Identity Negotiation Research Articles

“Family” Is a Verb: A Study on External Negotiation of Family Identity Among Same-Sex Couples With Children

<p>本研究以共文化理論為框架，試圖理解臺灣同志家庭與外部社會協商家庭認同之溝通取徑與傾向。研究者與五個女同志、三個男同志家庭家長進行長期、數次深度訪談後發現，受訪同志家庭嘗試以「堅定自信」、「非堅定自信」與「挑釁」等溝通取徑，預期達到「順應」與「同化」等家庭認同的協商結果。論文指出共文化理論化框架需結合弱勢群體「交織性」及「非典型弱勢身份原型」等概念綜合討論，以強化其理論內涵。研究結果同時反映受訪同志家長的「厚交織」與「交織階序隱形」身份，對於家庭認同協商過程的具體影響。</p> <p> </p><p>The current study adopts Mark Orbe’s co-cultural theory as the research framework and aims to understand the communication approaches and orientations used by Taiwanese same-sex families to negotiate their family identities with the outside world. After conducting a series of long-term in-depth interviews within two years with five lesbian and three gay parents of same-sex families, the researcher found that the interviewed same-sex families tended to use co-cultural communication approaches, such as “assertive,” “non-assertive,” and “aggressive.” It is expected to achieve the results of “accommodation” and “assimilation” of family identity negotiation. The study suggests that the theoretical framework of cocultural communication should take into account the concepts of "intersectionality" and "atypical prototype" of minority groups in order to become more solid and comprehensive. The findings of the research also reflect the importance of “thick intersectionality” and “intersectional hierarchy invisibility” of the interviewed samesex parents in shaping the negotiation process of their family identities.</p> <p> </p>

Reinventing selves and connections through community volunteering: how care leavers and their supporters create a space for agency and self-work

Young people leaving out-of-home care experience higher levels of emotional, social, educational and vocational disadvantage when compared with peers from stable home-care environments. Care leavers’ educational trajectories may be interrupted, their development of self-identity during transition through adolescence disturbed, and their social and emotional development disrupted due to their diminished accumulation of social and cultural capital. This article presents a re-analysis of the qualitative data derived from a mixed-method study of the experience of young care leavers engaged with a community-based volunteering project in the United Kingdom. We describe how young care leavers developed self-efficacy through volunteering and show how care leavers create a space for agency and self-work, negotiate and cultivate identities independent from statutory supports, and situate themselves within wider relational and social contexts. Implications for future research, policy and practice with younger people leaving statutory care are explored.

Juggling Identities: Komik Bunda’s Representation of “Good” Working Mothers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Being a working mother during the Covid-19 pandemic has not been easy. Various tweets and posts on social media display the multiple roles that mothers have been expected to play. The dynamics of motherhood during the pandemic were incisively portrayed in Komik Bunda, a comic published on one of the leading parenting sites in Indonesia, haibunda.com. This qualitative study explores how working mothers negotiate their identities to adapt, persist, and innovate amidst the ups and downs of the pandemic situation in Indonesia. Critical content analysis is performed on 30 comic strips with the theme of motherhood during a pandemic, and the findings are analysed from the perspective of feminist standpoint theory, identity, and representation. This study indicates that women experience an excessive workload resulting from their multiple identities as mothers, teachers, and workers during the pandemic. Negotiation efforts, such as identity segmentation and conceptualising partners as secondary parents, emerged as ways to manage the tensions between identities. The discussion in this study shows that the tension between identities will continue as long as women are confined by the myths of “good” mothers and “ideal” workers promoted by the ideologies of neoliberalism and capitalism. This study concludes that identity negotiation is not only about the identity mothers choose to hold but also about the authenticity and balance displayed by working mothers during and after the pandemic. Keywords: Working mother, identity, feminist standpoint theory, representation, critical content analysis.

NEGOSIASI IDENTITAS TRANSGENDER (Studi pada Komunitas Transgender PERWAJO Kota Jombang)

Transgender identity is still a pro and con for some people in Indonesia, especially in areas with high culture and religiosity. Transgender people are considered not to heed the norms prevailing in the environment. This study aims to analyze the identity negotiations of members of the transgender community in the city of Jombang Persatuan Waria Jombang (PERWAJO). The theories and concepts used in this study are identity negotiations, and transgender. This research uses qualitative descriptive research methods, as well as phenomenological approaches. The results of the study showed: Efforts to open up transgender members of the Jombang Waria Association (PERWAJO). PERWAJO members made an early opening by constructing appearance and behavior to be feminine. In addition, PERWAJO members also participate in various types of communities in their environment; PERWAJO became the medium for opening up transgender identity. Obstacles in opening up identity come from society, family, and environment.

THE CONSTRUCTION AND NEGOTIATION OF AGENTIVE IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF A MALAYSIAN STUDENT

Background and Purpose: The success of the government’s aspiration into developing holistic Malaysian students not only lies in what has been going in today’s classroom but also outside classroom in which the fundamental process of seeking for knowledge, skills and competencies. Holistic identity is not a construct that is inherited, nor does it remain constant but is developed and evolves from different academic encounters faced by the students. Thus, the present study investigated the construction and negotiation of a student’s identity from her interaction within academic settings in Malaysian Higher Education Institution (MHEI).
 
 Methodology: The study employed qualitative research and linguistic ethnography approaches utilising case study as the research design. One (1) Malaysian student from a MHEI was chosen using purposive sampling technique. The data for the study were collected from classroom observations, interview and focus group discussion. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and identity in interaction framework analysis.
 
 Findings: The participant of this study constructed and negotiated an agentive identity during the process of making conscious decisions in her academic experiences. Agentive identity could be seen emerged from her interactions and indexed from her behaviour and opinion during her academic encounters (inside and outside the classroom). The participant’s engagement behaviour portrayed could be interpreted as being agentive from the lens of the two principles in identity framework analysis namely; the emergence principle and the indexicality principle.
 
 Contributions: Experiencing different educational contexts could help to shape Malaysian students to be balanced, academically and morally, as aspired by the Malaysia National Education Philosophy. Malaysian students are seen as the catalysts who would lead the country in the future. The findings of this study could also be used as a reference on how educational practices reflect on the production of individuals as manifested in the NEP. Examining how students construct and negotiate their identities in a new or/and familiarised academic convention could enlighten the stakeholders such as the students themselves, lecturers, tutors, parents, and ministry to be more flexible, allowing students to be empowered within appropriate contexts.
 
 Keywords: Malaysian students, students’ identity, higher education, student agency, agentive identity
 
 Cite as: Nadia, T., & Zurina, K. (2023). The construction and negotiation of agentive identity: A case study of a Malaysian student. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(2), 373-394. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss2pp373-394

Unhomeliness and Human Agency in Translational Encounters: Exploring the Negotiation of Identities of the Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia

Unhomeliness and Human Agency in Translational Encounters: Exploring the Negotiation of Identities of the Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia

How to Deal and Negotiate with the Campus Environment? Female Students’ Experiences in Reconstructing Gender Identity

Being an ‘ideal woman of Muslim version,’ or muslimah in Indonesia, is the expectation from any family, and studying at pesantren (Islamic boarding school) is an option. However, female students confronted cultural shock when switching to a campus environment and experienced identity mediation. Experiences of study and interaction with the campus environment as well as the confrontation of gender norms between different pesantren and university, require them to renegotiate the meaning of gender and reinterpret Islamic teachings to meet their developing identity needs. To enhance our comprehension of the potential impact of higher education on gender identity negotiations, this study researched three female students who graduated from pesantren and then continued their education at university. The researchers employed in-depth interviews, discussions, and sharing of experiences through essays to obtain comprehensive information. This study found that pesantren and campus create ­­­­­an environment for thinking development. Some took the middle path to become more moderate, and others even resisted the pesantren doctrine. It generates novel assumptions concerning gender rather than the two prevalent perspectives, traditionalists who preserve the old system or principles and feminists who battle for gender justice based on their interpretation. Therefore, it is suggested that pesantren begin to adapt to the curriculum and public-school materials relevant to the era. Preserving a conservative notion of gender will diminish interest in studying at the pesantren.

Boy Cuts: Female Masculinity and Queer Aesthetics in Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT In Pakistan, compared with the long-established category of khwaja sira, which can be analogous to trans femininity in English, little attention has yet been paid to trans and female masculinities. For trans men, butch women, and nonbinary people assigned female at birth (AFAB), their navigation of public spaces, negotiation of identity and aesthetic expression of gender, and balancing of globalizing LGBTQ+ discourses with pre-existing South Asian forms of queerness has meant that they see their struggles as unique from other types of queer identification and community in Pakistan. This article examines how masculine-presenting AFAB queer and trans young adults in Karachi express themselves through embodied aesthetic forms, such as hair styles and clothing, and negotiate these aesthetic choices with family and community insistences on presenting as proper women. While providing an optic into understanding the complexities of choice and agency that AFAB individuals face in displaying their masculinity, aesthetics is often also a determining factor in how they are treated and seen by others in the various kinds of public spaces that they move between. Their aesthetic choices not only help to better understand marginalized masculinities in Pakistan, but also challenge and disrupt an idealized feminine aesthetic in Pakistan that is related to marriageability and conformity

Positioning all Students and Teachers as Intercultural Citizens— A Two-way Adaptation Approach to ELL Identity Negotiation

Abstract: This article addresses the power imbalance between English language learners (ELL) and native English speakers (NES) in culturally and linguistically diverse K-12 classrooms. Current ELL positioning models explored in empirical research studies are positioned in this article in correlation with the stages in Bennett’s theory of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. The result indicates that we need an integrative model that equalizes the power relations between ELLs and NES to guide all learners and teachers towards cultural integration. Drawing on positioning theory and the concept of intercultural citizenship, this article proposes an integrative approach of positioning all students and teachers as intercultural citizens as a discursive identity negotiation means to engender an equitable two-way cultural adaption that not only challenges the raciolinguistic ideologies but also builds intercultural citizenship among all learners. A step-by-step school-level practical guide is suggested to implement this integrative approach.

Fractured in-group identity (re)negotiation in an online white nationalist forum

This study investigates the construction and (re)negotiation of the identity boundaries in the context of a white nationalist online forum. Using over three million words of data, a corpus linguistic approach is combined with elements of critical discourse analysis, namely social actor (van Leeuwen, 1996) and transitivity (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) analyses, to examine the positioning of social actors in relation to one another. The data shows that, despite an assumption amongst some scholars of a united and ideologically coherent in-group of extremists, forum members often disagree on the nature and boundaries of both their racial (white) and ideological (white nationalist) identities. This calls into question the value of the `in-group' concept as we currently understand it. Instead, the `in-group' in the far-right context should be seen as slippery and unfixed, comprising multiple overlapping but distinct identities.

Balancing the Teeter Totter: A Dialectical View of Managing Neurodiverse Employees

ABSTRACT Effective management of autistic employees is a topic germane to the successful integration of individuals on the spectrum into the workplace, but is a question that management researchers are only starting to broach. Unlike past research, we examine successful management for autistic employees without applying a priori leadership constructs traditionally found in the literature. Instead, we use a grounded approach to investigate how managers can effectively structure the day-to-day interactions they have with autistic employees. In doing so, we identify a dialectic between wanting to treat all employees as equal while understanding that different employees have very different needs. Based on this dialectic, we explore managerial behaviors associated with the poles and propose four different management types that lead to different outcomes for employees and organizations. Lastly, we build on aspects of identity negotiation to unpack how managers can balance the dialectic between different needs and wanting equal treatment .

Group Identity in Public Deliberation

I argue that different argumentative practices require participants to categorize themselves in different modes. Accordingly, I distinguish four types of argumentation: rational argumentation, intergroup argumentation, intragroup argumentation, and, finally, personal argumentation. An inescapable implication of my approach to deliberation is that deliberation presupposes the self-categorization of participants in the same ingroup. Deliberation does not require, however, the group to antecede the deliberation process, and a distinctive feature of successful public deliberation is its capacity to produce social identification with the deliberative group. Thus, identity negotiation is an important part of deliberative processes.

Borderland negotiations of personal–professional being and belonging: A duoethnography

The following article details the authors’ dialogic exploration of the joys and tensions inscribed in their personal–professional negotiations of being and belonging within and transcending borders of ‘language’, ‘culture’, ‘identity’, ‘place’, ‘space’, ‘community’ and ‘time’, as well as in their experiences with duoethnographic inquiry. The authors dialogue, reflect upon (individually and together) and, ultimately, reconceptualize and reconstruct their borderland narratives of negotiated identity and community membership, emerging transformed by the process. The authors aim to prompt readers to engage with and reflect upon both the contents of the study as well as upon their own contexts and lived experiences, and for readers to engage with others in similar fashion.

English is ‘the language everybody shares’ but it is ‘my native language’: language ideologies and interpersonal relationships among students in internationalizing higher education

ABSTRACT This paper examines the roles of different language ideologies—sets of common-sense beliefs about language and its speakers—in students’ identity construction and negotiation in the context of internationalizing higher education. Along with the increasing diversity of students as English speakers, language ideologies have been critically examined for potential contribution to inequalities among students. I analyze two focus group discussions of students from international English-medium instruction master’s programs at a Finnish university. I explore the students’ talk using critical discursive psychology to illuminate possible intersections between language ideologies and students’ situated identity construction, paying attention to ideological dilemmas alongside students’ identity negotiation. The findings indicate that both emerging and established language ideologies may become relevant to students’ identity construction and negotiation. Possibly, turning students’ attention towards the multilinguality of every student and the specific purposes and characteristics of academic language might contribute to the discursive sustainability of inclusive interpersonal relationships among students.

Uncovering minoritized voices: The linguistic landscape of Mieres, Asturies

Abstract Recent sociolinguistic studies have emphasized the role of the linguistic landscape (LL) in relation to languages and identity negotiation. The present study examines the presence of Asturian, a minoritized language spoken in the Principality of Asturies, in the LL of a town located in the center of Asturies: Mieres. Through qualitative analyses, data illustrate that Asturian has visibility not only on top-down signage but also on bottom-up. Furthermore, findings reveal that the use of this language, as well as semiotic resources that convey the Asturian identity in the Mieres signage, portray the struggles and fragility of the Asturian minoritized linguistic group within this locality. This study illustrates the importance of comprehensive implementation of language protection policies in relation to the maintenance and revitalization of minoritized languages, as well as in the protection of a speech community’s linguistic rights.

How women physics teacher candidates utilize their double outsider identities to productively learn physics

Underrepresentation of women in physics is a prominent issue in the western countries. Since physics teachers are in a unique position to affect new generations of students, it has been suggested that they are an important part of the solution. In this paper, we explore how trainee physics teachers create spaces for themselves as learners of physics while negotiating their positioning as women and trainee teachers. The empirical data consist of interviews with 17 trainee physics students, and the analysis focuses predominantly on the identity negotiations of three woman students. We find that the women simultaneously submit to and master a “physics nerd” discourse that connects physics with nerdiness, masculinity, and intelligence, which enables them to successfully create subject positions incorporating physics student, teacher-student, femininity, and constructive study practice. This is of particular importance to trainee physics teachers, who will be responsible for creating inclusive and productive physics learning environments for their students.Received 17 November 2022Accepted 5 May 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010140Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

‘I am very good at my work!’ A narrative inquiry of Southeast Asian marriage migrants’ identity negotiations through their work

ABSTRACT The majority of applied linguistics research on intra-Asia marriage migrants has focused on their negotiations of ethnic gender identities in the home and educational arenas. Little is known about their experiences as workers in the host society. Drawing on the case of Taiwan, this paper examines how Southeast Asian marriage migrants negotiate identities through work. Drawing on positioning theory and adopting a narrative approach, this study analyzed in-depth interviews with eleven marriage migrants to understand how they represent self and other through narrating work experiences and how their work experiences and identity negotiations are interconnected with shifting representations of marriage migrants in Taiwan – from ‘social problems’ to ‘social assets’ under the recent New Southbound Policy, aimed to cultivate economic ties with ASEAN countries. In their work stories, they are competent, committed workers and valuable bilingual speakers, who actively harness their linguistic capital for newly available language-related jobs. While encountering occasional discrimination at work, they are, however, not passive victims, but agentive individuals who confront ethnicised gender inequality.

Analysts' identity negotiations and politeness behaviour in earnings calls of US firms with extreme earnings changes

PurposeFinancial analysts' roles and incentives mean that they have conflicting identities to maintain towards investors and firm managers. The authors study how analysts adopt various politeness strategies in their questioning to establish socially desirable identities in the Q&A of publicly accessible earnings calls.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a sample of US firms with extreme earnings changes. 46 transcripts of end-of-year earnings calls were investigated with the help of linguistic discourse analysis, drawing on frameworks of face and linguistic politeness. For each transcript, the authors identified the structure of the face-threatening acts (FTAs) that arise when analysts ask probing questions and ascertained what specific politeness strategies, if any, are used by analysts to mitigate those FTAs. The authors examine how analysts perform identities through politeness in language and compare analysts' politeness behaviour and identity construction in the increasing earnings sub-sample with the decreasing earnings sub-sample.FindingsAnalysts negotiate different identities according to specific social contexts, promoting their identity as (1) competent professionals when firms report problematic performance by asking questions in a confrontational manner with few politeness strategies and (2) dependents of the firm by asking questions in a more polite manner when firms experience satisfactory performance. Analysts aim to present a socially desirable face in Q&A to influence managers' and investors' perceptions.Practical implicationsThe study raises awareness about linguistic politeness as a communication strategy in the Q&A in earnings calls. It thereby enables managers and analysts to use linguistic politeness consciously and strategically and to recognise such use by others.Originality/valueThis study complements existing literature on earnings conference calls as part of external corporate communications by focusing on analysts' use of language when interacting with manages. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to show that politeness underpins analysts' language use as a device for identity negotiations. This is important to understand because analysts' identities vis-a-vis managers and investors is closely related to the stability of the financial system.

Investigating the opportunities and challenges for African languages in public spaces: an introduction

ABSTRACT This introduction to the Special Edition provides a rationale for the inclusion of the selected articles. We begin with a consideration of various factors that led to the marginalisation of African languages, including the hegemony of English, colonialism and ensuing language policies that still hold today. Such policies proclaimed languages exogenous to the continent as official languages for formal public discourses, including the education domain. This led to the low visibility of indigenous languages in such domains. European missionaries also contributed to this by imposing Western linguistic frameworks on the continuum of African languages such that they became separate, named and bounded, which is counter-intuitive to the heteroglossic, multilingual realities of language use in African indigenous communities. We then examine the expanding role of African languages in response to technology, social media, globalisation and more responsive and dynamic language policies. The articles in this Special Edition cover language policy and language in education; language and identity negotiation in contexts of migration; language use on social media platforms; language and the workplace and language use in advertising. These contributions reveal that the multilingual reality of Africa’s language ecology is increasingly visible in many domains.

A Research on Identity Negotiation of Chinese Overseas Students

In the interpretative paradigm, it’s believed that culture can be reflected in people’s behaviors in their identity negotiation processes. In this course paper, the identity negotiation processes of three Chinese overseas students are analyzed with the guidance of Identity Negotiation Theory. Based on the five themes of identity dialectics, the researcher designed semi-structured interviews and collected data from the three interviewees. And the analysis is also carried out from the five themes in identity dialectics. But there are also some limitations in this paper as well to be further improved.