Self, Identity, and Socialization

Agenda

• Main topics include theories about the self, socialization and identity, constructions of race and racialized discourses, the concept of re-ethnicisation and hybrid identities and the "Negotiating Political Identities" research project

Self and Identity

• Personal identity distinguishes an individual, as with a name
• Social identity links people through characteristics tied to a social position like race
• Primary identities are established early in life e.g. gender, but its fixedness is debatable
• Secondary identities are more flexible, such as occupation or leisure activities
• Narratives of identity refers to how people tell stories about themselves to make sense of life experiences

Socialization

• Socialization involves acquiring a culture's roles, norms, and values, becoming a member of society
• It involves seeing oneself as an agent capable of social action
• Primary socialization happens within the family and in early childhood with different ways of living together challenging functionalism
• Secondary socialization occurs throughout life

Identity Theories

• Post-structuralists (e.g. Foucault) claim the self emerges through discourse, where power constructs subjects e.g. white/black or gay/straight
• Psychoanalysts (e.g. Freud) critique Foucault, suggesting the 'I' is formed via discourse, but self has a predictable structure e.g. ingroup/outgroup
• Both theories regard the subject as a construct, contrasting with the 18th-century Enlightenment model of an autonomous individual

The Postmodern Self

• Postmodern self involves multiple, fragmented, and discursively created subjectivities
• Stuart Hall (1992, 1996) theorizes the postmodern subject as lacking a fixed or essential identity, defined historically rather than biologically
• Avtar Brah (1996) defines identity as a signifying process, by which subjectivity's multiplicity and instability gain coherence, continuity, and stability with a sense of core that is ever-changing

Ethnic, Racial and Political Identities

• Ethnic identity involves a felt sense of belonging to an ethnic group
• Collective identities form through discourse, according to theorists like Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, and Homi Bhabha
• Racialized identities are hybrids, fluid, diverse, and open to negotiation
• Political identity is a felt sense of belonging at the local, regional, national, or supranational citizenship level

Foucault: Discourse

• Discourses are systems of knowledge
• Discourse doesn't report external facts and produces the 'facts' it seems to report
• Discourses compete, contradict, and complement, across time and contexts
• Discourses include written, spoken language, non-linguistic representations, non-verbal expressions, and bodily gestures, making it richer than just linguistic discourse

Foucault: Discourse II

• Meanings of discourses are not fixed
• Foucauldian discourse analysis examines language, representations, and practices to find underlying discursive frames
• Links to deconstruction appear e.g. the term 'foreigner' signifies different citizenship status, oppressive connotations, or linguistic exclusion from a group

Constructions of Race

• 'Race' is defined as a category that shares biologically transmitted traits deemed significant by society e.g. phenotype, body shape, hair
• European colonization created dominant (white) and subordinate (black) groupings
• Race was once justified by genetics and evolution
• Racial categories explained political divisions, making 'race' a constructed concept

Constructions of Race: UK Example

• Historically, Black people were considered lacking in reason, morality, and law, with the English considered the master race
• Black youth were constructed as half-wild, half-civilized
• Black students were portrayed as jungle bunnies, merging racist myths with sexual fantasies to reinforce racist misrecognition

Racialized Discourses

• "F...ing Turk" hurts, when people say "you're not with us"
• "You're just odd" causes pain
• "I'm going to buy a turkey and cook it" hurts
• Such examples of racialized discourse are verbal abuse and trigger ethnic tensions

Re-ethnicisation

• It draws on social-psychological not post-structural research
• As a reaction to negative experiences of personal/collective integration e.g. discrimination or racism, members of ethnic groups strengthen ties within their own community
• Young people possessing higher education levels show a reduced tendency toward re-ethnicisation

Hybrid identity

• Set out to signify the third space to allows other positions to emerge and displacing the histories that constitute as new and unrecognisable area of negotiation of meaning and representation
• Links with postmodernism, seeing societies and identities as fragmented, diverse, plural, and multidimensional

Turkish British Identity: Example

• Turkish Cypriot origin plays a big part of who they are
• Balanced the act of being in between and care about both things the same
• Watched a lot of British TV to stay more connected to England and not to Turkey

The Negotiating Political Identities

• Case studies focused on ethnic majority and Turkish minority youth in England (London) and Germany (Stuttgart) that were 15-year-olds
• Fieldwork conducted in four inner-city multiethnic multi-faith secondary schools (one working-class and one middle-class in each country)
• How do students from different ethnic and social backgrounds negotiate their (political) identities?

Two Secondary Schools in Stuttgart

• Tannberg Hauptschule privileged Europe (national identity & diversity issues), struggling to relate Europe to multiculturalism (Eurocentric education)
• Goethe Gymnasium promoted European and multicultural issues

Mostly Inter-Ethnic Friendships at Tannberg

• Friends come from different countries such as Italy, Croatia, Serbia, and Greece
• Half Greek and Turkish friends argue like Greece and Turkey
• People make jokes about Albanians and black people

Isolated ‘Us-Foreigner’ Discourses

• Only Germans allowed in a friendship group with little to no foreigners
• German children don't have enough brother and sister so they need foreigners

German Turkish Identity Struggle

• Struggling with belonging to Germany, but being called a foreigner
• Being German, but not German at all
• Not considering Turkey when imagining the future

Chain Identities

• Identity consisting of multiple locations
• Stuttgart, Germany, and Europe

Lots of Inter-Ethnic Friendships at Gethe

• Turkish friends are nice and polite giving many things to what you want
• Boyfriend that is Italian

discrimnation

• Not wanting to wear a headscarf
• Annoyed about the questions asked about it
• The portrayal of Turkish men beating there woman is not real

Turkish German Subculture or Identity Loss

• Feeling likes a Turkish Stuttgarter without swabbing
• Not knowing the swabbing culture because you have to be German
• Grew up with the influence of Turkish at home and German culture in the streets

Identities 'Nested like Russian Dolls'

• Being a citizen of Stuttgart
• I too felt like a Swabian and or courses I'm German and I felt like a Swabian
• Felt at home in Stuttgart because you always been living in Stuttgart

Two Secondary Schools in London

• Millroad School is was diversity is celebrated, but cohesion is not
• Darwin School celebrates similarity and emphasized neutrality

Divisions Between Students At Millroad

• There were issues between the Afro-Caribbean and Turkish-Kurdish communities
• It was more proactive to mix students
• Teachers would need to have seating plans and needed to be determine it

Very Few Cross-ethnic Friendships

• Friends from the same place such as turkey
• There are close friends that are either Turkish or Cypriot

Large-Scale Verbal Abuse and Ethnic Tensions

• Ethnic abuse occurred with “F…ing Turk!"
• You're not with us"
• Odd
• At Christmas people would take the piss about turkey

Most Privileged Their Ethnic Identities

• Most people feel like they belong to both Turkey, and England
• If both parents are turkish that is what you are
• During football matches and wars have to stick to what you are

Some Alternative Identities

• School can community can be more important than ethnic identity
• Family, school and friends
• Not seeing everything as a bigger picture of community

Ethnicity Mattered Little at Darwin

• Most people had Greek or British Friends with not ever any difference
• Don't think it really makes a difference when they're from

Most Devolved Turkish British Identities

• They were more likely to watch English TV more than the Turkish channel

Exclusion

• Duty to fulfil and be in England, citizenship or London

Policy Recommendation

• A balance between cultural diversity and social cohesion
• The need of linguistic capital and the host promotes inclusive
• Teachers need more training and recruitment for more reflection of diversity