Identity research is an interdisciplinary field which has gained popularity in recent years. To date, identity research has gone through three stages. In its earliest usage, scholars approached identity as individuals’ essentialist characteristics shaped by their national or ethnic origins (Stryker & Burke, 2000). Later, the concept was used in reference to common social groupings, such as socio-economic status, gender, race, linguistic and religious backgrounds (Olsen, 2012). At that point, scholars approached identity as multiple, yet fixed categories. In its latest interpretation, identity is seen as situated, fluid, and negotiated social interactions and discourse constantly constructed by complex power relations across time and space (Norton, 2013). Recently, this post-structuralist view of identity has attracted the attention of researchers from various academic fields (Wang & Mansouri, 2017).

Identity Revisited and Reimagined, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Aase Lyngvær Hansen, and Julie Feilberg, furthers this discussion by presenting a dynamic approach within relevant literature. The book’s primary goal is to broaden the limitations of earlier work that has either approached identity in isolation, which the editors call “identity sectors” (p. xi) or framed it in static concepts to analyze the individual’s self and their relations with(in) the group. This endeavor is reflected in the title—to revisit the identity approaches and to reimagine the object of the analysis of identity studies. The first part of the book includes theoretical discussions of identity, which are, in the latter three parts, supported by empirical explorations across time and space in daily life, including both physical and virtual spaces of school and workplace.

The book has four parts. Part I includes four theoretically oriented chapters under the subheading of “Conceptual Framings of Identity in a Multifaceted World”. In Chapter 1, concentrating on how representatives of Generation Z approach identity in mass-media texts, Bagga-Gupta, Feilberg, and Hansen draw attention to the ways in which identity gets (re)framed in academic and non-academic media contexts. The authors challenge the traditionally accepted static identity categories. For them, identity is better understood as social interaction which involves multiple ways-of-being at the moment of interpersonal contact. In Chapter 2, David Block proposes a working model to make sense of life-story interviews. For him, interviews are social events embedded in multiple phenomenological layers. Identities are not only revealed during interviews, but also (re)constructed. Block provides excerpts from a life-story interview and develops an extension of positioning theory (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) in which he approaches interviews as social phenomena. He argues that he would have been unable to make sense of the interviews had he not focused on the instantaneous interactions between the interviewees and interviewer. In Chapter 3, Paul McIlvenny explores how counter-identities are (co)constructed during a mock protest event. Informed by the Foucauldian concept of ‘counter-conducts’, he asserts that utilizing Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis may help document how people perform counter-identities during interactional protest practices. Chapter 4 centers around three metaphors: sunrise, moonrise and earthrise. Bagga-Gupta uses these metaphors to discuss how identity may be understood and framed. While ‘moonrise’ is associated with a monolingual-monocultural perspective, ‘sunrise’ implies bi-, multi-, pluri-, and trans-lingualism as well as bi-, multi-culturalism and multi-ethnicities. The author remarks that although sunrise is the dominant discourse in academia, moonrise still dominates popular discourse. Nevertheless, Bagga-Gupta claims that both reduce identity discourse to technical and essentialist frames, and suggests ‘earthrise’ as an alternative, for it represents dynamically and locally different ways of understanding the human condition.

Comprising three chapters, Part II, “Making, Undoing and Remaking: Performing Identities”, presents empirical work in relation to the theoretical underpinnings of Part I. Marina Everri and Laura Sterponi, in Chapter 5, illustrate how multiple identities are dependently negotiated, performed, and (re)created by focusing on the communication between parents and their adolescent children. The authors point to agency and autonomy as key concepts of adolescent identity. For them, these concepts are (co)constructed during interpersonal interactions between parents and their children. In Chapter 6, Jenny Rosen concentrates on the performatory aspect of adult language learners’ identity (co)construction in a ‘Swedish for immigrants’ classroom. For her, while learning a second language, learners constantly negotiate who they are in accordance with their past experiences and future prospects. Julia Sacher, in Chapter 7, discusses the concept of time as a cultural construct. She presents ‘Before-and-After’ stories as a distinct type of narrative whose structure functions as a means of identity construction. Sacher remarks that such stories have three phases. The narrators take various positions in each phase by emphasizing different characteristics of their selves. These narrators utilize their stories as evidence for positive change in their identities with the passage of time. In sum, each chapter in Part II illustrates how identities are (co)constructed momentarily through social interactions be they between parents and their children, teachers and language learners, or researchers and participants. This view acknowledges interlocutors’ agencies in negotiating their subjectivities in the process of meaning making. Also, seeing identity as instantaneous (co)construction blurs the so-called parent/child, teacher/learner, and researcher/participant binary oppositions.

Part III has three chapters that cover empirical research under the subheading of “Politically Framed Identities in Embodied Interaction”. In Chapter 8, Sigrun Marie Moss discusses how people’s identities are (co)constructed through inclusive and exclusive discourses. Drawing on in-depth interview data collected in Zanzibar including political leaders, Moss observed that more participants defined themselves as Zanzibari rather than ‘us versus them’ in opposing parties after a reconciliation process into a single national identity. Moss discloses that while the feeling of belonging to one party leads people to distance themselves from other(s), composition of a single national identity brings people together, which in return, significantly influences the social practices of the general public. Chapter 9 examines how patients perceive nurses’ bodies, and how their perceptions play a key role in negotiation of nurses’ professional identity. Informed by practice-oriented approach to professional identity, Ellen Andenæs presents her research conducted in Norwegian nursing homes where the staff was ethnically diverse, while most residents were ethnic Norwegians. She notes that some residents would resist being taken care of by the nurses who came from a different ethnic background than their own. For these patients, the nurses’ physical appearance was more important than their professional performance. In time, receiving harsh comments from patients negatively influenced the nurses’ interactions with the patients, and led to the (re)construction of their professional identities. Irene W. Leigh, in Chapter 10, discusses how ‘deaf identity’ can be reconstructed by acknowledging that deaf individuals participate in different social groups instead of positioning them in a singular social group informed by stereotypical interpretations. For Leigh, one’s inability to hear is only a small fraction of their identity, yet hearing people still interact with them solely through their deaf identity. Leigh notes, however, that identities regarding ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities or other characteristics are interwoven, and such multiple layers are (co)created in intersectional, dynamic, and fluid social interactions. Each chapter in Part III investigates how dominant discourse influences individuals’ social identity during interpersonal exchange with other members in a given society. The authors show how privileged members impose their normative identity categories on marginalized ones through exclusionary discourses.

Part IV, “Identity Work in Institutional and Technology Mediated Environments”, consists of three empirical studies regarding technologically mediated school and work environments as less frequented social spaces. In Chapter 11, Elizabeth Keating examines a group of engineers coming from different countries. As part of their job, these engineers needed to collaborate in a virtual professional environment. She analyzed the interaction among these engineers with different conversational experiences shaped by diverse and conflicting professional ideas and interpretations. In such an environment, the author argues, colleagues from different backgrounds may misinterpret each other’s identities in the absence of attention to how cultural upbringings may impact identity practices. In Chapter 12, Johan Hjulstad investigates a ‘friendship teaching plan’ in a virtual distance education classroom in Norway. He underlines how mainstreamed deaf students may succeed in learning Norwegian sign language and identify with positive aspects of the signing community. His study illustrates how a simple classroom exercise may result in the innovative forms of ‘deaf identity’ through (re)negotiation in dynamic and complex ways. In Chapter 13, Annaliina Gynne presents her study in which she explores adolescents’ identity work and informal literacy practices in two different settings that include a bilingual school and a social network site. She examines the emergence of interactions, agency and positionings and how discourses, practices and modes of communication intersect with each other to construct identities. In Chapter 14, Elina Tapio reports on how a deaf Finnish signer (re)constructs her English language learner identity after realizing that what she believed to be true was actually wrong. As a deaf sign language learner, she was always told that the resources at her disposal were limited. However, she found out that there was an abundance of multilingual and multimodal resources she could benefit from. Tapio suggests that realization of a conflict between dominant discourse and individuals’ own practices may change their self-positioning. This self-revelation creates possibilities for alternative discourses and new identities. The studies in Part IV exemplify how identities are constructed via participation in or engagement with online platforms. They show that different modes of online communication provide new outlets for individuals to negotiate their identities in innovative and empowering ways. ‘Being online’ is a recent phenomenon, which is yet to be addressed more in detail among identity scholars. Part IV may be read as a glimpse into new domain.

Despite the growth of research on identity as a fluid and dynamic phenomenon shaped through the interactions among individuals within various contexts, this line of inquiry is still mostly dominated by essentialist views toward identity (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005) in social and psychological research. The present volume, however, takes a bold move to problematize such a dominance and it opens the readers’ eyes to a view of identity as a socially constructed phenomenon. In this sense, the editors did a great job in providing guidance to the readers through introductory sections before each part. However, the language used by the chapter writers may still be challenging for novice readers as they may lack background knowledge of identity research. This means the intended readers are emerging and established researchers who are specifically interested in identity in social sciences, particularly, in education. Overall, the book’s major contribution is that it provides an opportunity to showcase marginalized areas of identity research such as those in the area of disability, along with more mainstream discussions of gender, race and sexual orientation.

References

Bagga-Gupta, S., Hansen, A. L., & Feilberg, J. (Eds.) (2017) Identity Revisited and Reimagined. Empirical and Theoretical Contributions on Embodied Communication across Time and Space. Cham, CH: Springer.

Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 585–614. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407

Harré, R., & van Langenhove, L. (1999). Positioning theory. London, UK: Sage.

Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(4), 284-297.

Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation. (2nd ed.). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Olsen, B. (2012). Identity theory, teacher education, and diversity. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Encyclopedia of diversity in education (Vol. 1, pp.1123-1126). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wang, H., & Mansouri, B. (2017). Revisiting code-switching practice in TESOL: A critical perspective. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 26(6), 407-415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-017-0359-9