Mechanisms Of Identity Formation Research Articles

THE STRENGTH OF PUSHBACK COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN A FRAGMENTED MASS MOVEMENT*

This article examines how social movement actors can forge and sustain a collective identity despite heterogeneous backgrounds and the absence of pre-existing commonalities and networks. Based on an ethnography of the French yellow vest movement, we build on the concept of reactive identity to describe two key mechanisms. First, we show this movement’s collective identity crystallized through the actors’ shared reactions to the broader sociopolitical environment. Then, we describe how identification processes are reinforced when social movement actors feel rejected, stigmatized, and repressed in their interactions with national institutions, civil society, and individuals. We explain how these mechanisms are useful for understanding the development of collective identities within mass movements, which encompass individuals with various and fragmented identities. Exploring new dimensions of reaction beyond the us-versus-them mechanisms of identity formation, we show how collective identity can coalesce for groups who became stigmatized as they mobilize to oppose their environment.

Специфика функционирования механизма формирования идентичности современной молодежи в условиях изменяющейся социальной реальности

This article offers a look at the process of identity formation of representatives of generations Z (Homelanders) in a modern reading, taking into account such a challenge as a changing social reality. The rapid informatization of society led to the digitization of the social system and the datification of the living space, which, in turn, affected interpersonal interactions and communications which are important for the socialization process. The emerging collapse of social space in its traditional form in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly worsened the present situation. The latter circumstance affected the personal and group identities of the representatives of society. In this regard, the author focuses on the peculiarities of the process of identity formation of young people who are at the stage of primary socialization; specifies the elements of the mechanism of identity formation; offers a conceptual apparatus that allows detailed conceptualization of the observed changes. The author’s theoretical and methodological research is based on a synergetic interdisciplinary paradigm, a phenomenological approach, the theory of generations, publications of Russian sociologists engaged in the study of youth problems through the prism of the concept of uncertainty, nonlinearity and risk in the youth environment (primarily, the works of V. I. Chuprov, Yu. A. Zubok). The article continues the author’s cycle of the publications devoted to the reflection of the categories “liminality”, “liminal identity”, “social singularity”.

Агендерная эстетика: тело не образ, а поток

Статья посвящена анализу агендерной эстетики как постмодернистского проекта по отказу от гендерной идентичности. В статье рассмотрены идейные предпосылки развернувшегося проекта денатурализации человеческого тела, гендера и пола в рамках постструктуралистких исследований. Выявлены аксиологические основания критики традиционного понимания идентичности. Лакан, Кристева, Бодрийяр раскрыли механизм формирования идентичности как искусственной конструкции, закрепленной за телесность. Батлер предложила стратегию ускользания от идентификации, сформулированную в концепции перформативности. Эти идеи нашли свое отражение в институте моды в творчестве дизайнеров, разделяющих постмодернистские ценности. В статье раскрыты механизмы конструирования агендерной телесности модным домом Gucci. В фундаменте агендерной эстетики лежит идея отказа от идентификации и провозглашение тела как уникального единичного бытия, проявляющего себя перформативно. Было выявлено, что художественной задачей агендерной эстетика является развитие визуальной пластичности человеческой телесности. Эксплицированы основные приемы для решения этой задачи: сочетание вещей с идейно противоположными вестиментарными кодами, изъятие элементов одежды с жесткими гендерными коннотациями из привычного контекста и вписывание их в новый визуальный ряд для придания им гендерной нейтральности. Осуществлена проблематизация эстетических оснований агендерного стиля. Исследование позволяет сделать вывод, что постмодернистское переосмысление человеческой телесности не как образа, а как потока, выходят за пределы элитарных практик искусства и становятся актуальными для массового сознания западного человека.

Collaboration and identity formation in strategic interorganizational partnerships: An exploration of swift identity processes

We investigate how collective identity formation processes interplay with collaboration practices in an inter-organizational partnership promoting regional innovation. We found that initial collaboration challenges are dealt with by setting up an early “swift identity” which is associated with material artifacts to increase its strength and stability (“swift identity reification”). However, as the partnership evolves, the reified identity becomes misaligned with partners’ underdeveloped collaboration practices. To ensure realignment, new attempts at reification are performed, as partners buy time for learning how to collaborate. Our findings contribute to extant identity research by proposing alternative (i.e. “swift” and “reified”) mechanisms of identity formation in contexts characterized by both heterogeneity challenges and integration imperatives. They also integrate the debate about the role of identity formation in the evolution of interorganizational partnerships. For both literatures, we highlight the important role of materiality.

ЦЕРКОВНЫЕ ДИСКУРСЫ И ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЬ. ПОТЕНЦИАЛ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ ДИСКУРСИВНЫХ ПОДХОДОВ В СОЦИОЛОГИЧЕСКОМ ИЗУЧЕНИИ РЕЛИГИОЗНЫХ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЕЙ В ХРИСТИАНСКИХ ОБЩИНАХ

The Russian sociology of religion studies religious identity primarily through quantitative features of religiosity. At the same time, researchers pay little attention to the theoretical definition of identity. The article aims to fill this lacuna. Based on discursive approaches, it offers a theoretical description of identity as a linguistic phenomenon. The author relies on the concepts of discourse and identity, proposed in the works of Foucault, Fairclough, Laclau and Mouffe. In the beginning the article gives a general description of the identity understanding of identity within the framework of discursive approaches, and focuses on the following aspects: definition of discourse, mechanisms of identity formation in discourse, role of agency and subjectivity in the process of identity building. Discursive identity is described as open to changes. Further ideas developed within the framework of discursive approaches are used to describe the characteristics of religious identity as discursive. The author shows that the understanding of identity as a linguistic phenomenon moves the research focus from the quantitative description of religiosity to the analysis of various communicative practices existing within Christian communities. That can be as an analysis of sermons, analysis of conversations between members of the community (conversation analysis), and analysis of Christian media

Networking Mechanisms of Identity Formation

Networking Mechanisms of Identity Formation

“IDENTITY” IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

The problem of identity has come to the fore of contemporary societies in the conditions when the institutional structures of these societies their ascriptive statuses have become looser when modernity is “liquid”, “soft”. Varions conceptualizations of identity are becoming a basic part of contemporary sociological theory. The paper aims to reveal the key problems that sociology faces when striving to work out a theory of identity. The paper takes as its starting point the classic notion of identity. This notion was shaped by Erik Erikson on the basis of his dynamic psychology. The paper proves that the contemporary identity is connected with the process of individualization in modern societies. Numerous and varied studies of contemporary identity can be divided into three large groups according to three methodological approaches: constructivist, postmodern and interactionist. The paper compares the major theories based on these approaches and reveals their theoretical and methodological problems. The paper shows that the constructivist approach is based on the notion of reflexivity which is viewed as a mechanism of identity formation by an individual. Identity is a reflexive project which is being realized in a conscious manner. The postmodern theories of identity reveal the fragmentation incompleteness of ego-identitity and it’s narcissic decay. They also reveal the inability of the individual to solve the problem of continuity and unity of her (his) own personality. Identity as a notion is replaced by the notion of identification which reduces identity to varions modes of repsentation. The interactionist methodology conld open up the way to tackle, the problem of individual’s unity and continuity as the main problem of human existence. This is the condition of the individual’s psychic and social health.

The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy: Gifts, Violence, Performance, and the Sacred

The process of identity formation during the central Middle Ages (10th-12th centuries) among the warrior aristocracy was fundamentally cantered on the paired practices of gift giving and violent taking, inextricably linked elements of the same basic symbolic economy. These performative practices cannot be understood without reference to a concept of the sacred, which anchored and governed the performances, providing the goal and rationale of social and military action. After focussing on anthropological theory, social history, and chronicles, the author turns to the 'literary' persona of the hero as seen in the epic.He argues that the hero was specifically a narrative touchstone used for reflection on the nature and limits of aggressive identity formation among the medieval warrior elite; the hero can be seen, from a theoretical perspective, as a 'supplement' to his own society, who both perfectly incarnated its values but also, in attaining full integrity, short-circuited the very mechanisms of identity formation and reciprocity which undergirded the society. The book shows that the relationship between warriors, heroes, and their opponents (especially Saracens) must be understood as a complex, tri-partite structure - not a simple binary opposition - in which the identity of each constituent depends on the other two. Andrew Cowell is Associate Professor of the Department of French and Italian, and the Department of Linguistics, at the University of Colorado.

Is there more assimilation in Catalonia than in the Basque Country? Analysing dynamics of assimilation in nationalist contexts

AbstractThis article builds on recent attempts in political science to illuminate the ‘micro‐level’ mechanisms of identity formation. It analyses the dynamics of assimilation in two similar contexts with extremely salient regional‐nationalist movements: Catalonia and the Basque Country. It poses the question: In which of the two regions has there been more assimilation of demographically significant, internal‐immigrant segments of the population? It tests whether there has been more assimilation in Catalonia – a result expected from the allegedly more ‘civic’ nature of the nationalist movement there. To do so, it draws on and goes beyond the tools provided by David Laitin for operationalising assimilation. It uses existing public opinion surveys to construct and present assimilation indices for both regions. The authors show that though rates of ‘linguistic adaptation’ are higher in Catalonia, such adaptation correlates weakly with assimilation into feelings of subjective identification and the espousal of nationalist views and aspirations more generally. The article goes on to demonstrate that rates of assimilation, when measured using several more robust proxies for the feeling of national identity, are actually lower in Catalonia. The authors then proceed to provide a theoretical explanation for their surprising empirical results. The explanation stresses the causal role of institutional pressures – themselves the product of nationalist coalition‐building strategies – in accounting for patterns of linguistic adaptation and of cultural assimilation. Furthermore, it emphasises the relevance of ‘cultural demography’, particularly among natives/insiders, in accounting for the different nationalist strategies and the different intensity as well as different types of institutional pressures faced by immigrants/outsiders in the two regions.

Commitment and exploration as mechanisms of identity formation.

We report a two-wave longitudinal study of 1,571 Dutch adolescents concerning the role of commitment and exploration in identity development. We used the Utrecht-Groningen Identity Development Scale to measure commitment and exploration in the domains of relational and societal identity. Our results can be summarized in three points. (1) Commitment and exploration are related processes in the development of identity. Adolescents with strong commitments also frequently explore them, and adolescents with low exploration in general have weak commitments. (2) The longitudinal stability of commitment and exploration has a medium effect size. For relational identity the stability of commitment is greater than that of exploration, but this is not the case for societal identity. The explanation we give for the lack of this difference in stability between commitment and exploration in societal identity is that the formative period for societal identity comes primarily at the end of adolescence. In that connection, we conclude that for present-day Dutch adolescents the formation of relational identity probably precedes that of societal identity. (3) In neither identity domain is commitment predictive of exploration three years later, nor is the reverse the case. We conclude that no long-term developmental sequentiality of commitment and exploration was found, but the results do not rule out the possibility of short-term developmental sequentiality.

The role of cognitive and normative frames in policy-making

The analysis of public policy has recently been characterized by the development of an approach which emphasizes the influence of cognitive and normative elements in public policy - making. The main purpose of this article is to offer a critical review of different models related to this approach, based on notions of paradigm, of advocacy coalition , or of the référentiel . In spite of some differences, these conceptualizations all shed light on the influence of 'world views', mechanisms of identity formation, principles of action in public policy analysis. These models, separate from those informed by a rationalist position, are also capable of explaining the processes of 'extraordinary' change in public policy. However,an excessive emphasis on cognitive and normative variables has sometimes underestimated the forms of mobilization to which these frames are subject. This article tries to integrate certain neglected variables: the interests of actors, and the role of institutions.