Process Of Identity Construction Research Articles

‘Everything is translatable, nothing is translatable’: the migrant as translated/translator in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers

A translation is always a process and never a simple one or a complete one. The task of the translator is to transpose meanings allowing distant worlds to make sense of each other but this always bears with itself a dimension of failure as nothing can be perfectly transposed from one language to another without losing or altering part of its meaning. If, as Salman Rushdie observes, from an etymological point of view to translate means to carry across, then the migrant is a ‘translated man’. The migrant’s translation implies physical, linguistic and cultural border-crossings that generate a process that shapes the migrant’s identity. This process is an act of sur-vival, both in the sense of living on the margins and in the sense of the migrant‘s dream for survival (Benjamin, Bhabha, Derrida, Rushdie). The paper proposes a reading of Nadeem Aslam’s novel Maps for Lost Lovers that analyses how it represents the relationship between translation and the Pakistani migrants’ processes of identity construction.

International Students' Cultural Identity Construction in the USA Context

International students (IS) who travel abroad for studies could be affected by various factors such as academic and social aspects that may influence the construction of their cultural identities. This study explored a group of international students' cultural identity construction in the environment of an American university. A focus group discussion investigated how the IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) learning context influences international students' cultural identity construction. The data revealed that the major influential factors in the construction of international students' cultural identities were initial challenges and their life experiences. The data also indicated that this process of identity construction went through the stages of the acculturation model.

Identity work at the intersection of dirty work, caste, and precarity: How Indian cleaners negotiate stigma

Drawing from in-depth interviews of cleaners employed in the cleaning industry in India, the study examines the ongoing process of constructing a positive identity among dirty workers. Cleaners respond to the intense identity struggles emerging from caste stigma, dirty taint, and precarity by constructing ambivalent identities. Cleaners’ identity work is constituted by the very identity struggles they encounter, and their efforts to negotiate stigmatized identities further create identity tensions. Apart from accenting the paradoxical duality inhered in identity work, the findings show how caste/class inequalities are reworked in a neoliberal milieu and reproduced in identity construction processes. The findings call attention to caste as an important social category in organizational studies that has implications for work identities, dirty work, and precarious work.

Generations and Shifting Sexual Identifications among Flemish Non-Straight Men

ABSTRACT This paper explores age-related differences in non-straight identities, using the concept of “generations” to investigate shared contexts and experiences contributing to processes of sexual identification. The process of identity construction is focused upon, existing research noting a shifting attitude toward identity categories among the youngest generations. Using a mixed-method design, first an exploratory survey of 684 Flemish men was used to determine shifting sexual identifications, which were indeed found among the youngest generation. These insights serve as a background for the analysis of 80 in-depth interviews with non-straight men across four generations: Baby Boomers, Generations X, Millennials and Generation Z. These generational divisions serve as a heuristic to explore shared generational experiences and contexts as well as intergenerational changes in relation to four key moments and themes: first realizations and explorations of same-sex sexuality; sexual identification; coming out; and involvement in the LGBTQ community. The results show clear and positive evolutions across the generations on all accounts, albeit with a lot of variation within generations as well as gradual changes between them. While useful as a heuristic, the notion of generations should be used with caution, as it allows to identify macro level shifts but hides micro level variations.

Online Identity and Egyptian Youth: Exploring Construction Processes

This qualitative study, conducted against the backdrop of Egypt, maps the different processes Egyptian youth use to construct their online identity. The Egyptian society is patriarchal, keenly religious and conservative and youth represent 40 per cent of the population. They are a very important group in society as there are many expectations of them as catalysts of change given their previous role in the Arab Spring. Youth employ a number of processes to construct their online identity including co-construction, selection and use of photographs and sharing content. Building on Goffman’s dramaturgical approach and Leary’s self-presentation tactics, the study looks closer at the online identity construction processes of eighteen Egyptian youth fans of social media influencers and how being a fan manifests itself in online identity presentation. The research questions are addressed through semi-structured interviews. The analysis revealed the various processes fans undertook, highlighted gender differences within some of the construction processes and identified processes which are unique to this part of the world.

Features of self-design in the virtual world

Modern scientific discourse contains two significantly different views on the identity that develops in virtuality. The first is based on the assertion that the virtual identity has its own autonomy and independence from the real identity. At the same time, self-construction or self-presentation in the virtual world compensates for the lack of empathy and attention of the individual to himself in real life. The most common way to increase attention to yourself is to create original author's content (text and visual). The digital nature of modern communication provides an original opportunity to model one's own limited or unlimited virtual space, switch its "modes" or regulate its availability for other users. This virtual space is used by a person not only for communication, entertainment, satisfaction of any cultural and spiritual needs, but also, first of all, for his own self-presentation, which is an integral part of the identity construction process. Identity in the virtual world becomes quite controversial in its content: on the one hand, the authors have fixed the space of virtual social networks as a special living space of their own (private space), on the other hand, the practices of constructing identity themselves due to the public nature of opinion-oriented self-presentation " Another”, become part of the open flow of information, which leads to the blurring of the spheres of public and private.

Étude des relations entre régulation émotionnelle (intra- et interpersonnelle), construction de l’identité et usages des jeux vidéo à l’adolescence

ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to investigate the relationships between intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation processes and identity construction regarding video games use among a population of teenagers and young adults. This investigation is made considering gender differences, and is the first to do so in this field of research. MethodsAccording to the scores of the Game Addiction Scale and the game frequency scores, three groups have been formed: non-gamers (NG, n=37, mean age=19.70), non-problematic gamers (NPG, n=133, mean age=18.60) ang problematic gamers (PG, n=37, mean age=20.16). Participants full filled several questionnaires regarding identity construction: the Dimension of Identity Development Scale, the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale, the Identity subscale of the Erikson Psychosocial Inventory Scale. Regarding emotional processes, the Positive And Negative Affect Schedule, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, and the Interpersonal Regulation Questionnaire were completed by our participants. ResultsResults show many relationships between emotion regulation processes (intra- and interpersonal) and identity construction processes, regardless of video game use level. Also, specificities within these processes according to video game use appear: the non-problematic gamers being the group in which we find the most significant links. Our findings also emphasize gender specificities. ConclusionOur results confirm the interdependence between both intrapersonal et interpersonal emotion regulation and identity construction. Nevertheless, it is crucial to consider gender and video game use to understand these relationships, as emotion regulation processes differ according to gender. Our results provide useful perspectives regarding psychotherapeutic caring of teenagers and young adults with problematic video game use and put the emphasis on considering gender specificities to adjust the therapeutic support. In fact, important links were found between interpersonal emotion regulation and identity especially regarding negative emotions among boys; while the relationship between negative tendency of the interpersonal emotion regulation were found only among problematic girls gamers. Therefore, therapeutical care should put the emphasis on emotion processes: intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation but also emotion conscientization and clarity, two dimensions linked strongly to identity formation. Also, therapy may integrate parents, considering their involvement in these emotion processes development. Furthermore, we can also note a partial congruence between the two scales measuring the identity construction, highlighting the importance of the joint use of these two tools.

Émancipation identitaire : une analyse de La discrétion de Faïza Guène

Faïza Guène’s sixth novel La discrétion focuses on a Maghreb Muslim woman who, having migrated to France, is trying to reconstruct her personal and family history. It is a memoir whose aim is to make the experiences of first-generation migrants an integral part of cultural memory. This search for identity concerns the children of those migrants who try to relate to a fragmented, often suppressed family history they did not experience themselves, but whose burden they nonetheless inherited. The aim of this article will be to prove that what allows both the protagonist of the story and who tells it to free themselves from this overwhelming past is in fact the narrative itself, a process of identity construction with which each author is confronted.

Self-identity construction and pragmatic compensation in a Chinese DAT elder’s discourse

Abstract This study explores how the identity is constructed of elders who have Dementia of the Alzheimer Type (DAT) by examining the communicative disorder in daily interactions with other interlocutors. Specifically, this paper evaluates a conversation between one Chinese elder with early-stage DAT and the interviewer. It analyzes the identity construction processes in the discourse in depth, using the age-identity taxonomy, self-identity representation theory, and the pragmatic emergentist model. Based on the case study, this paper confirms the five dimensions of age-identity taxonomy provided by Coupland as: (1) disclosure of chronological age, (2) age-related categories/role reference, (3) age-identity concerning health, decrement, and death, (4) adding time-past perspective, and (5) self-association with the past. Meanwhile, two more approaches to the age-identity taxonomy were developed, i.e., address behavior and cross-generational contrast. Self-identity to realize interactional goals is typically constructed at the individual level, although rarely at the relational level. The DAT elder conducts compensation in the interaction by adopting verbal and non-verbal strategies to bridge cognitive disorders such as memory loss, word-finding difficulty, or meeting the desire to enhance the pragmatic effects of their identity. This shows that the self-identity construction also facilitates the DAT elders in generating a discourse strategy when encountering pragmatic impairment.

Internet and Religious Identity Construction: Jurus Sehat Rasulullah (JSR) Da’i (Preacher) Zaidul Akbar

The presence of the internet has influenced the way people interact with their social environment, including in the context of religion. Internet seems to eliminate boundaries, space and time in social interactions. This led to a fundamental change in how a person’s identity was formed. This study discusses how online interactions can shape one’s religious identity. “Jurus Sehat Rasulullah” as a da'wah theme which encourages Muslims to maintain their health and perform Islamic medicine is analyzed textually. This qualitative research in collecting data using online observation by observing JSR and its users. The search was focused on the Instagram account @ZaidulAkbar. The results showed that there was a religious identity construction process through the exchange of symbols among internet users who followed the official account of “Jurus Sehat Rasulullah.”

White Food Versus Ethnic Food: Contrasting Food Choices and Intergenerational Family Conflicts in David Wong Louie’s The Barbarians are Coming

This study explores the dynamics of the identity construction process in David Wong Louie’s The Barbarians Are Coming (2000) in the light of cultural food theories, focusing specifically on the views of Claude Fischler and Deborah Lupton. The study discusses the contrasting food choices and eating habits of the first and second generation Chinese Americans reporting the intergenerational conflicts born by the adherence to American and/or ethnic dietary regimen and their disruptive effect on the family unit. The article argues that food and foodways of Chinese Americans guard the culturally defined Chinese culinary regime against the workings of white dietary practices, but the interaction with a social variable such as class challenges this reserved attitude towards the white palate. The analysis of the novel demonstrates that once the desire of eating is no more tempered by the natural tendencies of the ethnic culinary culture, the appetite gets personalized through nonconforming food practices based on the changing socio-economic position of the characters.

Ethnic brand identity work: Responding to authenticity tensions through celebrity endorsement in brand digital self-presentation

Based on an exploratory thematic analysis of the interviews with representatives of brands with intense ethnic digital self-presentation and on confirmatory analysis of the content of the brands’ digital media, this qualitative study introduces a notion of brand identity work. Four contributions are made: theorising brand identity work as a process of identity construction that involves brand building and brand presentation; unpacking a typology of tensions between brand building and brand presentation specific to ethnic marketing; suggesting a dynamic view of authenticity and uncovering a typology of presentation strategies that address these conflicts. We find that behind the tensions between brand-building and brand presentation stands brands’ concern about authenticity. Depending on the type of authenticity tensions, brands develop self-presentation strategies, notably, celebrity endorsement. Social media content analysis shows that brands use self-presentation strategies separately or in combination.

Nascent academic entrepreneurs and identity work at the boundaries of professional domains

Higher education institutions promote academic entrepreneurship through organizational arrangements such as innovation programs, incubators, and accelerators aimed at implementing the third mission of the university. While research has examined how these multi-professional arrangements support entrepreneurial efforts, less is known about their individual level implications which emerge as researchers are exposed to different professional values and practices. This article draws on a longitudinal qualitative study on an innovation program to investigate through what kinds of identity processes nascent academic entrepreneurs construct their professional identities and how as part of these processes they position themselves in relation to different professional domains. The analysis demonstrates three identity construction processes (hybridization, rejecting hybridization, and transitioning) and their associated identity work tactics (compartmentalizing, protecting, and reframing) at the boundaries of professional domains. Our contribution is in demonstrating how nascent academic entrepreneurs’ identity construction processes are influenced by internally and externally oriented identity work and their interactive dynamics. Moreover, the findings advance our understanding of how individuals can purposefully mould the fluidity of domain boundaries through identity work by making boundaries bridgeable, impermeable, or permeable. These findings have value for those developing organizational arrangements for the promotion of academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identities.

Well-Being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Youth: The Influence of Rural and Urban Contexts on the Process of Building Identity and Disclosure.

The study investigates how the territorial community can influence the individual and social well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) youth and especially the recognition of their feelings and the construction of their own identity as well as their needs to be socially recognized. This research focuses on the experiences of 30 LGB individuals (23 males and 7 females), with a mean age of 25.07 years (SD = 4,578), living in urban and rural areas of Southern Italy. Focalized open interviews were conducted, and the Grounded Theory Methodology, supported by the Atlas.ti 8.0 software, was used for data analysis. The textual material was first coded, and then codes were grouped into five macro-categories: Freedom of identity expression in the urban and rural context, identity construction and acceptance process, need of aggregation and identification with the LGB community, role of the interpersonal relationship in the process of identity acceptance, socio-cultural context, and LGB psychological well-being. The results showed a condition common to the two contexts that we can define as “ghettoization.” The young LGB is alone in the rural area due to a lack of places and people to identify with and greater social isolation. On the contrary, although there are more opportunities in the urban area, young people feel stigmatized and ghettoized because “their places” are frequented exclusively by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer (LGBTQ) community. The work will extensively discuss the limitations of the research, future proposals, and the practical implications of the results.

“Immersed in World of Warcraft”: A Discursive Study of Identity Management Talk About Excessive Online Gaming

Online excessive gaming has been associated with negative player identity constructions depicting an abnormal life-style. Up-to-date, there is limited insight into player identity management talk about excessive online gaming. To address this gap, drawing from discursive and rhetorical psychology, we investigated naturally occurring talk of 134 players of World of Warcraft (WoW) -a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)- from three publicly available websites and of five players from one focus group. The analysis illuminated participants’ dilemmatic and contradictory ways of constructing the player identity, while displaying immersion in the game. Participants invoke identity constructions like ‘nolifer’, ‘hardcore’ or ‘clean’ player, which they disavow or assign to themselves and to each other depending on the conversational context, while attending to concerns about (ab)normalcy. The study’s findings highlight a dynamic process of player identity construction in talk, occasioned by and exemplifying the contingencies of the discursive context.

Re-Homing and Identity Reconstruction of Diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”

This study aims to analyse and describe how diaspora characters in “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” reconstructed their identity and negotiate the process of re-homing in their current home. “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” short story (WMPCD), written by Jhumpa Lahiri, depict the complex relation of identity and home experienced through diaspora characters, Pirzada and Lilia’s family. To pursue the objective of the study, qualitative descriptive approach was used together with Laurenson’ and Swingewood’s sociological criticism theory, Castells’ identity formation, and Zhang’s re-homing theory. The results of this study indicated that the process of re-homing depicted in WMPCD has a significant impact on the identity formation of diaspora characters, in this case, Pirzada and Lilia’s family. It means that the diaspora process of identity construction will not be efficiently completed since identity, particularly for diaspora individuals, will continue to be established and reconstructed in the context of the identity-forming resources accessible in their new ‘home’ and what they bring from their homeland. When it comes to re-homing and de-homing, the process of navigating this identification is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated. ‘Home’ is no longer exclusively defined geographically as location, but by time and the people who contribute to forming personal ties to similar experiences. In short, re-homing becomes an essential element of the identity reconstruction process

La tensión propiciatoria Itinerarios de la identidad étnica en estudiantes indígenas universitarios en Perú

This article is based on the author’s experience as a lecturer in a teacher training program in Intercultural Bilingual Education. It reflects on how the ethnic identity of indigenous young people is constructed before they start their university studies. The aim is to explore the process of identity construction (“Who am I?” “Who are we?”) from significant spaces and experiences in which ethnicity is manifested. This journey attempts to reconstruct the paths followed by young people before entering university as well as the different meanings acquired by their identities. It concludes that assuming oneself as Quechua, Shipibo, Aymara or as a member of any native community constitutes a choice affected by a conflictive intersubjectivity; it is also concluded that ethnic affirmation is a dynamic, conflictive experience in permanent negotiation and without a predefined teleology presented as a motivating tension capable of enabling being and existing.

The Evolution of Personal Frames of Reference: Metaphors as Potential Space

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the value of metaphors as part of a reflexive practice in the context of the evolving frame of reference journey of PhD students in a consulting psychology programme. Background: This study reports on the journey of how the personal frames of reference of PhD students in consulting psychology had evolved at a large open-distance and e-learning university in South Africa. As their respective journeys of becoming consulting psychologists unfolded, participants’ evolutionary journeys were viewed through metaphors. Few studies have investigated how metaphors could be used as a powerful evocative tool to go beyond the rational, conscious and sanitized responses of participants, to explore their underlying frames of reference by surfacing and eliciting implicit meaning. Methodology: This study was based on a hermeneutic phenomenological methodological stance and congruently employed principles of socio-analytic inquiry. The context of this inquiry was a PhD programme in consulting psychology presented at a large open-distance e-learning tertiary institution. Participants comprised ten PhD students. These students were required to engage in various self-reflective exercises throughout their first year, such as journaling and self-reflective essays. Their final exercise was to present their evolving frame of reference as a consulting psychologist, in the form of a visual or tangible metaphor. These final presentations became the protocols for hermeneutic phenomenological analysis in this study. Metaphors were selected through purposive sampling, and they became the “data sources” of the study. Contribution: The study contributes to the teaching of reflexivity in consulting practice. It has implications for the training of doctoral students by making a process available through which students and consultants could access and develop their personal frames of reference. The study shares valuable pedagogical and growth experiences from the perspective of the student in consulting psychology. The research advances the field of consulting psychology by introducing the notion of metaphors as potential space and stimulates further engagement in art-based qualitative inquiry from a socio-analytic stance. Findings: The findings suggest that metaphors have value because they create a connection to emotions, emotional processes and emotional work, facilitate the professional identity construction and reconstruction process and enable a shift from self-reflection to self-reflexivity. It is proposed that metaphors have the inherent capacity to act as potential space. Recommendations for Practitioners: Identity tensions could be alleviated through conscious identity work, when psychologists from different categories transition into consulting psychologists. We pose questions for practitioners to consider. Recommendation for Researchers: Doctoral programmes and research on doctoral studies should explicitly engage with both conscious and unconscious dynamics. This could relate to identity work, relationships and the power of reflexive practices. Impact on Society: Dropout rates of doctoral students are high. The time to complete the degree is also long. This comes at a price for the student, the institution and society. Aspects related to frame of reference, philosophical assumptions, and identity work to be done by the doctoral student should be considered as critical to doctoral programmes and doctoral education. Future Research: Future studies could investigate how consulting frames of reference relate to anxiety, identity and the well-being of doctoral students. Studies could also be conducted to see how the participants’ frames of reference in this study have further evolved over their consulting careers.

De carcereiro a policial penal: Entre nomenclaturas, imagem social e atribuições

This paper discusses the process of identity construction of prison security professionals from the transition from the occupational classification of jailer to criminal police officer. I start from the creation of the Criminal Police to problematize the performance, social image and its repercussions in the lives of these professionals. The research was carried out through participant observation and interviews with criminal police officers in Ceará prisons. Through the police narratives, the violent and corrupt social identity gives space to the police identity in formation, whose attributions are related to repressive, disciplinary and surveillance practices, as elements invigorated by the union political organization to remove the excuses social representations attributed to the occupation.

PROJETO DE VIDA E IDENTIDADE: ARTICULAÇÕES E IMPLICAÇÕES PARA A EDUCAÇÃO

ABSTRACT: The relationship between identity and life purpose has been highlighted both by the legal frameworks that define the life purpose as the axis of basic education in Brazil and by studies on life purpose published in the country and abroad. Nevertheless, documents such as the Common National Curricular Base and the New High School do not provide theoretical foundations that would enable education professionals to know how identity and life purpose are constructed and articulated, as well as to understand their pedagogical implications. At the academic level, in turn, the relationship between identity and life purpose has been little discussed explicitly and systematically. The present article, of a theoretical nature and inscribed in the interface between the fields of education and psychology, explores the articulations between studies on life purpose and identity concerning the constitution, development, and functioning of these constructs, and discusses their implications for education. To do so, it delimits the concept of life purpose to the perspective founded by the Center for Adolescence Studies at Stanford University (United States), coordinated by William Damon, and circumscribes the processes of identity construction and functioning to the approaches of identity status, narrative identity and moral identity, whose common matrix is the work of Erik Erikson.