Process Of Identity Negotiation Research Articles

Translingual identity across transnational education spaces: study on a group of Chinese students in joint education programme

ABSTRACT Informed by translingual practice [Canagarajah, S. 2013a. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York: Routledge] and poststructuralist conceptualisation of identity [Norton, B. 2000. “Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change.” TESOL Quarterly 35 (3): 504–505], this qualitative case study explored the process of translingual identity construction and negotiation among a group of Chinese students in a joint education programme between China and the United States. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations. Data analysis found that these Chinese students initially perceived themselves as deficient ESL speakers resulting from a lack of competence in English, but were able to transform this dilemma with the development of powerful national identities throughout their China-US transnational experiences. In order to claim ownership of English and membership in the host community, besides using standard norms of English to handle academic and social life communication, students developed translingual dispositions as well as translingual practices to supplement their communicative competence with expanded semiotic repertoire. The study extends previous discussions on identity by examining through an analytical lens as translingualism to explore students’ identity construction and negotiation in transnational education spaces and provides implications for translingual-oriented language policy and ideologies in intercultural contexts to enhance outcomes of teaching practices and students’ learning.

Identity work of management accountants in a merger: The construction of identity in liminal space

In response to calls for research on the ways in which management accountants make sense of their professional identities in organisational disruptions, this paper explores their identity work during a merger. Drawing on a case study of a merger between two Dutch banks, the paper examines their identity work as they found themselves in a liminal state – i.e. “betwixt and between” workplace identities. The paper identifies two types of identity work in a merger. Inside-out identity work was the process of identity negotiation through which each partnering group sought to make sense of their own distinctive liminal experiences. This type of identity work brought about intra- and inter-professional conflict. By contrast, outside-in identity work was founded on intergroup bases of identification, which were authenticated by credible role-models. This type of identity work gave rise to the construction of a superordinate workplace identity through which incoherent workplace identities could co-exist with shared intergroup identities. The paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the persistence of incoherent identity positions of management accountants in a merger and the intergroup struggles this generates. Moreover, it illuminates the processes through which these positions can ultimately be brought closer together.

The critical incident negotiation process of public librarians in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract This paper reports findings from interviews with practicing public librarians in Aotearoa New Zealand. It details respondent understanding of influences on perception and behaviour, and critical incidents as they relate to librarian professional identity. In-depth semi-structed interviews were conducted with forty practicing public librarians. Interviews were analysed with an inductive approach. Findings report on sample tendencies of dominant influences on practitioners’ perception and behaviour, impacting professional identity development over time. Dominant influences are respondent understanding of the strongest aspect they understand to influence their professional identity for both their individual perception of their professional identity and social factors influencing their professional behaviour. Findings also report on the identity negotiation process prompted by critical incidents, whose criticality is reliant on individual perception of incident in relation to professional identity. This process outlines affective response to the critical incident as a gateway to identity negotiations, leading to a discovery and/or growth of an identity facet, which will either affirm or undermine identity understanding. This process may be iterative, as meaning ascribed to the incident may change over time. Three theoretical propositions are presented articulating the role of dominant influences and critical incidents on identity negotiations of public librarian professional identity.

Identity Negotiation in the Age of Global Migration in Exophonic Novels

The vast changing of the cultural structure caused by globalization and migration has a complicated identity. A higher number of migrants from numerous parts of the world has arisen lately, especially from Middle Eastern and Muslim countries facing various conflicts. Negotiating identities, thus, becomes inevitable, particularly for migrants. Identity negotiation has been frequently raised as an underlying issue in early 2000s literary works. Such an era becomes a worth researching topic on migration as portrayed in exophonic novels. Exophony refers to writing and producing literary works in a language that is not one’s mother tongue. The article covers the analysis of novels written by exophonic writers: Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (2003), Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul (2006), and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007). The analysis focuses on identity negotiation experienced by Muslim diaspora characters by employing Homi K. Bhabha’s cultural identity. This study reveals that identity negotiation often occurs in the context of power relations and can occasionally be hegemonizing. This notion is backed by the fact that the complexity of the identity negotiation process occurs not only at the intersection of opposed cultures or civilizations but also at the intersection of politics and power relations.

Emotional Distancing Identity Work by Sri Lankan Skilled Immigrant Women in Australian Workplaces

The identities of skilled immigrant women are often challenged and threatened as they enter the host country workforce. Skilled immigrant women hence seek avenues to stablize their identities to acquire a more socially acceptable self as they navigate the host country workforce. This study draws on 31 in depth interviews data of Sri Lankan skilled immigrant women in Australian workplaces to understand the identity work strategies employed in the sensemaking process through which they establish their identities. We find that Sri Lankan skilled immigrant women in their attempts to secure the first employment opportunity in Australian workforce engaged in emotional distancing from the initial identities they held when they arrived in Australia. Our analysis further discusses the identity negotiation process moving from sensebreaking to sensemaking with identity work posited as the intermediate process between the two stages. We contribute to identity scholarship by furthering the understanding of identity work strategies employed by skilled immigrant women in their early stages of the migration and propose a future research agenda regarding immigrants’ identity work in host country work places.

False Consciousness: The Cultural Identity Construction of Cele And Batik Within Moluccan Scholars in Ambon

Identity is a social construction. The Moluccan people are evident of this structure, especially regarding the policy of the obligation to wear cele (Moluccan traditional garment). This has become a process of identity construction involving culture and ethnicity for Moluccans. This paper discusses how Moluccan scholars who studied in Java understand their position wearing cele in the local context in Maluku. In addition, this paper also discusses the scholars’ views on how the process of identity negotiation between localism and nationalism is represented through cele and batik. Information for this study was gathered using a qualitative method with a cultural studies approach. The data were collected using several techniques including interviews, observation, and literature studies to answer research questions and problems. This paper shows that in response to the Moluccan government policy which requires the people to wear cele once a week, most scholars prefer to wear batik instead. One justification is related to cultural and religious aspects, noting cele is more familiar and originates from within the Christian community, while the Islamic community does not recognize cele in their culture. They consider that such policy leads to the construction of cultural identity based on false consciousness.

La poesía como recurso colectivo frente al imperialismo cultural hacia los mexicoamericanos. El caso de la poesía de José Olivarez

Cultural imperialism is a condition of oppression that consists in dominant narratives of society making invisible invisible the particular perspective of minority groups while stigmatizing them based on impoverished and degrading concepts. As a consequence, members of minority groups internalize oppression and experience moral cruelty. In this article it is proposed that poetry can be a collective resource to counteract such symbolic damage. Following Sandra Faulkner's proposal on poetic research, I use the poetry of the Mexican-American poet Jose Olivarez to show how poetry is a tool to question stigmatized stereotypes, make visible the subjective experiences of minority groups, counteract the humiliation generated by the stigmas, and retake the leading role in identity negotiation processes from which Mexican Americans have been excluded because of cultural imperialism.

The social psychological dynamics of transgender and gender nonconforming identity formation, negotiation, and affirmation

This study contributes to trans identity affirmation research by exploring transgender and gender nonconforming (GNC) identity formation, negotiation, and affirmation involving self-verification (recognition by others of one’s gender identity and presentation) and validation (accordant treatment by others) in interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Classic symbolic interactionism and social identity theory, with a focus on the self-verification and identity negotiation processes that lie therein, provide the bases for viewing gender-expansive identity within social and interpersonal negotiations. Eighteen interviews were conducted with transgender and GNC participants. Using a grounded theory approach, four key themes emerged: the importance of personal agency in achieving internal and external identity accord, the value of revealing gender histories in interpersonal relationships, the recognition of extant hurdles in navigating intersectional identities, and the constrictive effects of cisgender privilege and binaried views of gender on the gender-expansive individual. In the discussion we address strategies to enhance gender negotiations, and suggest modifications to current views of gender roles and relationships that recognize the value of transgender and GNC individuals as enablers of change within and between gender groups.

To Be or Not to Be a Chechen? The Second Generation of Chechens in Europe and Their Choices of Identity.

Approximately a quarter of Chechnya's population left the republic due to the Russo-Chechen wars and the brutality of the regime established after them. Many of the Chechen migrants settled in Europe where cultural, religious, and social differences compelled them to go through the daunting process of identity negotiation. Although most of the first-generation Chechen migrants managed to preserve their original identity, this was not always the case for their children. This article aims to identify the factors that determine the identity preferences of second-generation Chechens in Europe. The paper presents three cases which illustrate very different outcomes of the identity formation and negotiation processes. This ethnographic study concludes that home education impacted the identity choices of the migrants' children the most.

Hawaiian Spirituality and Religious Syncretism in Gary Pak’s Children of a Fireland

ABSTRACT Gary Pak’s Children of a Fireland (2004) provides a rather panoramic view into contemporary Hawaiian culture through its depiction of a fictional town on the brink of disaster. The multi-layered novel, which interweaves cultural, geopolitical, and socio-historical threads, remains largely unexplored and is thus fertile ground for this study. Focusing on Hawaiian spirituality, this paper traces the journeys of the two savior figures depicted in the novel, highlighting the significance of their positioning as literary doubles, particularly in light of post-contact Hawaiian religious syncretism. To this end the paper starts with the necessary background and then introduces the spiritual journey and sacrifice of the Christian savior and of the native shamanic savior in the narrative. The paper finally posits that the portrayal of two saviors reflecting the historically oppositional native and colonial modes of spirituality, rather than one balanced syncretic savior, is a reflection of an internal struggle faced by many during the process of spiritual identity negotiation, which is born of the colonial purist approach, and thus serves as an invitation to generate a new discussion on religion and spirituality in contemporary Hawaii that embraces and draws upon the present diversity.

Identity Narration and Negotiation among Older Adults Experiencing Homelessness

To be old and homeless is to face multiple stigmatized identities simultaneously. This qualitative study explored how older homeless adults construct their personal and social identities to manage this stigma. A series of semi-structured in-depth interviews and field observations were conducted over a period of two years with twenty homeless older adults affiliated with an outreach program in a Northeastern U.S. city. Results revealed three typologies of identity narration strategies that the participants used in their processes of identity negotiation and stigma resistance: (1) illumination of positive identities, (2) differentiation and hierarchy, and (3) adoption of other stigmatized but more “deserving” identities. Three case narratives are presented here as a means of illustrating the constructed typology of identity narration and negotiation strategies among older adults experiencing homelessness. Findings suggest ways we might honor individual narratives to eliminate the dividing practice of homelessness as “other” and reframe the discourse to better address older homelessness.

Communities of practice in pre-Hispanic Middle and Lower Paraná (Northeastern Argentina). Ceramic petrography contributions

During the present decade, our knowledge on the practices of raw material selection and preparation from pre-Hispanic Middle and Lower Paraná pottery manufacturing has substantially increased due to the application of thin section microscopy. However, the point-counting methodology has not been applied in most of the studies, which provides paste component quantitative data, and allows us to make adjusted comparisons across different pottery manufacturing traditions. In this paper, we perform modal analysis by point-counting of ceramic pastes retrieved from Middle and Lower Paraná archaeological sites (ca. 1800 to 360 BP), which are attributed to the Goya-Malabrigo archaeological entity. Paste petrography allowed us to identify structural similarities in ca. 70% of the pastes, and a shared clay processing recipe, which included adding grog. Usage of this temper has already been observed among communities of potters from Middle and Lower Paraná, even in those not attributed to the Goya-Malabrigo entity (i.e., Guaraní). In this paper, we also verify the differences found in the added amount of grog temper between the two Paraná River sections under consideration. Although most frequently grog comprises 2% of the inclusions found, its variability range is wider in Lower Paraná where, in general, it was added in greater amounts. This practice could be indicative of shared identities and a social differentiation marker, and evidence that clay manipulation played a prominent role during the identity negotiation processes.

Who Makes Whom Charismatic? Leadership Identity Negotiation in Work Teams

This study examines charismatic attributions among peers within the informal leadership emergence process. We built and tested the theory with a longitudinal sample of 123 teams. Using an identity negotiation framework, we examined the processes by which individuals came to be perceived as charismatic by both teammates and themselves. We found that individuals engaged in self-verification, which caused their teammates to perceive them as they perceived themselves, while the collective team engaged in appraisal and influenced individual teammates to perceive themselves as the team did. Our findings suggest that these processes are stronger when initial perceptual differences are high and when the identity negotiation process aims at yielding a highly charismatic identity or reputation.

Identity (In)congruence in Ethnically/Racially “Superior/Inferior” Peer Dyads

In this paper, we use social dominance theory to investigate the identity negotiation processes at play in racially/ethnically diverse dyads of peer employees. We focus on dyads in which one employee belongs to a race/ethnicity viewed as ‘superior’ and his or her peer to a race/ethnicity viewed as ‘inferior’. Building on social dominance theory, we argue that the social dominance orientations (SDO) of the members of such a dyad, that is the extent to which they accept and support the dominance of ‘inferior’ groups by ‘superior’ groups in a society, predict identity (in)congruence, i.e. (in)congruence between the way an employee sees him or herself and the way the peer sees him or her. Specifically, we theorize that conforming dyads in which both members have high SDO and mature dyads in which both members have low SDO experience identity congruence. Conversely, stormy dyads in which the ‘superior’ member has high SDO and the ‘inferior’ member has low SDO, and compassionate dyads in which the ‘superior’ member has low SDO and the ‘inferior’ member has high SDO, experience identity incongruence. Further, our theory explains the consequences of identity (in)congruence in each dyad.

“Fearless, powerful, Filipino”: identity positioning in the hashtag activism of #BabaeAko

ABSTRACT This study investigated the discursive production and contestation of identities in the Philippine hashtag campaign, #BabaeAko (“I am a woman”). Using Slocum-Bradley’s Positioning Diamond (2009) it explored the relational process of identity negotiation between the women of the campaign and the President along with his supporters. Explicit utterance of the identity category “woman” with attributes of fearlessness and power, and sustaining such positioning across social episodes, allowed #BabaeAko advocates to resist oppressive attributions grounded on structural inequalities. In addition, the twofold storylines of calling out misogyny and calling for solidarity established the discursive activism of the campaign as both “talking back” and “calling for” likeminded individuals. Findings are further discussed in relation to hashtag feminism and political action along with the implications of identity claiming to feminist online mobilization.

Korean Christian Students' Adaptation and Integration in British Society: Their Identity Formation and Negotiation Processes

1 This paper explores Korean Christian students' adaptation and integration process in Britain, and their identity formation and negotiation, primarily based on ethnographic research. Korean student migrants undergo peculiar types of challenges during their integration process and experience conflicts between previously obtained and newly formed identities. Their attendance of and involvement in either a Korean or a British church helps them to overcome these challenges and influences them to continually (re)form identity/identities. While negotiating between different identities, their Christian identity – as their original identity that transcends cultural boundaries and influences – reminds them of their ontological value and encourages them to continue their life as migrants despite the challenges. Nevertheless, I will examine at the same time the notion that the migrants' Christian identity is a Korean Christian identity with cultural identity markers that define a Korean ethnic identity, which provides them hope in British society not only to survive but even to flourish as migrants.

The multilevel identity politics of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest

Abstract This article uses the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) that took place in Tel Aviv to explore how cultural mega-events serve both as political arenas and as tools for identity construction, negotiation and contestation. These processes of identity politics are all conducted across national–subnational–international–transnational levels. The hosting of mega-events fleshes out these multiple processes in a very strong manner. We first discuss the politics of hosting mega-events in general. We then examine the identity politics associated more specifically with the Eurovision Song Contest, before examining in depth the complex forms of identity politics emerging around the competition following the 2018 Israeli victory. We suggest that it is important to study together the multiple processes—domestic, international and transnational—of identity politics that take place around the competition, as they interact with each other. Consequently, we follow the various stakeholders involved at these different levels and their interactions. We examine the internal identity negotiation process in Israel surrounding the event, the critical actors debating how to use the stage to challenge the liberal, western, ‘normal’ identity Israel hoped to project in the contest and how other stakeholders (participating states, national broadcasting agencies, participating artists) reacted to them, and finally we examine the behaviour of the institution in charge, the European Broadcasting Union, and national governments. We contribute to the study of mega-events as fields of contestation, to the understanding of the complex, multilevel nature of national identity construction, negotiation and contestation in the current era, and more broadly to the role that popular culture plays in this context.

Trained Identities: Exploring Emergent Identities Aboard One Slow‐Moving Train

SummaryThis article explores processes of identity negotiation through talk and body language among a small community of travelers aboard a cross‐country train. I explore the emergent and contingent nature of narrative as well as the role of body language and silence in the construction of self and other in a space separate from the usual social networks that inform our senses of self. I argue that aboard the train we were able to invent ourselves anew, making of ourselves what we wanted with the understanding that we would never meet again and that our stories could go largely unchecked. At the same time, I note the importance of structural identity markers in our storytelling and place‐making actions.

Identity negotiation processes among Black and Latinx sexual minority young adult mental health service users

The transition to adulthood presents particular challenges for Black and Latinx sexual minorities in need of mental health services. Identity formation and marginalization during this developmental period can interfere with help-seeking and lead to health disparities. Identity-specific psychosocial supports are needed to assist young adults to successfully navigate these challenges, but research on identity processes, help-seeking, and service-utilization among sexual minority young people of color is very limited. To better understand how multiple minority young people navigate their identities in the context of using, or choosing not to use, mental health services, this study qualitatively explored the experiences of 31 emerging adults. Through in-depth interviews, analyses revealed that young adults negotiated social identity norms about mental health help-seeking by separating from unhelpful norms, managing stigmatized aspects of identity, integrating helpful identity alternatives, and forming individualized perspectives on help-seeking that allowed them to maintain important connections to their minority group identities. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research on ethnic and sexual minority identity development and service utilization. Practice and research recommendations for increasing knowledge, improving help-seeking, and promoting resilience around young adults’ intersectional identities are offered.

Identity negotiation of older people in a mobility context: The case of train journeys

This research sets out to understand the process of identity negotiation undertaken by older people. The limitations associated with the ageing process are increasing. Older people must also negotiate with regard to the social image of ageing. They encounter this identity negotiation in an emblematic manner in mobility contexts. The research, conducted on the basis of an ethnographic methodology of train journeys, identifies four identity-negotiation strategies for older people, based on stoic fatalism, opportunistic acceptance, empowering appropriation and similar adequacy. These four strategies may be adopted by a single person during the same journey. They are then discussed in relation to the concept of successful ageing.