted with event participants for later interviewing is the third option besides the fieldwork situations mentioned above. Finally, the paper attempts to demonstrate through several examples of the ways in which fieldwork can enrich the information gained from documents with additional data, tangible memorabilia, and the memories related to them.

Dyskursywne (re)konstruowanie charyzmy. Przypadek Lecha Wałęsy

The paper analyzes the discursive reconstruction of L. Wałęsa’s charisma by the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in response to S. Cenckiewicz and P. Gontarczyk’s book entitled SB a Lech Wałęsa. Przyczynek do biografii [The secret police and Lech Wałęsa. Addendum to a biography]. The paper uses the methodology of interpretative research which emphasizes the role of meaning for the social and political construction of reality. Inspired by the theoretical and methodological proposals of discourse analysis it examines the mechanisms used to reconstruct Lech Wałęsa’s charismatic identity in response to a book that undermines his social image. These attempts also involve the construction of individual identity, in the case under analysis, the identity of historians and authors of the book who are responsible for undermining this image. Therefore, the paper also attempts to analyze media representations of S. Cenckiewicz and P. Gontarczyk. Attention is primarily focused on the key actors, on the features attributed to them and related argumentative strategies understood as a more or less intentional plan of discursive practices adopted in order to achieve defined social, political, linguistic or psychological purposes.

Diseño, identidad e ideología: el diseño como discurso

Este artículo de análisis o reflexión pretende exponer las relaciones existentes entre identidad, ideología y productos de diseño, estableciendo que en estos subyacen rasgos que permiten develar estructuras ideológicas y de identidad. En primer lugar, se definen las dinámicas propias de la construcción de identidad individual. Luego, se expone cómo estas identidades participan en la definición de estructuras ideológicas, se establecen las formas cómo dichas estructuras, que tienen un sentido social, recurren al discurso como aparato de representación y negociación. Por último, se devela cómo los productos de diseño poseen características que los definen como discurso y, por ende, poseen propiedades y estructuras similares a las de los discursos lingüísticos.

Teenagers, Fandom and Identity

<p>This paper analyses collective and individual identity construction processes in adolescent fan communities mediated by multimodal discourse. Our approach is supported by ethnographic work with teenage girls belonging to music communities built around One Direction and Justin Bieber, and rooted in participant observation. Firstly, we will show how participating in communities of practice, undertaking tasks which give meaning to group activities, contributes to the construction of a social and cultural identity supported by the interpretation, production and dissemination of texts. Secondly, we will examine how subjective and personal identities related to feelings, emotions and situations of support are also built by the fan community.</p><div class="grammarly-disable-indicator"> </div><div class="grammarly-disable-indicator"> </div><div class="grammarly-disable-indicator"> </div>

Euroopa-ihalusest taasiseseisvusperioodi autobiograafiates / European Identifications in Post-Soviet Estonian Life Writing

Teesid: Artikkel käsitleb Euroopat kui identiteedi ja minaduse sõlmpunkti ja enesevahenduse mõõdet kolmes omaelulookirjutuslikus teoses, mille autoritel on väljapaistev positsioon eesti (kirjandus)kultuuris: Jaan Krossi „Kallid kaasteelised“ (2003a, 2008), Jaan Kaplinski „Isale“ (2003) ja Tõnu Õnnepalu „Flandria päevik“ (2007). Artikkel keskendub sellele, kuidas küsimused suhestumise trajektooridest Euroopa mäluruumiga haakuvad Krossi, Kaplinski ja Õnnepalu teostes esiletuleva enesemääratlusliku raamiga, neist lähtuvate vastastikuse kõnetuse võimaluste ja oma aegruumi tunnetuse pidepunktidega. Kuigi tegemist on eesti keeles ilmunud ning eesti kultuuriruumi lugejale suunatud teostega, seostuvad neis väljajoonistuvad enesemääratluse teljed viimastel aastakümnetel hoogustunud laiemate aruteludega ühtse Euroopa mäluraami ning identiteedi võimalikkusest ja selle toimimise tingimustest. In recent years, the question of the possibility of a shared frame of memory and identity in Europe, its desired manifestations and practices for attaining it as well as its obstacles and limitations to it have gained prominence in scholarly debates in a number of disciplines. In terms of the division between the East and West of Europe, these discussions take as their starting point the collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 as well as the European Union enlargement in 2004. Far from uniform, the exceedingly complex and contrasting ranges of arguments have put forward a varied palette of perspectives and suggestions about possible and desirable implications of Europe in different socio-political and cultural configurations. Taking these debates as my starting point, the current article offers an analysis of three life writing works by contemporary Estonian authors and intellectuals, Kallid kaasteelised (Dear Fellow Travellers, 2003, 2008) by Jaan Kross, Isale (To My Father, 2003) by Jaan Kaplinski and Flandria päevik (The Flemish Diary, 2007) by Tõnu Õnnepalu where Europe emerges as a noteworthy if not central aspect of construction of subjectivity and processes of identity/identification. Written in Estonian and therefore not accessible for wider international readership, these life writing works can nevertheless be viewed as negotiating for a position within the space of European memory and narration but also challenging it by asking how and by whom does the conditioning of the shared and the recognition of the specific take place and to what extent does it proceed along the (old) binaries of centre/margin, self/other, East/West. The anecdotal structure of Kross’ monumental and canonic memoir follows the lives of a great number of the author’s ‘fellow travellers’. Although many life stories are narrated primarily in relation to Estonian history, Kross also makes a consistent and self-conscious effort to envision a wider space of existence, most importantly, that of a European space of human agency and interaction. Dear Fellow Travellers proposes a (textual) configuration of Europeanness where the narrating subject is self-conscious both of its authoritative identity-forming position and the limits of that authority that inevitably erode that identity and metaphorically leave open a space of narration for the other. In Jaan Kaplinski’s confessional epistolary address to the author’s Polish father who died in the Gulag shortly after the birth of his son and in Õnnepalu’s semi-fictional diaristic text emerging from an obligation to write during a stay in a writers’ residence in Belgium in Vollezele, the question of subjectivity and (European) identity do not unravel primarily via an emphasis on the ruptures of the period of occupation. Instead, these works engage with questions of Europeanness on a larger and also more volatile frame of the politics of positioning in the contemporary relating to questions of cultural diversity, the local/global relationship and Europe’s simultaneously tight and leaky boundaries. In the work of Kaplinski and Õnnepalu, these boundaries are being drawn and dissolved both on the level of sociopolitical and cultural functioning of Europe but sometimes independently of the larger public processes, via processes of the construction of individual identities as well as via acts of communication and interactions with other people.

‘This place feels authentic’: exploring experiences of authenticity of place in relation to the urban built environment in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

Discourses about authenticity of place have gained relevance in recent years and are of increasing importance for urban designers. The paper discusses notions and experiences of authenticity of place in relation to the urban built environment and analyzes concepts of ‘experiential’ authenticity in the form of three key dimensions: the experience of origins, the experience of continuity, and the experience of potentiality and actuality. Drawing on qualitative informant interviews in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham (UK), the paper examines how business representatives experienced authenticity of place in relation to architecture and urban design, with a particular focus on individual identity constructions.

Ethnic African Media in Western Europe: An exploratory analysis of Metro Eireann and The African Bulletin newspapers

This study sets out to analyse the role of ethnic media in the lives of their audiences, with particular focus on news production, content and reception. In recent years there has been an increase in African ethnic media publications in Western Europe as an alternative platform for a distinct, ethnic and niche audience in a diaspora context. Yet relatively little is known about the way in which the media practitioners and audiences perceive the role of these ethnic media in the articulation and re-articulation of collective identities. Academic assertions in this regard remain by and large theoretical and at a surface level. Very few studies have empirically investigated the perceptions of the journalists, owners and audiences of these ethnic media. A number of issues have thus remained under-explored, such as the link between media consumption and the construction of individual identities. This study identifies and examines these issues through case study of two African ethnic newspapers, Metro Eireann in Ireland and The African Bulletin in Belgium. It explores the views of the newspaper owners and journalists, how they are translated into newspaper content, and how the content and goals of the newspapers are perceived by the audiences. The study has a multi-methodological design. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis is combined with in-depth interviews with owners and journalists, and surveys and focus-group interviews with audience members. This enables comparative analysis of the views of content producers, the translation of these into actual content, and the interpretation of this content by audiences. The main research findings concern issues around professional practice. Ownership in ethnic media in Ireland and Belgium is mostly restricted to individuals, unlike in the mainstream media. Immigration issues dominate the content of Metro Eireann , in Ireland while African-origin news dominates that of The African Bulletin in Belgium. However, all respondents use ethnic media as a supplement to mainstream media. Key words : Journalism, Ethnic Media, Identity, Diaspora

Visible lesbians and invisible bisexuals: Appearance and visual identities among bisexual women

A number of feminist scholars have argued that dress and appearance can be used to critique the dominant culture and explore alternative subjectivities. Research on non-heterosexual visual identities has explored the role that appearance and clothing practices can play in the construction of individual identities and collective communities. However, bisexual women are largely invisible in these discussions. The minimal existing research suggests that bisexual women are unable to communicate their sexuality through their clothing and appearance. This study explored how bisexual women manage their bodies and appearance in relation to their bisexuality. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 self-identified bisexual women and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The participants reported particular visual aesthetics associated with an embodied lesbian identity; however, they reported no visual image of bisexual women. Nonetheless, despite their lack of access to a distinct visual identity, the women negotiated ways in which to incorporate their bisexual identity into their dress and appearance, and considered their bisexuality an important aspect of their identity, which they would like to be recognised and acknowledged.

Literacy Sponsorship of the “My Online Friends” Discussion Board: Competing and Complementary Relationships

• I examine the commercial and religious sponsors of a women's discussion board. • Intersections among sponsors affected group and individual identity construction. • Women changed commercial sponsors to allow for religious and relational literacies. • Women adopted subject positions initially provided by commercial sponsors. • Relationships among sponsors can motivate changes in online reading and writing. This article argues that we need to consider the complementary and competing relationships among the multiple types of sponsors of digital literacies. As we explore not just what people are reading and writing online, but also what sponsors fuel their motivations for doing so, we will have a better understanding of the constraints that accompany specific digital literacy opportunities, as well as what motivates individuals or groups to change their online reading and writing given these constraints. In this article, I discuss the relationships among the three commercial sponsors and one religious sponsor of the “My Online Friends” (MOF) discussion board, a group composed of approximately 120 women who are all members of the LDS, or Mormon, church. On the MOF discussion board, intersections among sponsors affect the women's establishment of group and individual identities and their use of relational literacy. In response to commercial sponsors’ coding and rules of use, which constrained the MOF women's religious and individual identity construction, the MOF women acted to change the commercial sponsorship of their spaces, yet they also adopted subject positions initially provided by commercial sponsors.

Voces canónicas y miradas inocentes: definiendo el Norte cinematográfico

In the young Nordic countries, where nature clearly predominates over monuments, the first scripts were sought from among the canonical literary texts of their various languages, on the assumption that literature had already inscribed the social development of the countries concerned. Well into the 20th century, when their cultural identities had been defined, film directors turned to the construction of individual identities, hence choosing children and adolescents as their preferred protagonists. In the last third of the century, aided by the corresponding Film Academies, many women embarked on careers as directors. A number of them are discussed here, together with their most significant films. Particular attention is paid to Mai Zetterling and Liv Ullmann, however, since they were not only fundamental for their own countries, Sweden and Norway respectively, but for the history of cinema in general.

‘Jeesis is alive! He is the King of Australia’: segregated religious instruction, child identity and exclusion

Religious categorisation occurs at enrolment in Australian state-run (public) primary schools, with children segregated into religious instruction classes during their first week. Lesson content has no government oversight and, in some schools, options are limited to Christianity. The effect of this categorisation on children’s attitudes to religious diversity is not well researched but the role of religion in public schools is increasingly controversial. Social identity theory (SIT) considers cultural hegemony as a factor in individual identity construction. SIT posits that inter-group bias increases with in-group identification and suggests that categorisation itself is a source of prejudice. This paper explores the implications of SIT in the development of children’s strength of religious identity. An exploratory study suggests that a Christian emphasis at school may influence a child’s tendency to exclude those with different beliefs.

The Bohemian Curriculum: Expanding Consciousness, Evolving Culture

Through an exploration of bohemian character and ideology, I examine the relationship between the construction of individual identity and an individual’s membership in multiple cultural groups. In particular, I examine a theory of cultural association that positions the individual within nested and overlapping cultures, where identity and self-narrative are defined in relation to cultural normativities. I assert that it is this position amongst various cultures that enables individuals to critically examine and broker juxtaposing normativities, a process with the potential to push individuals to rewrite their self-narratives and expand consciousness. But bohemians go further––they outwardly express their opposition of mainstream culture and publicize their self-narratives. By engaging in a community of creative minds, these ‘outsiders’ contribute in unique ways to the evolution of culture by challenging social affordances and pushing social limitations. Drawing upon the lessons learned from bohemianism, the paper concludes with an explicit link to education. Specifically, the bohemian curriculum calls for a pedagogy that allows for the brokering of normativities within a safe and compassionate learning space that embraces unique learning at both individual and collective levels.

Maternalismo, identidad colectiva y participación política: las Madres de Plaza de Mayo

Latin-american women inclusion in social and political movements during 20th century was mainly founded in their mothers' condition, their claims were based in their families protection and care. In this article we analyze the Madres de Plaza de Mayo movement, which was meant to reach justice for daughters and sons disappeared during military dictatorship in Argentina, and we conceive it as a social sphere for women's citizenship construction under maternal feminism theoretical basis. At the same time, discourses and accounts from women who participated in that movement are considered for analyzing collective and individual identity construction based on their participation in public and political sphere as well as the re-signifi cation of their mothers' condition since their movement enrollment.

"I want to be like you": Riffs on Kipling in Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

This article explores the intertextual relationship between Neil Gaiman and Rudyard Kipling. Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (2008) adapts or "riffs" on Kipling's two Jungle Books (1894-5) complicating Kipling's conventional representations of good and evil, as well as his construction of individual identity. In exchange, Gaiman reads Kipling back to a contemporary audience, resurrecting him from the graveyard of Empire. By transforming Kipling's Victorian jungle into a Victorian graveyard set in the middle of 21 st century England, Gaiman re-contextualizes Kipling's value-system, suggesting to contemporary readers how we might now read or re-read Kipling while re-negotiating his imperialist politics.

Enterprising health

This paper seeks to investigate conditions under which entrepreneurs emerge as agents of effective and sustainable change in UK National Health Service Trusts. The research synthesises literature on changing regulatory structures ("post-bureaucracy") and entrepreneurial behaviour to understand how individual identity construction is informed both by context and by individual attributes. Thematic analysis of interview data involving managers from 11 NHS Trusts, including detailed analysis of six transcripts, focuses on regulatory processes, the emergence of entrepreneurial behaviour and outcome variations in workplace innovation and improvement. This study identifies co-existing modes of regulation, which interact with individual behaviour, generating strategies differentiated as entrepreneurial or conformist. Four ideal types are identified: organisational entrepreneurship, resisted or dissonant entrepreneurship, conformity, and symbolic entrepreneurship. Analysis reinforces those literature findings, which suggest that the interaction of regulatory structures and the identity work of individuals influence the emergence of entrepreneurial behaviour and the effectiveness of change. The ability to achieve effective and sustainable outcomes varies considerably even between NHS Trusts faced with comparable challenges in implementing nationally prescribed targets. This variance is explained in terms of the organisation's ability to generate the structures, processes, individual competence and motivation which enable employees at all levels to act entrepreneurially with the ability and legitimacy to achieve strategic goals by working creatively in the spaces between formal organisational structures. The study identifies specific conditions, which stimulate the emergence of entrepreneurs as agents of effective and sustainable change in the NHS, identifying factors that policymakers should consider when implementing change.

Synergy between information and communications technologies and educational action research and collaborative construction of our active identities

Bridget Somekh’s contributions to the debate on the theory and practice of action research and associated methodologies have often been gained through leadership of innovative action and research with computers in education. A review of her work provides evidence of the journey that starts with an appreciation of the wonders of technology before moving through critical reflection on socio‐cultural processes within and across organisations, and out into twenty‐first‐century knowledge generation. This paper argues that recognition of the construction of individual identities can inform innovation with computers in education. The growing maturity of Bridget’s views required increasingly complex designs for ambitious action research projects that aimed to empower and add the voices of children as researchers to those of teacher‐researchers. Perhaps most importantly, Bridget has helped to uncover the socio‐cultural processes and power relationships to empower new styles of collaborative leadership. In 2009, she applied her ‘art of innovation’ to inform the birth of a new regional network for the Collaborative Action and Research Network, namely the New Zealand Collaborative Action and Research Network.

"Would Not Open Lip from Lip": Sacred Orality and the Christian Grotesque in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"

"Would Not Open Lip from Lip":Sacred Orality and the Christian Grotesque in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market" Heather McAlpine (bio) Given the abundance of feminist and psychoanalytic readings of "Goblin Market," it is surprising how few scholars have explored the poem's wealth of grotesque imagery. Kathryn Burlinson comes close to engaging with the poem's grotesque aspects in her remarks on its "emphasis on carnality, orality and appetite" (292), but this is only as an introduction to her discussion of "grotesque and abjected bodies" in Rossetti's Speaking Likenesses. Marylu Hill, meanwhile, examines Rossetti's representation of the body in "Goblin Market" as "the concrete conduit through which humans understand God" (456), but her argument focuses on demonstrating this concept's origins in Augustinian and Tractarian understandings of Eucharistic doctrine. Still, Burlinson's article is important for its illumination of Rossetti's general preoccupation with the limits of the body, while Hill's points to the possibility that Rossetti envisioned the mouth as a sacred threshold. Seeing, hearing, speaking, and eating are activities fraught with potential danger in Rossetti's poetry and prose: for Rossetti, as for theorists Mikhail Bakhtin, John Ruskin, David Williams, and Julia Kristeva, the eyes, nose, ears, and, especially, the mouth are points at which the self and the world interpenetrate. As the locus of both speech and consumption, the mouth plays "a leading role" (Bakhtin 325) in these theories of the grotesque, and, as I will demonstrate, it is also a central image in "Goblin Market." Oral imagery in "Goblin Market" embodies an extraordinary interchange of the grotesque and the sacred by emphasizing the importance of closing the body to the temptations of the flesh, while simultaneously celebrating the interpenetration of the self and physical manifestations of the divine, especially in the Eucharist. This sacred orality forms a key feature of what I term Rossetti's "Christian grotesque": paradoxically, as Laura's saving feast on Lizzie's body demonstrates, the very site that admits sin is also the point of redemption. Moreover, as both Laura's feast and the rite it alludes to demonstrate, the vehicle of that redemption—the consumption of another's body—is itself both sacred and grotesque. While for Bakhtin the grotesque represents a triumphant erasure of limitations and hierarchies, Ruskin, Williams, and Kristeva view anal and oral permeability as threatening the boundaries of the "clean and proper body" (Kristeva 72). These theorists all identify the mouth as a key point at which the [End Page 114] self merges physically with the world outside its corporeal boundaries. Because official Western culture constructs the self as a physical unit distinct from all other objects, the mouth represents the threat of that self 's dis-integration. As the gateway through which foreign objects enter the body, the mouth erases the boundaries of the self, rendering it indistinct from other objects. Bakhtin views this process positively, as the enlarging and exalting of the self, while Ruskin, Williams, and Kristeva are alert to the problems that a shifting and boundless model of the self poses to the construction of individual identity. However, Williams's grounding of his discussion in the context of Christian theology invites a re-examination of the grotesque's applicability to notions of physicality in Christian belief and ritual, especially the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist. Indeed, Rossetti's preoccupation with the boundaries of the body in her devotional prose demonstrates that the discourses of Christian morality and grotesque theory overlap in significant ways. And, as "Goblin Market"'s two pivotal scenes of eating—one sinful and nearly fatal, the other saving—illustrate, orality is the site of both fall and redemption, and Christian salvation may take a form every bit as grotesque as the sin itself. In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin defines the "official" or "canonical" representation of the human body, embraced by the authorities of church and state in Western culture, as "a strictly completed, finished product.... fenced off from all other bodies" (29). This conceptual closing of the body, he argues, marks the process by which individuals are set apart from other bodies and the world: "That which protrudes...

Criminalization and Regulation

This paper treats values, including specifically ‘legal’ and ‘professional’ values, as distinct from the normative standards of legal and professional ethics as commonly understood. It treats values as powerful motivating and aspirational constructs, an important element both of individual identity construction, and of what defines and holds our academic and professional communities together. Values help us to negotiate the complex web of social roles and commitments, and are important in understanding the dynamic way in which lawyers (and others) respond to morally complex or challenging situations.

Promoting Justice after Lisbon: Prospects for a New Philosophy of EU Law

This paper treats values, including specifically ‘legal’ and ‘professional’ values, as distinct from the normative standards of legal and professional ethics as commonly understood. It treats values as powerful motivating and aspirational constructs, an important element both of individual identity construction, and of what defines and holds our academic and professional communities together. Values help us to negotiate the complex web of social roles and commitments, and are important in understanding the dynamic way in which lawyers (and others) respond to morally complex or challenging situations.

Taking values seriously : the democratic intellect and the place of values in the Law School curriculum

This paper treats values, including specifically ‘legal’ and ‘professional’ values, as distinct from the normative standards of legal and professional ethics as commonly understood. It treats values as powerful motivating and aspirational constructs, an important element both of individual identity construction, and of what defines and holds our academic and professional communities together. Values help us to negotiate the complex web of social roles and commitments, and are important in understanding the dynamic way in which lawyers (and others) respond to morally complex or challenging situations. However, the law school has become relatively inhospitable territory for discussions about values and the moral content of law, largely as a consequence of a flawed notion of value-neutrality and a continuing unwillingness to explore the value-laden character of either the formal or hidden curriculum. A solution is proposed that draws on and adapts the notion of the ‘democratic intellect’, a tradition of higher education that emphasises a commitment to civic values, to (applied) philosophical enquiry, and which regards knowledge in itself as a public good. The paper concludes that, while there is still significant theoretical work to be done in mapping legal values, law schools must be more willing to engage in debate about values, to take values positions consistent with their liberal (or ‘post-liberal’) mission, and to engage with the critical issues of curriculum design and learning process that would flow from the decision to take values seriously.