Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2003

Studying identity, be it ethnic, cultural, linguistic, national or regional, in the contemporary context becomes troublesome because the scholar is faced with a whole range of social and cultural forms that co-exist uncomfortably with existing definitions of social identity. Moreover, although identity has been a central concern in a number of disciplines during the past decades, there has been considerable disagreement regarding the methodological tools most suitable to study its formation and change. The aim of this Special Issue is to discuss the usefulness of the very concept as well as the main methodological tools suitable to analyse identity-related phenomena today. In this introductory chapter, we provide for a general definition of the concept and elaborate on recent theoretical and conceptual developments regarding the nature of identity in the sociological, discourse studies and social psychological literature. In the concluding section, we introduce the individual contributions presented in this issue.

The present paper discusses the concept of identity in social psychology. It is suggested that identity is a particular form of social representation that mediates the relationship between the individual and the social world. Identity makes the link between social regulations and psychological organizations (i.e. identifications/self-categories) and constitutes the organizing principle of symbolic relationships. Its functions are to inscribe the person in the social environment, to communicate peoples’ positions and to establish relationships with others (social recognition). Thus identity is a cyclical process constituted by three actions: knowing, claiming and recognizing. Social psychologists have started their investigations of identity by emphasizing different aspects of this process: self-knowledge, claims and recognition and have focused on processes of socialization, communication and social influence.Finally, it is argued that through their active participation in the social world (by knowing, recognizing and claiming), individuals construct a set of knowledge about the world and themselves: their identity. To protect from, provoke or respond to changes to this knowledge people act in the name of identity. Thus, identity constitutes the social psychological context within which worldviews are constructed, through which these worldviews are communicated and for which battles are fought.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken among British Quakers this article attempts to elucidate some of the connections between the narrative quality of everyday interaction and the local construction of self. Focusing on the Quaker Meeting, we find that the social identity of individual participants is precipitated in the interplay between three modes of discourse: the prototypical or individual, the vernacular and the canonic. For individuals to participate successfully in Meeting they are required to present and then reconstruct their autobiographical selves in response to their increasing familiarisation both with well-known canonic texts and also the local expression of these texts. The tensions which characterise this process might be said to define the politics of community in this case.

This paper focuses on the relationship between the conceptual and methodological problems in the study of social and ethnic identity. The author argues that the theoretical and conceptual deficiencies in defining and understanding the notions of “identity” and “ethnic identity” are reflected in the quality and type of research strategies used to asses empirical claims to ethnic identity. The first part of the paper critically reviews and analyses the use of the concepts “identity” and “ethnic identity” in social science and the humanities. The author focuses in particular on the conceptual history and geography of “identity” stressing its cultural and historical exclusivity. The second part of the paper assesses how these conceptual, historical and cultural problems affect methodological and research strategies in the study of ethnic identity.

Distinctions between traditional scholarship and methodologically informed procedures can support unhelpful stereotypes which parallel that between qualitative and quantitative research. These can have a negative effect on the practice of social research in general, and textual analysis in particular. Drawing on a study of morally charged narratives of collective and personal identity in newspaper texts reporting cancer experiences, where gender politics are negotiated, I show how this distinction can be overcome in research practice. Quantitative analysis is shown to be useful in exploring text and generating insights, as well as strengthening generalisations from qualitative anecdotes. Automated text analysis using NVIVO and Concordance software can produce new “readings” otherwise hidden from view that can be followed up in close qualitative analysis. Thus traditional views of qualitative research as exploratory and quantitative as confirmatory can be overturned. Analysts of discourse can use automation and counting without compromising their capacity to think creatively about meaning.

This paper reports on ongoing research on attitudes towards the establishing of refugee centers in Belgium. Attitudes are here defined ethnographically as discursive and active constructs and processes often captured under statified terms such as “attitude” or “opinion”. Based on an analysis of preliminary findings from one town, Beersel, a number of insights into the connection between space and the structure, quality and distribution of such attitudes could be distilled. In particular, distance and proximity appeared as crucial factors explaining qualitative differences in attitudes, often revolving around the possibilities offered by proximity to construct authority claims about “translocal” information (e.g. media reports) and to construct a habitus of “knower” of a particular topic. We thus arrive at new, complex and dynamic concepts of community as political units organized around particular topics and discursive procedures, while such units are determined by space. These findings and concepts challenge and destabilize more widespread notions of “public opinion”.

The modern political distinction between right and left has functioned as the symbolic structuring of democratic politics. The significance of this political code lies in the institutionalisation of political discourse as relatively autonomous in relation to cultural and religious discourses in which right as a general rule has been conceived as positive and left as negative. Modern political revolutions marked the transformation of RIGHT/LEFT from a cultural and religious codex of domination/subordination to a political one of parity, which cleared a space for the legitimacy of opposition and disagreement as well as for public reason and the balancing of judgement. RIGHT/LEFT is thus associated with a political symbolic order that underpins the autonomy of democratic politics by signifying the distinction between parties of equal political status.

The paper studies the use of the word terrorist in the dispatches of two major international news agencies, AP and Reuters. It can be assumed that the attacks on September 11, 2001, have changed the role of terrorist and affected the meaning of the word. While terrorists have been traditionally construed as violent actors, they are now, more and more, seen as a static threat. The paper examines three collocations — terrorist attack, terrorist threat and terrorist suspect — as grammatical metaphors (cf. Halliday 1994); the collocation terrorist network is analysed as a conceptual metaphor (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Linguistic strategies manifested in the data form a pattern that I call “anti-terrorism discourse”. Modality and general vagueness of the language are conspicuous features in the news agency dispatches on terrorism; the reports focus on what may happen or may have happened. This can be argued to undermine the factuality of news agency discourse.