Identities in and around organizations: Towards an identity work perspective

There is an emergent identity work perspective that draws on multiple intertwined streams of established identities theorizing and identities-related research. This perspective is characterized loosely by five broad sets of assumptions: (i) selves are reflexive and identities actively worked on, both in soliloquy and social interaction; (ii) identities are multiple, fluid and rarely fully coherent; (iii) identities are constructed within relations of power; (iv) identities are not helpfully described as either positive or authentic; and (v) identities are both interesting per se and integral to processes of organizing. Recognition of an emergent identity work perspective is valuable in part because this may act as a counterbalance to centrifugal tendencies – fed by myopia, insularity and ethnocentrism – which might otherwise lead to blinkered research and fragmentation. The contribution of this article is to provide a baseline for identity work scholars, and to promote collective critical reflection on identities in and around organizations.

Gay-Tex-Mex: Autoethnographic Vignettes

A series of autoethnographic narrative vignettes recount the author’s personal memories from his upbringing in Texas as a Mexican American and his emergent identity as a gay man. The vignettes begin with episodes that profile Texas culture during the 1960s–1970s with an emphasis on cowboy and Hispanic cultures. The vignettes then recount specific boyhood moments with the author’s parents and their influence on his adolescent development as a closeted gay Hispanic. Following are brief narratives about ethnic discrimination experienced during secondary school. The stories then profile his training as a theatre artist and educator, and how gay Hispanic cultures blossomed during his university years, despite his closeted relationship with his parents. The piece concludes with a moment from late adulthood when he learns an undisclosed family secret, and the author reflects on how growing up in “Gay-Tex-Mex” cultures influenced his identity.

Ethnic Media and Multi-Dimensional Identity: Pacific Audiences’ Connections With Māori Media

This article explores issues of identity, hybridity, and media in an Aotearoa/New Zealand context by analyzing Pacific audiences’ affinity for and use of indigenous Māori media. It makes the case for broadening ethnic categorizations in media practice and scholarship to better account for multi-ethnic audiences’ identities and practices. And, by exploring Pacific audiences’ talk about a shared “Brown” identity, it suggests that Pacific peoples, particularly New Zealand-born youth, resort to a racialized “Brown” identity as a way to connect to multiple others in the New Zealand context—using Māori media as a “third space” of identity negotiation to do so. Finally, it argues for more overtly situated and localized research and theory-building to further tease out the uniquely South Pacific elements of these emergent identity practices.

Construction and negotiation of voter-friendly identities in electoral debates

In this article we examine the identity construction of two politicians in the 2011 Spanish pre-electoral debate, following four of Bucholtz & Hall’s (2005) linguistic means: evaluation, implicatures, interactional negotiation, and complementary identity relations. For the analysis, Martin & White’s (2005) evaluation model and Corpus Linguistics are adopted. The Socialist candidate’s positive identity positions him as a defendant of laymen’s interests (i.e. Nurturant Parent identity), while he contributes to Rajoy’s emergent identity as a dishonest politician. However, the Conservative politician plays down the other candidate’s identity inferences, casts his identity as a Nurturant Parent to attract the audience’s sympathy and embodies an identity of change. This positive identity contributed to his ethos in the debate and resulted in an overwhelming win.

Evaluation of Users’ Knowledge and Concerns of Biometric Passport Systems

The increase in terrorism and identity fraud has forced governments worldwide to make a combined effort to enhance the security of national borders. Biometric passports are the emergent identity travel document deployed in guaranteeing the safekeeping of the entry point of the border and limiting the usage of counterfeit documents. This study analyzes users’ concerns and threats to the biometric passport delivery system in Uganda, where the first biometric passports are planned for rollout in 2019. We used a mixed approach to compute and articulate the results. Factors impacting fear of technology like disclosure of personal data, improper data transmission, and data abuse were determined. Relevance knowledge of preferred technology such as the personal experience of the technology, data privacy awareness and perceived usefulness was confirmed. Threats and attacks on the technology such as counterfeit and brute-force were identified. It is important for policymakers and security expertise to understand that biometric technologies evoke fears of privacy and public liberties infringements. Therefore, end user’s acceptance of biometric passports will be dependent on the degree of trust in the technology itself and in those operating the applications.

The People of the River

In this history of the black peasants of Amazonia, Oscar de la Torre focuses on the experience of African-descended people navigating the transition from slavery to freedom. He draws on social and environmental history to connect them intimately to the natural landscape and to Indigenous peoples. Relying on this world as a repository for traditions, discourses, and strategies that they retrieved especially in moments of conflict, Afro-Brazilians fought for autonomous communities and developed a vibrant ethnic identity that supported their struggles over labor, land, and citizenship. Prior to abolition, enslaved and escaped blacks found in the tropical forest a source for tools, weapons, and trade--but it was also a cultural storehouse within which they shaped their stories and records of confrontations with slaveowners and state authorities. After abolition, the black peasants' knowledge of local environments continued to be key to their aspirations, allowing them to maintain relationships with powerful patrons and to participate in the protest cycle that led Getúlio Vargas to the presidency of Brazil in 1930. In commonly referring to themselves by such names as "sons of the river," black Amazonians melded their agro-ecological traditions with their emergent identity as political stakeholders.