Going to the Crackhouse: Critical Space as a Form of Resistance in Total Institutions and Everyday Life

This article explores the extent to which organizational identity claims and the formal organization of social control influence how actors in a total institution conceptualize their “real” selves. The setting for this case study is Project Rehabilitate Women, a drug treatment program serving incarcerated female offenders. Using Goffman's analysis of the total institution as a guide, I explore the importance of “secondary adjustments” for self-definition. This analysis will show that the capacity of residents to distance themselves from the label of “addict” is contingent on the formal structure of social control. I will argue that, in the absence of traditional distancing strategies, residents construct “critical space” as an alternative means to subvert institutional control mechanisms and to creatively acquire the resources necessary to articulate definitions of self that are distinct from staff constructions. It is clear that resistance, whether temporary or sustained, successful or failed, is central to how subordinates maintain their sense of self in an environment committed to radical self-transformation.     

Friendship Talk as Identity Work: Defining the Self Through Friend Relationships

This paper places friendships at the center of individuals' identity work, examining how individuals construct self‐identities through their talk about friend relationships and networks. We conceptualize this “friendship talk” as a subcategory of identity talk. From interviews with emerging adults, we find three strategies of friendship talk: envisioning self through others, betterment distancing, and situating with networks. These strategies demonstrate unique ways identity construction occurs through talk about friends. Individuals verbally connect with and separate from friends while constructing desired selves and moral identities. We suggest that friendship talk strategies may be generic social processes that apply beyond emerging adulthood.     

Fashioning Futures: Life Coaching and the Self‐Made Identity Paradox

Contemporary processes of individualization push people to construct single‐handedly their own identities. This urge runs counter to a fundament of sociology, which proposes that identities are social products that must be validated through social relations. Based on participant observation and in‐depth interviews with life coaches and their clients, I investigate life coaching as a social institution that aims to resolve the paradoxical nature of the desire for self‐creation. Locating life coaching in the larger identity‐fashioning market, this article illustrates how the artificial nature of outsourced social relations reconciles two apparently contradictory desires: the “need for help” and “wanting to find it on my own.” Three mechanisms are involved: creating an independent social space where identities can be crafted away from significant others; deliberately deemphasizing the coach and intentionally underwriting personal authorship; and encouraging clients to root identities in the social world while promoting an instrumental view of sociality. The article discusses the blurring of boundaries between intimate social relations and utilitarian market logic, and the implications of the ongoing outsourcing of identity support that reinforces the privileged ideal of self‐made identities.     

Toward a Multisited Ethnography of the Zimbabwean Diaspora in Britain

Classical diaspora scholars have constructed diasporic identities in essentialistic and unitary fashion, with phrases like the “Jewish identity,” “Palestinian identity,” and “Irish identity” denoting migrants as homogeneous ethnic communities. Using the author's multisited ethnographic research among Zimbabweans in Britain, the article explores the diverse ways in which diasporic identities are performed, expressed, and contested in Britain. On the basis of data from a pub, a gochi-gochi (barbecue) and the Zimbabwe Vigil, this article argues that the concept of diaspora, by emphasizing a static and singular conception of group identity, removes the particular ways in which diasporic life is experienced. The ethnographic “sites” were chosen to highlight different geographic settings to show the contrast between multicultural global cities and how different spaces of association attracted distinctive diasporic communities of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and legal status. The article identifies a pattern of diasporic identity development that largely uses the homeland as a frame of reference, and this is contrasted with alternative, hyphenated identities that challenge the fixation of identities to a specific place. It can be suggested that these diasporic identities are bottom-up forms of resistance to the institutionally ascribed refugee identity, perceptions of blocked social mobility, racism, and discrimination in the hostland.     

Safaris into Subjectivity: White Locals,Black Tourists,and the Politics of Belonging in the Okavango Delta,Botswana

The elite safari lodges in Botswana's Okavango Delta provide an intriguing site through which to explore processes of identity construction, as people from vastly different backgrounds meet and explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. Drawing on a dinner table dispute between an African American tourist and his white Motswana guide, I explore contested notions of what constitutes African identities. The encounter shows that colonial histories and the racialization of space continue to be central to African identity politics, and I describe how white citizens' claims to belonging are challenged on these grounds. In response to such challenges, white Batswana assert a strongly nationalistic identity, distancing themselves from other southern African white populations and their colonial histories. They staunchly defend their claims to belonging through mobilising a partial view of Botswana's history and contemporary sociopolitical conditions, which has made possible a deep sense of emplacement within the social and natural environments of the Okavango.     

Stories of Non‐Becoming: Non‐Issues,Non‐Events and Non‐Identities in Asexual Lives

In contrast to conventional models of positively “becoming” an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of “non‐becoming,” whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non‐progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non‐awareness, communicative negation and non‐consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non‐issues, non‐events, and non‐identities) are constituted through social interaction.     

White Universal Identity as a “Sense of Group Position”

This article seeks to expand upon Blumer's “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position.” I argue that Blumer's group position model invites us to critically consider the role that dominant group identity and “threats” to identity play in reproducing racial inequalities. Identities seat both material and ideal concerns, and white identities, in particular, may provide “ontological security” that whites will defensively protect. I draw on ethnographic research conducted in 1994–96 in two demographically distinct high schools. Young whites in both schools expressed identities that positioned them as “universal,” and they responded reactively, even prejudicially, when their universal group position was threatened.     

Class Formation and Class Identity: Birth,Death, and Possibilities for Renewal

While social class served as a powerful organizing identity for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, many doubt its contemporary relevance. This article examines the formation and development of theories of class identity over the past century. From a debate largely among Marxists in the early 20th century about the conditions under which the working class will mobilize to defend its interests – moving from a “class in itself” to a “class for itself” – the question of the relationship between individuals' class position, social interests, and political mobilization attracted greater attention among social scientists following World War II. However, postwar socioeconomic transformations led some to argue for the “death of class” as a central organizing principle for modern social and political life. While others countered that class identities remained relevant, the sharp decline in class‐based organization in the late 20th century led scholars to develop more nuanced understandings of the relationship between individuals' class position and collective identities. Although current scholarship shows that there is no natural translation of class identities into collective action, the reality of growing socioeconomic inequality, along with the resurgence of social and political mobilizations to contest that growth, suggests that class identities retain the capacity to unite.     

Leaving Home for College: Expectations for Selective Reconstruction of Self

This paper describes how 23 primarily upper-middle-class high school seniors anticipated identity changes as they prepared to leave home for college. The transition from high school to college is a period of “liminality” during which students are structurally in between old and new statuses. We discuss how students anticipated change, planned to affirm certain of their identities, imagined creating new identities, and contemplated discovering unanticipated identities. Such interpretive effort must be understood in the context of the ambivalence they felt about leaving home and achieving independence. The data also provoke discussion of how social class membership might be implicated in people's ability to control identity change as they move through the life course.     

A Sociological Account of the Persistence of Invalidated Anorexic Identities

Most versions of identity theory have had difficulty explaining the persistence of invalidated identities. Drawing from data on anorexic identity transactions, we identify three dimensions that contribute to understanding this persistence. Two dimensions, size and control, are shown to be the locus of identity invalidation; the third, desirability, is shown to be the locus of validation. Confirmation of one's sense of being desirable, we propose, contributes to anorexics continuing to appropriate identities invalidated by others. We argue that the concepts “master identity,” “fictionalized identity,” and what we term “discordant awareness context” are more useful for theorizing the persistence of invalidated identities, such as anorexia, than those focusing on the degree of consensus over the person as a social object found in conventional identity theory.     

Intra‐diaspora Knowledge Transfer and ‘New’ Italian Migration

The Italian Australia diaspora is a heterogeneous mix of regional, class and generational identities. This article identifies and considers the influence of four recent Italian‐Australian cohorts on the processes of Italian‐Australian cultural formation. Of particular interest is the most recent wave of migrants (post‐2000), whose arrival is prompted by the European economic crisis and facilitated by Australia's skilled migration programme. We argue that this cohort is a new form of “elite” skilled migration comprised of people who are independent of, yet reliant on, the community infrastructure and social standing that previous waves of Italian migrants have established. We consider the relationship between these cohorts as a process of “intra‐diaspora” knowledge transfer and show how diasporas play a fundamental role in the skilled migration project. These dynamics challenge assumptions that skilled migrant integration is “frictionless”. Rather, their arrival simultaneously generates diaspora renewal as well as tensions around identity and community resources.     

Schooling a European Identity: ethno‐cultural exclusion and nationalist resonance within the EU policy of “The European dimension of education”

This article aims to explore how the role of education as an aide in the process of “European” identity formation is being articulated in the European Union's (EU) policy of “The European dimension of education”. After having located the EU's views on education in the context of the neo‐liberal discourse on economic globalization, the article goes on to trace EU discussions of the European dimension of education historically. Subsequently, it deliberates on the understanding of European culture and identity which the European dimension of education endeavours to advance. Here a critique is developed of the policy's ethno‐culturalism, thereby excluding delineation of a collective identity in the EU. Basing itself on a notion of cultural identity which, implicitly, includes only those who fit certain versions of European historical “roots” and cultural “heritage”, the policy, it is argued, impedes a discussion of how a trans‐ethnic identity formation could be created in today's EU. Towards the end of the article, a scrutiny of the European dimension's perception of the so‐called “language diversity” in the EU seeks to illustrate this issue further.     

Confucian or Communist,Post‐Mao or Postmodern? Exploring the Narrative Identity Resources of Shanghai's Post‐80s Generation

Thirty years after the post‐Mao reforms, twenty years after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, the next generation of “comrades” is emerging in China. They are called the Balinghou, or the “Post‐80s” generation, referring to the cohort born between 1980 and 1989. This article is taken from a broader study on the narrative resources that Shanghai's Post‐80s young adults call on to construct their identities, given the historical situation in which they live. Symbolic interactionism is useful for studying identity construction processes across cultural contexts, particularly in China where interactionist concepts have seen limited application to date. The discussion also explores the theoretical implications of structural elements that significantly alter the resources available for identity construction, such as the One Child Policy.     

Identity Management of the Dead: Contests in the Construction of Murdered Children

Presenting data gathered from fieldwork and ethnographic interviews with families of homicide victims, this study explores “postmortem identity‐contests” faced by families who have experienced the homicide of a child or other family member. Interview data from families on their interaction with police, funeral home directors, and other institutional officials suggest that the construction of postmortem identities is commonly a process of contestation filled with competing identity‐claims. The findings reveal that as families resist “oppressive othering” by the state and other institutional actors, they develop various accounts and strategies in “selfing” and sanctifying the identity of the dead.     

Identity and the Definition of the Situation in a Mass‐Mediated Context

The importance of identity and the definition of the situation for symbolic interactionist theory and research are discussed. These two concepts have been separated in much research since the 1970s, with identity being used in a variety of ways. This separation is partly attributed to paradigm shifts in social science, as well as to popular culture treatments of identity. Popular culture's emphasis on “collective” and “personal” identities is processed through entertainment formats that emphasize emotional and vicarious involvement, drama and action. Materials illustrate the presence of a mass‐mediated generalized other, media communities, and the significance this has for realist and postrealist ethnography. Suggestions are offered for a reintegration of identity and the definition of the situation in ethnographic work. Sex videos are total fantasy. But people have to realize that even in a fantasy you have to deal with reality. —Pornographic film actress     

The “Homeless Problem” and the Double Consciousness*

The purpose of this article was to identify manifestations of a social discourse that construct those who are homeless as an existential problem. Based on 4 years of ethnographic data and grounded theory analysis, we illustrate the nature of exclusionary social practices that emerge from discourse on the “homeless problem” as well as the conflicting identities experienced by those who are homeless. Herein we frame the data using DuBois concept of “double consciousness.” Our findings indicate that those who are homeless mix together discourses of value and legitimacy with self‐applied stigmas and self‐denigrating political perspectives in ways that directly mirror DuBois’ notion of the conflicting nature of African and American identities around the end of the nineteenth century. We illustrate identity problems that manifest in the contemporary conflict between being both “homeless” and “American.”     

Whiteness as Stigma: Essentialist Identity Work by Mixed-Race Women

Historically, in both the social sciences and the general public, racial mixing has been stigmatized. This stigmatization was fueled by whites' desire to protect their racial privileges as well as the belief that hybridization between “pure” and superior white racial stocks and inferior non-white stocks produces an inferior being. While this view has been challenged within the social sciences, the general public's sentiment toward racial mixing remains consistently negative. The low interracial marriage rate, particularly among blacks and whites, points to the lack of popular acceptance of racial mixing. This article reveals an unusual and creative reversal of the racial mixing problem by historically stigmatized mixed-race women. The women in this study reject dominant patterns of stigma by reassigning stigma to their European ancestry. Given this reversal, women articulate and embrace non-white identities. This article explains the reversal of the racial mixing problem as well as the identity work of women as they rearticulate the meaning of race and racial belonging within dominant racial logic. The identification of macro constraints and the illustration of individual agency in the negotiation of identity extends the symbolic interactionist perspective on identity formation.     

A “Jewish Study Hall” Influenced Approach to Social Work Professional Identity Development: A Qualitative Study

The article presents the findings of a qualitative research study focused on the ancient “Jewish study hall” (Beit Midrash in Hebrew) approach. The research was conducted in the context of the Beit Midrash for Social Work and Judaism established at one school of social work in Israel. Twenty participants were included in the study. Content analysis of transcribed Beit Midrash sessions revealed four central themes: reflection on participant identities; expansion, stabilisation, and acceptance of one’s personal identity; clarification of professional identity; and convergence between Jewish and professional identity. Study results raise questions as to both the place and the space for exploration of religious and spiritual identity in social work education. Findings suggest that alternative learning spaces such as the Beit Midrash can enable social work students and practitioners to reflect honestly and profoundly on their religious and spiritual identity, helping them to integrate their different identities towards becoming “whole persons” better prepared to meet the challenges of the social work profession.