Identity Negotiation Research Articles

Ideological tensions between the English language teaching system and cosmopolitan aspirations in the South Korean context: reflections from a group of bilingual Koreans

ABSTRACT Increasing cross-border interconnectedness continuously shapes perceptions and ideologies of the English language. This qualitative research explores the complex tensions between local ideologies and globalisation influences on English teaching practices in South Korea from the perspective of bilingual English-speaking Koreans. Findings highlight that English serves as crucial cultural capital, influencing social mobility, but the prevailing prestige ideology often leads to an instrumental approach to learning that may hinder effective communicative competence. There is a noticeable tension between the narrow focus on English for competitive advantage and the broader global perspectives of younger Koreans. Although the current English Language Teaching (ELT) system emphasises local competitiveness, students’ increasing exposure to transnational influences necessitates a shift in teaching strategies. To better reflect the realities of a multicultural society, this study suggests adapting ELT practices to focus more on identity negotiation and less on rigid linguistic structures, considering the diverse experiences within contemporary Korean society.

EXPLORING MUSICAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM STAGE THEORY, SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY, AND A LIFESPAN APPROACH

Music has a profound impact on a person's identity and has a complicated and deep relationship with the self. A psychological concept called "musical identity" includes a variety of elements derived from "personal, social, emotional, and musical competencies." It represents how people behave in a cultural and social context and is influenced by their involvement in music and practice. The study of how people acquire their musical knowledge and skills examines the cognitive, emotional, and social facets of this process. The stage theory by Trevarthen and Malloch, which hypothesizes discrete transitions in musical development across the lifespan, is a well-known framework in this area. Another approach is the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) application by Evans and McPherson, which emphasizes the significance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in forming musical identity. Using a lifelong perspective, Lamont emphasizes the impact of social settings and cultural environments on the negotiation of musical identity. Her work emphasizes the significance of early musical encounters, the influence of formal and informal musical interactions during infancy, and the development of musical identity during adolescence and maturity. Understanding these frameworks advances our knowledge of how musical identities are formed and has implications for music education, therapy, and the encouragement of lifelong musical participation.

Transnational identities and agency: navigating everyday life as a young adult migrant in Glasgow, UK

ABSTRACT This article explores the identity narratives of a group of young adult migrants living in Glasgow, UK. The study builds on narrative interviews, to understand processes of identity negotiation, and the dynamics of macro-level political narratives on the everyday lives of micro-level actors. The analysis considers how identities are negotiated by the participant group with reference to everyday social interactions. Theoretically, theories of identity and transnational agency are used to analyse the capacity of young adult migrants to resist feelings of perceived difference and establish a sense of security in their identities. It is argued that the participants can enact a degree of agency, through the adoption of transnational identities, which permits them the opportunity to secure a sense of self and navigate their everyday lives in Scotland.

Belonging in dual roles: exploring professional identity formation among disabled healthcare students and clinicians.

The development of a robust professional identity is a pivotal aspect of every healthcare professional's educational journey. Critical social perspectives are increasingly influencing the examination of professional identity formation within healthcare professions. While understanding how disabled students and practitioners integrate a disability identity into their professional identity is crucial, we have limited knowledge about the actual formation of their professional identity. This study aims to investigate how disabled students and clinicians in healthcare professions actively shape their professional identity during their educational and professional journeys. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 27 students and 29 clinicians, conducting up to three interviews per participant over a year, resulting in 124 interviews. Participants represented five healthcare professions: medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and social work. Employing a constructivist grounded theory approach, our data analysis revealed two prominent dimensions: (a) The contextualization of identity formation processes and (b) The identity navigation dimension in which the professional identity and disability identity are explored. This emerging model sheds light on the dynamic processes involved in identity formation, emphasizing the significance of a supportive environment for disabled students and practitioners. Such an environment fosters the negotiation of both professional and disability identities. Moreover, this study recognizes the importance of a re-examination of the concepts of professionalism and professional identity in healthcare professions. In conclusion, this research underscores the importance of understanding and supporting the multifaceted identity formation processes among disabled individuals within healthcare professions.

The construction of linguistic identities in talk about food among Tibetan heritage language learners

ABSTRACT This ethnographic article examines the interactional processes through which Tibetan-Canadian heritage language learners agentively construct their linguistic identities in everyday family interactions. Because food is centrally involved in family routines, as well as broader cultural practices and the articulation of individual tastes, talk about food provides a site for analyzing negotiations of individual agency amid expressions of shared identity. Drawing from previous language socialisation scholarship that approaches family meal times as a resource for constructing identity, this paper analyzes children’s conversations at meal-times, during food preparation, and about food preferences. Through interactional analysis of twelve months of longitudinal video ethnography in two Tibetan-Canadian families, I found that, in these activities centered on food, children used multilingual and multimodal resources to negotiate authority over their cultural and linguistic knowledge. Specifically, children agentively displayed their knowledge of Tibetan language forms, elaborated on their capacities to participate in cultural activities, and instructed parents about their individual preferences. By analyzing these interactional displays of knowledge through the concepts of agency and co-operative action, I argue that children construct their identities as speakers of Tibetan, despite the dominance of English in their language repertoires.

Memoirs of impossible identities: Exploring biographical narratives of gay ex-Jehovah’s witnesses

This article offers a critical examination of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ positionality on homosexuality. After making the case for engaging with memoir literature, the article analyses two narratives that depict the experiences of gay former Jehovah’s Witnesses: Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk (2020) and Daniel Allen Cox’s I Felt The End Before It Came (2023). The critical discussion of narratives and meta-narratives interrogate the social world behind the Witnesses, as well as the relationships between the enactment of their beliefs in relation to LGBTQ+ identities. The resultant thematic analysis explores the following issues: disfellowshipping, identity negotiation, sex work and education.

Going Insane: Battered Muslim Women Reclaim a Positive Identity.

This study examines the process of identity negotiation of 15 Muslim women who resisted severe abuse by their husbands and extended family by becoming mentally ill and thereafter, divorcing. Content analysis of the interview narratives shows that these women were poor, married young, and endured years of battering, isolation, and silencing for the sake of family honor and children's well-being. Entrapped within a web of sociocultural norms legitimizing wife beating, and abusive extended family relationships that annihilate their voice by branding them as maj'nuna/insane, these women explained that they were terrorized helpless victims fearing the stigma of being labeled insane and the resultant harm to their children. With the deterioration of their health, threat of annihilation, and imminent danger to themselves and their children, these women broke through the normative oppressive framework by becoming maj'nuna/mentally ill. Detached from the extended family and no longer caring to endorse a label that discredited what they said or did, these women overtly resisted by escaping to the family of origin and/or mental health clinic to reveal the abuse, divorce, and seek treatment. Severing all family ties, and now residing in public housing, these women felt safe to renegotiate a favorable identity and reclaim the right to live with dignity. Implications/recommendations: (1) The criminalization of battering and prosecution of batterers is not enough to deter when cultural norms sanction battering, (2) additional diagnostic categories are needed to identify the precursors of battering within the strategies of overt and covert resistance battered women adopt in collectivistic cultures such as mental and neurophysiological dysfunctions, and (3) it is necessary to transcend the individualistic model titling battered women within the false dichotomy of victimization or agency as it fails to reflect battered women's experience in collectivistic cultures and their resistant strategies to abuse in the extended family.

Guest editorial: New perspectives on women’s entrepreneurship in China: identity negotiation, gender agency, and meaning-making

Guest editorial: New perspectives on women’s entrepreneurship in China: identity negotiation, gender agency, and meaning-making

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.

Synchronous (In)significance: Recording Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage in Real-Time

ABSTRACT Synchronous (In)significance argues for the recognition of a mode of heritage conservation within war-torn Ukraine that is already underway. The paper examines the digital initiative Polycam: Backup Ukraine which allows for everyday users to record, upload and share three-dimensional scans of places, sites and objects that they deem significant within their immediate environment. This evolving contemporary archive is positioned by its founders as a tool for citizen empowerment through the shared availability of the technology and storage of items for heritage capture. The resulting collection provides an unconventional account of the sites, spaces and objects at risk in Ukraine, creating a constellation of high, local, formal and idiosyncratic personal entries. Through this portal, a broad and unsanctioned account of Ukrainian heritage is revealed. This paper draws on the work of Tracy Ireland, Steve Brown and John Schofield which examines the dichotomous relationship of significance and insignificance in the practice of value creation and negotiation of heritage identity. Through this lens it examines how notions of sharing; shared technology, shared ownership and shared access might allow for the creation of a contemporary heritage archive, that interacts with memory, place and things, but does so in ways that “are often not possible in the context of official heritage regimes because of rigid aesthetic paradigms, urban or class conflict, identity politics, or dominant national narratives.” 1 The archive, which draws together digital records of well-regarded heritage sites with unexpected spaces and objects of the personal and the everyday, becomes a means of assessing notions of significance and (in)significance in real-time. This in turn, provides a mechanism for re-evaluating what aspects of the war-torn country are considered worthy of recording and sharing.

Social Studies Teacher Education and the Legacy of PCK: Exploring Situated Theories of Preservice Teacher Development

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has framed teacher education for decades, despite the difficulty of demonstrating that teacher preparation effectively develops PCK. Social studies educators have been especially wary of PCK, but their critiques have primarily challenged what knowledge is valued rather than its model of how teachers learn. This comparative case study reexamines PCK’s cognitivist assumptions by analyzing three preservice social studies teachers’ teaching and reflections from a situated perspective on role identity development. Despite unusual amounts of pedagogical experience and content knowledge, each novice had trouble facilitating whole class discussions. Their struggles did not emerge at the intersection of pedagogy and content, but within their role identity negotiations. These results suggest that a situated framework for identity development is a useful alternative to PCK in social studies teacher preparation and recommend deeper engagement with identity development through teacher education practice.

Sea turtles stranded ashore: Sociocultural dissonance and identity conflicts in migration intentions of Chinese international student returnees

In the post-COVID-19 era, Chinese international student returnees are facing greater identity conflicts during their reintegration. Understanding their sociocultural and ideological identity negotiation will better accommodate their needs and facilitate their integration into society. This study explored identity conflicts experienced by Chinese student returnees across ecological systems after reentry to China during COVID-19. A qualitative approach was used with 20 returnees. The key findings of this study reveal multi-layered conflicts stemming from the discordance between traditional Eastern values and newly acquired Western perspectives across meso-to-macro systems. In addition, important factors corresponding to returnees’ social capital were identified during the acculturation. Coping mechanisms and migration intentions were observed to vary distinctly among the identified identity clusters. Individuals with a "homestayer" identity, characterized by a deep commitment to integrating with the Chinese community and a higher level of perceived social capital in China, predominantly employed positive coping strategies, such as behavioral adaptation. This group exhibited a strong inclination to remain in China. Conversely, those with a "wayfarer" identity, who experienced deeper immersion in foreign cultures and displayed critical views towards Chinese society with a perceived low social capital in China, tended to adopt negative coping strategies like social withdrawal, correlating with a pronounced intention to migrate. Finally, "navigators", who skillfully balance their native Chinese and foreign cultural identities and effectively manage transnational engagements and diverse cultural norms through their perceived strong social capital in both societies, demonstrated a tendency towards hybrid coping strategies tailored to individual scenarios, reflecting a nuanced, case-by-case approach. This group exhibited a mixed migration intention, indicative of their flexible identity orientation. These findings suggest the need for multi-level support systems and policies that not only facilitate returnee identity continuity but also foster an inclusive and diverse societal framework to effectively retain this valuable population.

Roots tourism experiences, identity construction, social equity and social justice: a mixed methods approach

ABSTRACT The incidence of African diaspora’s pilgrimage to their ancestral motherland in Africa has recently increased. Indeed, initiatives such as the Black Travel Movement and Year of Return have increased the desire for black diasporans to ‘go back home’. Evidence in the literature illustrates that this homecoming is a deliberate effort towards identity construction. Using a mixed-method research approach (and W.E.B Du Bois’s sociological; terror management, and substantive identity negotiation theories), this study examined root tourism’s effects on identity construction, social justice, and equity using data from the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles in Ghana. The study’s key outcome shows root tourism’s power to influence social justice and human rights equality. Furthermore, the study discovered that terror management and substantive identity negotiation theories are limited in their relevance to non-Western contexts. This study demonstrates how managers of tourism firms can rightly position root tourism as a distinct tool for identity construction, social justice and social equity. The study also discusses its implications, limitations and future studies.

Constructing Ethnolinguistic Identities: A Critical Examination of Language and Power Dynamics in Diasporic Communities

This research investigates the complex interplay between language and power in the formation of ethnolinguistic identities within diasporic communities. As globalization accelerates, diasporic groups navigate a complex landscape where traditional linguistic practices intersect with new socio-political realities. This study aims to critically examine how language functions as a tool for negotiating identity and power within these communities, emphasizing the role of language ideologies and practices in shaping social dynamics. The primary objectives are to explore how language serves as a medium for the construction and negotiation of ethnolinguistic identities and to understand the influence of power relations on these processes. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the ways in which language practices reflect and challenge power structures within diasporic contexts and how these practices contribute to the formation of collective and individual identities. This research is a multi-sited ethnographic approach,and integrates discourse analysis across several diasporic communities. Findings reveal that language serves as a strategic resource for negotiating social status and ethnic belonging. Diasporic individuals employ code-switching, language reclamation, and multilingualism to assert identity and resist assimilation pressures. The study highlights how language ideologies both reinforce and contest existing power structures, demonstrating the dynamic role of language in shaping ethnolinguistic identities amidst shifting socio-political landscapes.

“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.

My Facebook Community

This article offers an autoethnographic account of the ways in which users of local Facebook groups in a U.S. suburb use the spaces to form community and personal identities. Through a reflection on my experiences of using local suburban Facebook groups, the article makes the argument that Facebook fails to offer a needed space for public discourse. However, it does provide a lens through which the negotiation and performance of a middle-class identity can be affirmed and contested. Through a reflection on the author’s experiences using local Facebook groups over a period of three years, the article aims to better understand how this platform fulfills this role in a suburban New Jersey community.

Within and Outside the Black-Maghrebi Binary

Abstract What does it mean to be both Black and Tunisian, Black and Maghrebi, when the two identities are defined as different from each other, and in opposition with each other, in both North Africa and its diaspora? This article is an annotated conversation with Dr. Maha Abdelhamid, a Tunisian Black activist and scholar who has been crucial to the creation of the Black movement in Tunisia and Tunisian diaspora. This conversation examines the construction and negotiation of Tunisian-Black and Maghrebi-Black identities through Abdelhamid’s experiences of living in and working against racism in both Tunisia and France. It details Abdelhamid’s trajectory in becoming conscious of her Black and African identities, her complex relationship with her Arab identity, her role in building the Black movement in Tunisia after the 2011 revolution, and her arrival in France and experiences of exclusion in both Maghrebi diasporic as well as Black feminist civil society organizations. The interview points to the possible essentialization of Maghrebi and Black as separate identities not only in socio-political discourses that racialize and marginalize these groups, but also among groups challenging Islamophobia or anti-Blackness, leaving those with overlapping identities and racializing experiences outside their scope.

Dɛnkyɛm: Identity Development and Negotiation Among 1.5-Generation Ghanaian American Millennials

Ghanaian immigrants are largely ignored in U.S.-based scholarship. Within this qualitative study, I explored the experiences of 1.5-generation Ghanaian American millennials with the purpose of understanding how they create, negotiate, and re-create identities. Using a phenomenological approach, I examined the experiences of eight individuals to specifically understand the creation and negotiation of national, ethnic, and racial identities in public and private spaces. I argue that the 1.5-generation is uniquely socially positioned and forced to code-switch and adapt based on age, race, and nationality, all while still learning to adjust to living in the U.S. The findings suggest that many individuals of this generation had unrealistic expectations of what life in the United States was like, which made the initial transition difficult. Participants also discussed a common theme of bullying at school and a distinct difference between their home life and public life. Racialization was the most challenging aspect of life participants faced as it related to their adjustment to mainstream U.S. society and revealed complex layers that are involved in identity development and negotiation. I close with suggestions for future research and implications for practice for scholars, policymakers, and community members.

Creating Communicative Context Through the Use of Emoji and Politeness in Online Academic Written Interactions

Creating Communicative Context Through the Use of Emoji and Politeness in Online Academic Written Interactions. The current study aims to provide a glimpse into the way higher education students and language instructors establish rapports in the academic written communication framework through the use of emoji and online face-work strategies. Contextualisation cues are created in order to regulate transaction based communicative exchanges that result in positive outcomes, subsequently fostering an inclusive culture. Linguistic display of online discourse is fraught with perils that may impede on appropriate written academic interactions occurring between instructors and students. Negotiation of identity becomes a main objective, as there are differences in status, power and various degrees of communicative achievement between interactants. The study shares results obtained from a questionnaire administered to 92 Romanian undergraduate students offering a framework for embedding emoji and face-work in online identity negotiation via written communication. It aims to offer a digital pedagogical competence approach to cater for the emotional needs of learners whose identities as digital natives take additional effort to create in the context of using transversal skills. The main findings of the study suggest that emoji and face work enable foreign language students to better manipulate their self-image when communicating online. Keywords: identity negotiation, online linguistic discourse, emoji, pragmatic politeness, face-work strategies, written communication, context, social and emotional learning.

Landscape in Transition, Heritage in the Making: A Research Agenda for Understanding Lusatia’s Post-mining Landscape as a Practice of Past Presencing

The region of Lusatia in Germany is characterised by a permanent state of uncertainty – as a consequence of decades of resettlements due to lignite mining as well as structural changes resulting from the German reunification. This article discusses an inclusive concept of post-mining landscapes and the presencing of their pasts in regional discourses, given that lignite mining in Lusatia mainly took place in the settlement area of the autochthonous minority of the Sorbs/Wends. Since the end of lignite mining is planned for 2038, historicizing perspectives such as a World Heritage initiative are becoming increasingly important, leading to a new conceptualisation of the post-mining landscape primarily as a practice of past presencing itself, which functions as a coping mechanism for facing up to new uncertainties, thereby emerging as a new action arena for the negotiation of regional identity, belonging and power structures.