Subordinate Identity Research Articles

‘Yes, everyone is blindfolded but that doesn’t make it equal': the intersectional experiences of visually impaired women footballers in England

ABSTRACT In recent years, there have been concerted global efforts to develop women’s visually impaired (VI) football. However, these developments have not occurred without challenges and the players’ experiences during this significant period of progress have received no academic attention. We adopt an intra-categorical complexity approach to intersectionality to explore VI women’s experiences of becoming and being footballers. The study utilises a focus group and in-depth semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of seven women, with differing sight conditions, who have participated in VI football in England. Using abductive analysis, we examine how the players’ lived experiences have been shaped by the complex intersections of being female, disabled and, more specifically, VI. Our analysis reveals that these intersections create inequitable outcomes for footballers with various subordinate identities. The main inequities derive from the historic marginalisation of women in disability football and include the challenges of learning a new sport, players with different sight conditions adjusting to wearing blindfolds in blind football, and tensions between players brought about by the combination of B1–B3 classes. The findings reveal the complex lived realities of VI women footballers, which have implications for key stakeholders tasked with growing the game in a manner that leads to more equitable outcomes for VI women.

Blind spots in language textbooks. The issue of colonialism

The article presents the results of the analysis of over 80 English language textbooks published between 2000 and 2024. The aim of the study was to answer the question whether English textbooks contain elements of the discursive reproduction of colonialism as a practice of creating superior and subordinate identities, and what potential role textual absences and silence may play in this process. The study used the content analysis method with coding in the programme Atlas.ti and Critical Discourse Analysis to allow for qualitative examination of texts. As a result of the analysis, four main categories were distinguished which at the same time were dominant trends in textual references to colonialism(Colonization without the colonized, The colonized in a folklore trap, Invisibility of colonization, A different approach).The conclusions of the study show the textual absence of topics related to colonialism and the use of various types of silencing strategies to obfuscate the issue, whether in the form of backgrounding or exclusion of the colonized people, or by naturalizing the process of colonization itself. While critical research on textbooks, also in the context of blind spots, has had a long history, it has rarely focused on language textbooks, so the study aims to fill the gap in this area and contribute to further research.

Doing Gender, Undoing Race: Token Processes For Women With Multiple Subordinate Identities

Through interviews with 29 Asian American women tech workers, this article demonstrates how cultural frameworks around race and gender shape identity salience and construct a token process for workers with multiple subordinate identities. This approach to tokenism better accounts for multiple systems of inequality affecting workers and demonstrate how certain identities are prioritized—and others neglected—through institutional interventions and cultural ideologies. It also provides an additional lens through which to interpret the emphasis on gender inequality within the high-tech industry: Whereas gender inequality is generally considered a critical step in achieving an equitable work environment, I consider how it is intentionally leveraged within organizations to divert from interventions toward establishing racial equality. Results suggest serious barriers preventing the high-tech industry from reckoning with racial inequality for Asian American women workers; more broadly, they hint at how other racial groups with white-adjacent privileges are similarly exploited to uphold the high-tech industry’s white racial project.

Madheshi Dalit Women’s Access to Citizenship and Livelihood Alternatives in Nepal

This article delves into the ramifications of Madheshi Dalit Women’s (MDWs) access to citizenship on their strategies for livelihood. Within the context of Nepal, the discourse surrounding citizenship often portrays the MDWs as immigrants or insufficiently authentic citizens. This perception is rooted in historical social hierarchies that have systematically marginalized individuals possessing multiple subordinate identities, such as Madheshis, Dalits, women and the landless. Remarkably, the MDWs embody all of these identities. The prevailing narrative of a hill-based national identity endorsed by the state has prompted inquiries into the loyalty of the MDWs to the nation, consequently undermining their rightful citizenship claims. Drawing upon qualitative field research conducted in Nepal’s central and eastern Tarai districts, where a significant population of Madheshi Dalits resides, this study investigates the intricate interplay between access to citizenship and its implications for livelihood strategies and survival challenges: land ownership and labour participation. The findings underscore the considerable challenges faced by the MDWs, including limited livelihood options, acute landlessness and unorganized wage labour.

Exploring Vietnamese primary school EFL teachers’ identities from a micropolitical perspective

Exploring Vietnamese primary school EFL teachers’ identities from a micropolitical perspective

O cuidado em comunidades de pesca: reflexões sobre e para o currículo da Educação Infantil

ABSTRACT In Brazil, since the first decade of this century, there has been a concern as to outlining the meaning of care as a principle of the curriculum and the early childhood education policy. Based on references from philosophy and historical and sociological analyses, care is outlined as relationships and actions that have the other in mind and become constitutive of being, implying the constitution of each person. Between 2021 and 2022, we carried out post-doctoral research that sought to deepen the meanings of care to reflect on the early childhood education curriculum. The idea of the project was to consider care from the perspective of traditional populations and social movements. For this, we carried out an ethnography with a fishing community on the north coast of the state of Alagoas, Brazil. The study refutes notions that traditional people offer precarious care, as considered by the colonizer. In fact, it is just the opposite. Traditional peoples develop community care, implying greater freedom for children to move around community, and greater autonomy in relation to the demands of life and to act according to their curiosities. Subtle friendly relationships that are expressed in silence, economy of words and attention to gestures are at the basis of care. We consider that early childhood education curricula need to incorporate the different forms and meanings of caring for babies and children, and not subordinate social identities.

Intersectionality as researchers’ and participants’ resource: A commentary on the contributions to the Special Issue

The aim of this commentary is to relate the papers contributing to this special issue to the broader directions and orientations of psychological research on intersectionality. It is argued that, in common with existing psychological research, the contributions to the current issue either explore how social actors stereotype others in light of their intersecting social identities or focus on the potential psychological and social implications of holding intersecting subordinate identities (including gender). It is also maintained that while intersectionality has mainly constituted the researcher’s concern and analytic lens, a future research agenda, as it is indicated by some of the contributions, should involve the study of intersectionality as participants’ concern and resource and the investigation of the (proximal and distal) implications of its use in different social and rhetorical contexts.

Dual Identity Mantan Teroris Indonesia

Terrorists have a limited sense of national identity. They wish to replace Pancasila ideology with one founded on the Qur'an and hadith. Thus, what about the former terrorist's identity? Former terrorist actors have renounced violence and terror to fight for an ideology (disengagement). However, not all former terrorists declared themselves members of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. The purpose of this study is to describe the dual identities of former terrorists who have sworn allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. This study employed a qualitative method with a case study approach in ex-terrorist Indonesia. Data were collected using interviews, observation, and documentation, and analyzed according to the Yin case study perspective with the help of Atlas.ti software. This article demonstrates the dual identity of former Indonesian terrorists. All informants have sworn allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. This demonstrates an increase in the national identity of rehabilitated terrorist actors, despite several informants having superordinate national identities. Other findings indicated a subordinate identity, namely the identity of a mujahideen. This identity persists, although the permit has been revoked. Informants continued to wish to establish a caliphate state (including Indonesia), even though they no longer desired violence and terror. Hopefully this research can be used in the deradicalization of terrorist actors in Indonesia.

The State and the Madheshi Dalit Women’s Access to Citizenship in Nepal

The relationship between the state and Madheshi Dalit Womans (MDWs) with reference to the latter’s exercise of citizenship right has long been a contested issue in Nepal due to the latter’s alleged immigrant history and cultural and familial connection with the Dalits of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh of India. The MDWs who are at the lowest social order in Nepal because of their intersecting subordinate identities based on gender, caste, ethnic and class have been systematically excluded from the domain of Nepali citizenship during due course of hill-based national identity formation. Consequently, large number of the MDWs, their spouses and children have remained stateless or struggled hard to obtain citizenship owing to ethnic, caste, gender and class-based exclusion even after insertion of jus soli provisos for a brief period in the 2006 Citizenship Act. On this backdrop, this article, based on qualitative field study in the eastern Tarai, is an effort to explore the intricacies of the citizenshiplessness of the MDWs of Nepal’s eastern Tarai from their subjective experiences. The findings reveal a disappointing picture of citizenshiplessness of the MDW families by virtue of multiple forms of exclusion and also a sustained hierarchy within themselves based on access to different types of citizenship.

Post or protest?: Factors influencing white women’s engagement in activism

ABSTRACT We investigated how engagement in activism among white women is predicted by their political efficacy, exposure to gendered microaggressions (i.e., verbal and/or nonverbal slights targeting a subordinate gender identity), and color-blind racial attitudes. We recruited 93 white undergraduate women for whom exposure to gendered microaggressions, color-blind racial attitudes, and political efficacy explained a significant proportion of variance in participants’ ratings of political activism on social media, although these predictors did not significantly explain a proportion of the variance in their in-person political activism (e.g., rally attendance). We discuss how these findings relate to the current literature, as well as implications and future directions.

Divorce status in the Pakistani workplace: women's narratives on stigma, outcomes and coping strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the processes associated with divorced female employees' experiences at workplaces in the context of a developing country, Pakistan. Specifically, this study analyzes divorced women's narratives to better understand the nature of discrimination, its outcomes and their coping strategies within the workplace environment.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative methodology consisting of 25 semistructured interviews with women employees having divorce status was adopted.FindingsFindings demonstrate that divorced women experience a considerable amount of discrimination at their workplace from colleagues (victimized through gossiping). Moreover, they are also offered less training opportunities. This discrimination not only increases turnover intentions and stress but also decreases cognitive performance and disturbs work–life balance. The major coping strategies identified in the research include avoiding the situation and/or concealing their identity.Originality/valueFirst, this study undertakes an in-depth examination of experiences and consequences of stigma amongst female individuals with divorced identity from an understudied, yet highly relevant, context of Pakistan. In so doing, the authors respond to the call for more research that examines the role of context in shaping the psychological process. Second, contextualizing the concepts of discrimination and inclusion in the workplace setting, this work gives voice to females with divorce identity. Lastly, by examining the interaction between visible and invisible identities, the authors provide further evidence that individuals with multiple subordinate identities are more prone to greater stigma and other negative consequences.

El Problema del Pesebre en La Moneda

Uno de los renovados focos de interés de la teoría política liberal ha sido la forma en que los estados despliegan símbolos religiosos en el uso de su capacidad expresiva, es decir, sin coerción. ¿Son estas formas de establecimiento religioso simbólico permisibles en un estado formalmente separado de la iglesia? Esta pregunta es pertinente para el caso chileno, donde la autoridad conmemora una serie de ritos religiosos al interior del palacio de gobierno, siendo la instalación de un pesebre gigante de Navidad el que genera más resistencia en una fracción de la creciente población de ateos, agnósticos y no creyentes en general. Este artículo recurre a la recientemente influyente teoría del “secularismo mínimo” de Cecile Laborde para concluir que el pesebre en La Moneda solo es políticamente relevante si envía un mensaje de exclusión cívica a una identidad vulnerable y subordinada, lo que es difícil de argumentar desde la perspectiva de sus críticos.

He, (s)he/she, and they

Gender-focussed language reform movements are underpinned by not only gender but also language ideologies. This study explores the relationship between these ideologies across anti-sexist and anti-cis-sexist reform movements. The movements target differing outcomes and align with differing ideologies, but I argue that they share an underlying goal and underlying ideological tenets. While anti-sexist reform seeks to improve the status and render legible the experiences of a subordinate but legible identity, namely women, anti-cis-sexist reform aims to unsettle cis-sexist assumptions of gender and render greater gender diversity legible. In targeting these goals, anti-sexist reformers cluster around forms of linguistic relativity, while anti-cis-sexist reformers focus on linguistic performativity. Both ideological stances, however, share underlying conceptualizations of language as limiting and as acting in the world, while both goals share an underlying commitment to harm avoidance. This paper highlights the role of language ideologies, in addition to gender ideologies, in gender-focussed language reform.

A discursive study exploring the professional identities of registered nurses employed in older person residential care settings.

The phenomenon of an ageing population is being experienced globally requiring the ongoing provision of residential care services. A large number of registered nurses work in these settings; however, many challenges exist in their recruitment and retention. To explore professional identities and emerging discourses of registered nurses working in older person residential care settings. This study employed a discursive-based research methodology with a central focus on the role language, and discourses play in identity construction. Fourteen in-depth narrative interviews were completed with registered nurses in residential care settings in the Republic of Ireland. Thematic analysis was underpinned by a critical discursive psychology framework. Four key identities and related discourses emerged: 'skilled professional identity', 'person-centred identity', 'subordinate identity' and 'product of healthcare reform identity'. Discourses presented contrasting professional identities held by nurses in residential care settings; on the one hand, they employed positive professional and person-centred discourses, while on the other hand, tensions associated with healthcare reform and a subordinate identity exist. This study presents unique insights into how registered nurses in residential care construct their professional identity and in doing so, enhances opportunities to promote recruitment and marketing in this setting. Equally, the challenges and opportunities of healthcare reform require sensitive management so that the professional identity of nurses working in residential care is enhanced and protected. How registered nurses working in residential care settings view their professional identity directly impacts on attitudes and behaviours and the subsequent delivery of care. Greater understanding and insight into how they construct their professional identity may enhance recruitment and retention initiatives. Study results also provide an opportunity for policymakers and service providers to create more positive working environments that promote professional identity development for this nursing group.

Creating safe spaces: An exploration of dominant and subordinate identity status

Through a qualitative study consisting of 68 undergraduate business students representing both dominant and subordinate identities, we examine how students make meaning of situations where they feel “unsafe”. Participants were primed on the increased occurrence of incidents involving negative comments or behavior about diversity on U.S. college campuses. They were then asked to think about a time when they felt unsafe in a diversity-related situation and to describe the situation and how it made them feel. Next, we conducted a grounded theory qualitative analysis to study participant’s explanations of how those unsafe experiences. Our results reveal that feeling unsafe is triggered by norms violations such as repeated offensive behaviors and comments. Furthermore, we find these triggers are interpreted as identity, contextual, vicarious, and hazardous working-condition threats which lead to affective and self-protective responses. Additionally, we found evidence that members of dominant groups reported vicarious and hazardous working condition threats more frequently than members of subordinate identity groups did. We propose that social identity group status influences interpretations of norm violations and how people make meaning about being unsafe. In the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements, our results underscore the practical importance of higher education institutions providing concrete action items to address safety inequities on college campuses and beyond.

The onset of COVID-19, common identity, and intergroup prejudice

ABSTRACT The research presented here examined the relationship between the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social group identity, intergroup contact, and prejudice. Utilizing a common ingroup identity approach, two datasets, which were composed of data from university students collected via online questionnaires before and after the onset of COVID-19, were combined (N = 511). Participants identified as either one of two subordinate student identities: domestic (i.e. U.S. citizen or permanent resident) or international (i.e. non-U.S. citizen or foreign resident), then reported on the strength of their subordinate and superordinate identity (university identity). Participants also reported on their contact experiences with outgroup members, outgroup stereotypes, and completed a novel intergroup bias task. Results indicated that after the onset of the pandemic, participants more strongly identified with the superordinate group, which predicted greater perceived intergroup contact and lower intergroup bias. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.

Beyond the axes of inequality: Religion, race, and everything in between.

This study examined the mental health outcomes of a diverse group of 549 individuals experiencing discrimination based on their multiple subordinate identities: ethnicity/race, religion, nativity, and sexual orientation. Applying an intersectionality framework, the findings provide an understanding of the impact of discrimination and racism on minority groups' mental health within the heterosexual and Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) context. Significant differences were found on levels of discrimination and racism across ethnic, racial, sexual, and gender minority groups, particularly among Muslim/Jewish, Arab/African, male, and foreign-born participants. Results suggest that subordinate identities and statuses shape the racism and discrimination experiences of the participants. The paper concludes with a discussion of practice and policy implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

“That’s not a man’s drink”. The construction of gendered identities through stories of wine consumption in Kenya

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how gendered wine-drinker identities are constructed through stories of wine consumption in Kenya.Design/methodology/approachThe data comes from a corpus of 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews collected in Nairobi, Kenya. Taking a narrative approach, this paper uses positioning theory as a fine-grained linguistic methodological tool to analyze stories of gendered wine consumption.FindingsA key finding of the study is that wine consumption can enact, and be enacted by, wider normative societal gendered discourses of what men and women should and, should not, be drinking. In short, in some societies (Kenya being an example here) men drinking wine is subject to the normative gaze of their peers; and if men drink wine, they are not considered “real men.” This is so even when chatting up women, in which case male wine-drinkers are ascribed to the subordinate male identities of either the “new man” or the romantic man. However, male wine-drinkers can retain a real man identity if they are wealthy (and powerful) enough not to care what other men think.Practical implicationsThe study provides new insights for targeting consumers in emerging export markets. Wine companies need to be aware that the purchase drivers in established markets may not be central to consumers in developing markets. In developing markets, wine consumption may be influenced by the normative gaze of peers which enacts, and is enacted by, societal gendered discourses. Crucially, a thorough understanding of consumer behavior leads to a more critical consideration for focused marketing strategies aimed at establishing relationships with customers in developing markets.Originality/valueThe study offers an original contribution to the barely existent body of knowledge on wine consumption in sub-Saharan Africa and gendered wine-drinking identity construction. Additionally, from a methodological perspective, no previous study on wine consumption has used a narrative identity approach to the fine-grained linguistic analysis of transcripts of stories elicited during research interviews.

Gender performance and migration experience of Filipino transgender women entertainers in Japan

Background: Many unrepresented stories of Filipino transgender migrant workers in Japan are significant in Filipino trans women’s struggle for visibility. Aim: This study aims to explore how migration and gender performance influence the gender affirmation of Filipino trans women or transpinay entertainers in Japan. Method: This study draws on a qualitative approach using grounded theory to collect data between 2012 and 2018 through participant observations and semi-structured interviews in Manila, Cebu, and Japan. Through snowball sampling and ties with the LGBTQ community, 14 participants shared their narratives that revolved around their background, gender identity, visa and job application process, entertainment work, and relationships before, during, and after migration. Results: The transpinays’ migration experience is influential in their gender affirmation as in Japan and upon their return to the Philippines. The transpinay entertainers migrate to Japan is not solely for economic reasons; they also seek sexual emancipation. Before moving to Japan, they negotiate their gender identity to pass the auditions and apply for an entertainer visa. During their migration, doing and undoing gender is woven into their lives with their intersecting subordinate identities as a Filipino transgender woman and a migrant worker, resulting into an intersectional invisibility. Their entertainer profile as a Filipino transgender woman is an embodiment of gendered performances and ethnicity. Transpinay entertainers returned several times or chose to stay in Japan because they were marginalized in their home country. Conclusion: The transpinay entertainers provide a significant case for highlighting the temporal aspect of their gender performance and migration experience, in which their commitment toward entertainment work transforms over time. The migration experience in Japan indicates a positive outcome in their gender affirmation that does not necessarily lead to gender confirmation surgery.

‘That’s Jean Lowe’: On Being a Black Canadian Female Track Athlete in 1940s Toronto

From the late 1930s through to the 1940s, Lowe remained a constant in the city’s sports pages. Yet, in 1946, she moved to the Southern United States to complete her education and did not reside in Canada again. Using Toronto’s White press media reports on Lowe, the present Black feminist analysis nuances a racialized woman’s tortuous journey to success, demonstrating that no amount of public acclaim could obfuscate raciality. Indeed, praise existed alongside othering discourse. Most prominent in this narrative is the notion that, no matter how valued an individual may have been as an integral member of a squad, they were and remained a ‘Black athlete’. This had sociocultural implications and tinted even the acclaims of her most enthusiastic supporters. Lowe also allows a juxtaposition of Canadian and American Black/White relational contexts. Her departure from her hometown is framed by conflicting, yet defining, characteristics of a Canadian society which nurtured an image of tolerance and openness, while firmly endorsing the colour line. Lowe’s athletic biography underscores that locating marginalized peoples within Western sport history is necessary to appreciate how individuals with multilayered subordinate identities fit into, reorganize, and disrupt White/Euro centric grand historical narratives of sport, nation, and settlement.