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In understanding new algorithmic management techniques emerging in online labor platforms, sociologists and technology scholars in other fields have focused on the use of metrics and the impact of quantification on different parts of the labor process. However, these technological systems utilize multiple mechanisms to manage workers and match them with potential clients, including personal profiles, qualitative reviews, and on-platform communication systems. Using interviews and online ethnographic observations of care workers using online labor platforms to find work, this paper examines how this ecosystem of algorithmic management both transforms - and reinforces - the gendered construction of care work. However, these mechanisms do not have universal effects on the diverse population of workers that use these sites to find work. Workers' construct meaningful interactions with these technological systems differently depending on their occupational identities and experience. Experienced, professional care workers use the language of alienation and rationalization, while less experienced and casual care workers use narratives of entrepreneurship and efficiency to navigate the sites' requirements. This paper concludes by calling for a more ecological approach to understanding algorithmic management beyond metrics, and for the continuing importance of occupational cultures in an era of flexible and gig work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case analysis of personal narrative and is part of a larger research project exploring blind and visually impaired men's subjectivities, identities and lived experiences. Analysis focuses on relationships between masculinity, disability and (sensory) impairment and between disability identity and disability as a social-structural experience and is applied using the Listening Guide, a voice-centered relational method of narrative analysis and an interactionist-critical disability theoretical framework. Two main questions are asked (1): What does it mean to be a disabled man in American culture, when masculinity and disability are constructed and represented as opposites? and (2) How are these meanings interpreted and experienced in the context of sensory impairment? The findings reveals a number of meaningful intersections, several of which are presented in this paper, that contribute critical depth and nuance to Disability Studies broadly and to sociology of gender. Likewise, they add breadth to the literature on stigma, identity and impairment, specifically related to how social stigma, dominant culture and interactions in the visual-material environment produce barriers in subjectivity and relationships and inform sense of self, behaviour and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines identity development processes related to deaf people coming to identify as culturally Deaf (which indicates membership in a larger community that uses American Sign Language), and how this identity process co-occurs with other social locations, such as race and sexuality. Our analysis is based on themes within qualitative data obtained for a project focused on the experiences of Deaf gay and lesbian individuals. In-depth life histories were collected from a racially diverse sample of Deaf individuals about their life experiences. The particular issue of coming to identify as Deaf is analyzed in this paper using Erving Goffman's lesser known concepts of affiliation and obtrusiveness, paired with an intersectional approach. Our analysis reveals the social processes and actors facilitating individual Deaf identity development, how participants' other social locations with regard to race and sexuality intersected, and the need for sociological approaches to consider disability as a social category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two seemingly contradictory aspects of the relationship between religion and ethnic identity among Gujarati Hindus and Jains in New York and London, two major sites of settlement for Gujarati immigrants. On the one hand, various Hindu and related sectarian movements in India have been globalizing by spreading to many parts of the Hindu diaspora, and creating the possibility for expansion and inclusiveness through universalist religious claims. On the other hand, ethnic and religious identity among many of these Gujarati Hindu and Jains becomes specific and exclusive. These simultaneous phenomena create contradictions between Indians' call for multiculturalism as immigrants in foreign societies and the exclusiveness of their identity developed through social networks that tend to promote Hindu nationalist ideologies. The paper examines three cases in order to illustrate the varying ways in which Gujarati Hindus and Jains represent and are represented by Hinduism and Hindu nationalism in the US and Britain, and the way in which those representations are an integral part of who is Gujarati in those contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"When it comes to being a part of hip hop in a black community, it still feels like I'm on the outside looking in," explains Dropjaw, a white rapper from Chicago's underground hip hop scene. "I have to almost prove something to everybody. To be respected as an MC and an artist by black people is more of a challenge." This project was fueled by a single question: How do white rappers create and maintain authenticity when they are deemed inauthentic by the standards of hip hop culture? Using data from an interview-based ethnographic study of 25 white rappers from Chicago, this paper investigates the complex interplay between culture and authenticity. Though the term authenticity is used often in the culture literature, here the concept is unpacked to examine the actual social mechanisms at work. In doing so, this paper offers a more nuanced understanding how outsiders select and reject culture to create authentic identities and cultural objects. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the multiple identities of high achieving black students. While research has shown that identity formation is related to academic engagement and school success, the scholarly community needs a more informed understanding of how academically successful black adolescents embrace and negotiate multiple identities in their pursuit of academic success. This is important because recent explanations regarding the achievement gap between black and white students has centered around cultural explanations, and assert that black students-even those who live and attend schools in middle class and affluent settings-do not value, and are disengaged from schooling. Such explanations have created a maelstrom by asserting that black culture (particularly African American culture) plays a major role in the achievement gap. We believe that other factors might be at play in social and academic identity because the students highlighted in this paper were achieving academically, while maintaining their racial identity and black culture. Using ethnographic interview data, key finding revealed that these students successfully balanced multiple identities, while simultaneously achieving academically in school. The paper highlights the need for further investigations of academically successful black students across social class and ethnicity, particularly in black communities in the U.S. South. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case studies and ethnographies of markets often observe the existence of a -market community'. This paper investigates whether three features often associated with market communities (common language, social interaction amongst market participants, and a collective identity) increase market efficacy. Examining a sample of auctions listed on eBay, I find that auctions in markets with a more widely shared common language are more likely to end with a sale, controlling for structural characteristics of markets. Analyses of the interaction of structural resources of sellers and the communal characteristics of markets show that sellers with lower reputation scores benefit more from the existence of a common language. Moreover, markets where a greater proportion of participants identify with the market are more efficacious at resolving value uncertainty. The paper concludes with a discussion of how to pursue future analyses to better establish these preliminary results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between food and identity grows more complex everyday as globalization and the accompanying movement of peoples, cultures and capital define new ideological and sensory frontiers. The paper examines the changing gastronomic landscape of Bangalore, India during a period of sudden globalization through food writings on and in the city. The entry of transnational food companies have moved Bangaloreans away from tastes and eating practices of their agrarian ancestors in one decade. The paper suggests that culinary difference and gastronomic consumption are symbols of a changing Indian social order in which eating becomes a moral quest for a new self. The inquiry attempts an understanding of how the imagining of food and food writing shapes this moral searching, constructing shifting identities that are often conflicting, and that engages two paradoxical discourses of adventure and nostalgia through polysemic consumption choices. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dimensions of "Arab-ness" have always marked Arabs in the Americas. In spite of hailing from various Arab backgrounds and affiliations, being Arab American implies the acceptance not only of a new cultural identity predicated on an ethnic heritage, but also constitutes a socio-political declaration, asserting a national and ethnic identity that exists in cultural ideology, if not in political or legal terms. Therefore, in the absence of any collective Arab State that can bring together various cultural Arabs under one law and nationality or offer a locus of affiliation, the only venue that had been available historically has been to assert this Arabity through cultural attestation of belonging to something bigger and larger than parochial subdivisions. This paper examines Arab American youth in Dearborn (Michigan), many of whom are born in the United States, and all of whom are raised there, can in fact be "Arab", highlighting the elements that define Arab ethnicity in America. The paper suggests that these youth are not Arab in the way their parents would like (or theoretically think of them) and they are not American in the way that mainstream society may perceive them, but a new hybrid culture. Although they are supposed to not to "fit" easily in both cultures, making it difficult for them to adjust to either, nonetheless, the "Arabics" of Dearborn are thriving because ultimately they do not see themselves deficient, rather they count themselves as whole individuals, intuitively accepting their hybrid natures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with two recent, ongoing, and opposed socio-political trends that are symbolic of changes in the area of inter-minority relations in the city of Boston. One trend, symbolized by The New Majority, is striving to promote inter-group consensus through calls for the creation of a working coalition among the growing number of minority communities in Boston, and thus gradually consolidate a unified agenda of people of color. The other trend moves in the opposite direction: towards conflict between minority groups that, due to growing numbers and changing demographics, are now clashing in their efforts to access the scarce resources assigned to Boston's poor urban areas. This latter trend is symbolized, in this paper, by the events that took place at the Whittier Street Health Center, which divided the two largest minority groups in Boston -- Latinos and African Americans -- around an English-only policy in the workplace. In short, we have here a top-down movement (the New Majority) moving towards building inter-group consensus at the leadership level, while at the same time a bottom-up conflict, arising within a health institution serving low-income minorities (the Whittier Street Health Center) undermines the possibility of unifying plans for common action. My methodology is based on both quantitative and qualitative research tools, such as Census 2000 data, participant observation, demographic studies, interviews, textual analysis of media pieces, and review of relevant documents and literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the label Arab American as it is framed by Arab-American organizations and used in research on Arab Americans is in essence a political category (speaking to political activism), and that there are significant consequences to the Arab-American identity and community in terms of its narrow social construction. The definition of Arab American, as exhibited in most research and writing about Arab Americans which was formed in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has essentially marginalized and rendered significant portions of the Arab-American community invisible, primarily those who do not exhibit readily observable cultural traits (such as Arabic language proficiency) as well as a lack of political activism around specific causes (such as Palestine and the invasion of Iraq). This marginalization within a marginalized community is what I refer to as double marginalization. This paper argues that this invisibility and diminished authenticity has resulted in a significantly skewed understanding of the Arab-American community. Political activism, while a potential source of creating unity in a diverse ethnic community, can also be source of unity and disunity, as it has been in the Arab-American community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines intersections of fatherhood identity and sexual identity among gay men who actively parent children. Through a reanalysis of interview data gathered in 1978 by Frederick Bozett, this paper sheds light on the possibilities and conflicts of identity in the lives of gay fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical racialization of Asian Americans is pertinent to the future of Asian Americans. The creation of racial ideologies, whether considered as "positive" or "negative" labeling by society at large, is still largely consequential. While it is clear that the process of racialization can have a lasting effect (i.e. the model minority myth), what remain unclear are its effects on Asian American youth. How are Asian American youths affected by, and how do they react to, these labels? This paper explores literature on the Asian American youths who utilize strategies and techniques to create their ethnic and racial identities. This paper argues that Asian American youths can potentially risk compromising their ethnic and racial identities when they internalize racialized labels and engage in techniques of disidentifying from coethnics and other forms of self-denigration. As a consequence, Asian American youths consciously and unconsciously perpetuate existing racialization of Asian America by engaging in various techniques to assimilate into mainstream society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is framed by two related theoretical concerns, both associated with developments within contemporary social movements. The first is that whilst Castells (1997) provides a useful typology of identities, he does not examine how his ?resistance identity? can develop into ?project identity?. My premise is that this requires ?leadership?, but, secondly, this is a concept rarely explored in activist and academic literature on the movement. The paper is sympathetic to Barker, Johnson and Lavellete?s (2002) essentially Marxist criticism of Weber for not conceiving of a ?democratic? leadership type. It is argued, however, that they do not take account of some Southern experience that highlights the importance of charisma and especially courage as factors in leadership. This experience is drawn from the empirical data presented in the paper. Case study material is drawn from the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC), arguably the most successful of South Africa?s new movements, and specifically its internationally know leader, Trevor Ngwane. SECC is something of a hybrid, straddling resistance concerns and the development of a pro-working class project identity. Whilst it is argued that leadership is context specific, this novelty and the quality of Ngwane?s leadership might provide food for thought by Northern scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the role of complex work organizations and professions in the nonprofit sector. Supported by the empirical case of professional communications and fundraising work in U.S. higher education, the paper identifies problems in the contemporary postmodern sociology of citizenship and public-sphere theory. The main effort of the paper is to understand how professional organization of institutional audiences for formal organizations can be adequately theorized in the light of the problem of social integration and suggests the methodological adjustment by organizational theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, both major Latino migrant groups to the mainland United States, have conceptions of race that differ from those found in the U.S. Race is traditionally conceptualized in those nations along a continuum with many possible categories between the two polarities of White and Black that most Americans recognize. This paper explores how Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants reconcile the conflict between their home and host societies? understanding of race, and how the process of migration shapes that understanding. The paper draws on a recent cross-national qualitative study comparing Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants living in New York with non-migrants living in Santo Domingo and San Juan, respectively. The paper discusses data gathered using a photographic instrument to elicit racial classifications and discussion of how those decisions are made. Education is found to be an important factor mediating how race is conceptualized, and how racial assimilation takes place in the host society. It further shapes how identities are sent back and reformulated in the home societies through transnational practices and globalized mass communications. Ethnic and racial group interactions in each location enable those identities to be reinterpreted and assigned new meaning specific to the social context. It is argued that migration shapes racial constructs in both sending and receiving nations, but context-specific structural factors filter the way those constructs are used and understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed paper will be about how the legacy of societal resistance in Argentina has repercussions on the present. For this purpose, resistance refers to a society’s ability to oppose adverse conditions -or crises - be it political, social or economic in nature and to be able to make a transition out of this predicament. In light of recent World Bank studies that show low levels of general trust and participation in Argentina, this paper examines how historical factors influence the present. Through the general discussion of Argentina in the period between 1976 and 1983, we see that due to the severe repression it was difficult for internal resistance to form. Networks that were created were largely by people who were in the common situation of being close to someone who was disappeared, killed or tortured by the regime. However, not everyone who was affected in this way participated possibly because of fear, denial and/or they went into exile. No broad based resistance movement formed in this period. Examined is whether a change in the political opportunity structure affects informal networks by comparing this period to the present. I demonstrate that to oppose a powerful shock, ideally there would be a well-connected network of diverse organizations and individuals that would come together to act in consort under a common interest and that they would require a degree of trust. The argument is that a society that has experienced fear, division and trauma does not have the environment for resistance unless it confronts how past events have influenced how people relate to one another. History and, more specifically, collective memory, have a role in constructing present-day relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Census 2000 data about populations such as Latinos are widely analyzed and disseminated by researchers, community organizations, politicians, members of the media and others and have enormous political and economic implications. Census 2000 shows that approximately 5.3 million Latinos, or 15.1 percent of all Latinos identified panethnically, that is, they either did not write in a specific group or wrote in a general term such as ?Hispanic? or ?Latino.? This phenomenon garnered significant publicity, as it reflects an increase of 200 percent since 1990. Two potential explanations may account for the result: panethnic identification is a conscious choice by some Latinos and/or panethnic responses were influenced by methodological factors. The paper summarizes past theoretical and empirical findings about Hispanic panethnic identification and previous studies about the quality of Census 2000 Hispanic data. The paper compares comparable panethnic Hispanic data from Census 2000 and the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, an expanded sample of the American Community Survey, and incorporates findings from the 2002 National Survey of Latinos and other sources. The results are used to explore the implications and opportunities for how best to reflect the complex and fluid identities of Latinos in future collections of Hispanic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research on terrorism works to explain why political groups adopt violent tactics to achieve their goals, this paper investigates why the label ?terrorist? sticks to some violent groups and not others. Using the case of the Algerian War of the 1950s, a political conflict with many parallels to the current American war on terror, the paper tracks the process by which an Arab nationalist guerilla insurgency won the title of anti-colonial ?freedom fighter? while the French government, military, and settlers were branded ?torturers? and ?terrorists?. The paper argues that the ultimate outcome of the war, international pressure from key allies, and internal divisions within the French government, more so than the fighting tactics of various parties, or even the sum of military wins and losses, determined who was labeled what in the wake of the Algerian War. This case suggests that the identity of political movements ? whether underground violent insurgencies or state-led military operations ? is not solely of their own making, but depends on other factors as well. It also suggests, ironically, that the ?terrorists? and ?freedom fighters? have yet to be determined in the US war on terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific collaboration has been the subject of social research for about 40 years, with interest rising sharply in recent years as part of the ?organizational turn? in science studies [e.g., Pelz and Andrews, 1966; Andrews, 1979; Traweek, 1986; Owen-Smith, 2001; Shrum, 2001]. A line of inquiry that initially focused on properties of groups, organizations, and work life that influenced performance has branched into a diversity of studies concerned with trust, skepticism, control, gender, cultural difference, articulation work, epistemic cultures, and more. Group characteristics and processes influence their work, life course, and performance in ways that are only now coming into focus. This paper contributes to that body of work, using themes of identity, control, risk, and paradox in face-to-face research groups, an intense and enduring work arrangement that produces knowledge, knowledge workers, and ensembles of research technologies. This paper is concerned with research groups, solidary forms of social organization whose members share work space, materials, technologies, objectives, hypotheses, and, to a significant degree, a professional fate. Yet underlying the solidarity and commonality are sharp divides that separate the interests of lab heads from those of members, that bring competition alongside cooperation within and between groups, that give rise to distinctions between those with a shared identity, and that set democratic or participative practices against autocratic ones. Such tensions and paradoxes are not pathologies, but are instead the inherent and enduring issues that confront every research group, and the life course of the group is shaped by the way it deals with paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost 2000 years after its inception, and more than 200 years after Kant, Nussbaum?s (1994) article on ?Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism? has given the concept of cosmopolitanism a new lease on life. The notion of cosmopolitanism has been used in a variety of contemporary debates and interdisciplinary fields, ranging from culture, globalization, nationalism, population movements, cultural values and identity politics in general. Yet, despite generating considerable influence and excitement in social and cultural theory, cosmopolitanism continues to embody an idealist sentiment and authors in the field of cosmopolitanism research have continued to resist empirical operationalisation of the term. This paper argues that the problem of cosmopolitanism research exists at two levels. First, the notion of cosmopolitanism must be understood more closely in relation to the key structural social determinant of the modern era: the nation-state. This is crucial for understanding the possibilities of enduring impact of cosmopolitanism on societal structures (eg. citizenship). Second, and we limit discussion in this paper to this level, to make the notion of cosmopolitanism a productive research tool, we need to agree on some common determinants of cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan dispositions. In short, the first step in making cosmopolitanism a productive research tool is to be able to agree on what cosmopolitanism is, or is not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the label Arab American as it is framed by Arab-American organizations and used in research on Arab American is in essence a political category (speaking to political activism), and that there are significant consequences of this in terms of the social construction of the Arab-American identity and community. The definition of Arab American, as exhibited in most research and writing about Arab Americans which was formed in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has essentially rendered significant portions of the Arab-American community invisible, primarily those who do not exhibit readily observable cultural traits (such as Arabic language proficiency) as well as a lack of political activism around specific causes (such as Palestine and the invasion of Iraq). This paper argues that this invisibility and diminished authenticity has resulted in a significantly skewed understanding of the Arab-American community. Political activism, then, is both a source of unity and disunity in the Arab-American community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines 150 years of settlement of Muslims with Indian and/or Chinese origins in Hong Kong. It shows that these Muslims transformed their identities in ways that cannot be explained only in terms of how they adopted characteristics from non-Muslim majority groups while maintaining features they shared with co-religionists residing elsewhere: Multi-ethnic Islamic community formation created new definitions of what it means to be a Muslim in Hong Kong. Conceptualizing identity transformations in terms of whether changes stemmed from interaction with groups of individuals rooted in the place of abode (re-territorializing identities), or from maintaining networks with groups of people whose roots were elsewhere (maintaining de-territorialized identities) is important for our understanding of identity formation under conditions of globalization. It allows us to accentuate the plural and hybrid characteristics of identities. The data for this paper stems from archive research on the organizational history of Muslims with Indian and/or Chinese origins ? namely from the Trustees of the Islamic Community, the Islamic Union and the Chinese Muslim Cultural and Fraternal Association - as well as from in-depth interviews with Muslims of diverse ethnic origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the formation of Latino communities and identities in the city of Providence, Rhode Island. As in much of urban New England, during the last two decades immigration has changed the population composition and urban life in Providence. According to the 2000 Census, Latinos constitute 30 percent of the Providence population. Latinos are leaving a mark in all areas of Providence life, from the urban space, to urban culture, to urban politics. In this paper I focus on the transformation of urban space, on the process of formation of ethnonational communities and social spaces, and on the emergence of panethnic identities and social practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new explanation of why social identity affects cooperation in social dilemmas. The approach builds on key tenets of social identity theory to argue that identity affects cooperation by influencing how actors evaluate the outcomes of fellow ingroup members, but that identity does not affect actors? expectations about whether ingroup members will reciprocate their cooperation. The approach thus predicts that identity will reduce actors? responses to the ?greed component? in social dilemmas (the incentive to ?free-ride? on others? cooperation), but that it will not affect responses to the ?fear component? (the motivation to avoid being ?suckered?). These predictions stand in contrast to those of two existing explanations of why identity affects cooperation; the ?reciprocity approach? predicts identity reduces responses to fear but not greed; the ?traditional approach? predicts identity reduces responses to fear and greed. The competing arguments are tested against the results of a new experiment. The results provide strongest support for the new approach. However, one prediction was not supported. The paper concludes by addressing possible explanations for the anomalous finding, implications of the new approach, and suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between social movement strategies, their use of culture(in particular music), and their relationship to race in America. Social movement organizations differ in whether they define themselves as vanguards of the general population or catalysts, in whether they use music as a propaganda tool or a Asocial glue@ and in whether they define race as a means to a deeper goal or an irreducible goal in itself. The paper argues that these three qualities are related: Social movements that define themselves as catalysts and use music as a social glue are more successful in bridging racial boundaries than social movements that adopt a vanguard strategy and use music as propaganda, because they are more fully embedded in communities. This conclusion is supported with a comparison of the American Communist Party and the Highlander School of Monteagle, TN from the 1930s to the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the cultural production of the rhetoric of slavery and its impact on the collective identity of the African-American community. Through a rhetorical analysis of mainstream and African-American print media articles on the issue of slavery in Sudan from 1992 to 2002, this study advances framing research by contributing the concept of the ?trigger word? to explain the power of ideographs (McGee, 1980) such as ?slavery? to mobilize action. The analysis reveals four primary narratives: 1) slavery exists in Sudan and must be stopped; 2) slavery does not exist in Sudan; 3) slavery exists in Sudan and must be stopped, regardless of the color of the perpetrators; and 4) slavery exists in both Sudan and American and must be stopped. Based on the results of this study, this paper reaffirms the role of the media in the cultural production of trigger words to stimulate collective action. In addition, this study advances research on collective action frames by suggesting the possibility of a ?collective inaction frame? that stymies action in a collective identity based not on injustice, but comparative oppression and victimhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical explanations of gender typically emphasize either biological essentialist or social constructionist arguments. But beyond their differences, both sides explain gender as intrinsically tied to sex and reinforce the binary categories of male and female, limiting the ability of these theories to offer satisfactory explanations of gender for people whose gender identity and biological sex is either not contiguous, or does not fit within the narrowness of the scope of society’s definition of gender as bipolar. Viewing life experiences from the standpoint of intersex and trans people raises critical questions regarding gender identity and the linkages between identity development, human biology, and social influences. In contrast to the thirty-year trend within the social sciences to consider gender in terms that are exclusively social constructionist, this paper proposes an alternate theory of gender identity, and examines the role of restrictive social messages that narrowly define the scope of gender-appropriate appearance, behavior, and physiology, in gender identity formation across all groups. In this paper I have argued against the dominant approach taken in Identity Theory, that as social beings, our identity is discovered, made known, reinforced and revised not in response to events, but out of the interpersonal interpretations of these events. Instead, I have refered back to the original arguments made by Morris Rosenberg (1979) regarding the motives and principles of the self-concept and engaging them to expand our knowledge of how identity, specifically gender identity, develops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most recent literature on dichotomies focuses on their imposition by the powerful, this paper demonstrates how individuals in this study both struggled and applied dichotomous thinking in constructing their class identities. This empirical paper draws upon participant observation and interviews with the younger men (recent high school graduates) enrolled in a technical training program to illustrate how categories imposed upon adolescents via encouraged enrollment in technical courses during high school limited their aspirations for future occupations. These imposed categories created issues of identity for these individuals after high school as shown by their struggles over how to classify the occupation for which they were training and the reby their own class identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transnational, ethnic, and religious identities adopted by the children of former Soviet Jewish immigrants and refugees. For the children of immigrants who did not make the decision to uproot and transplant themselves, the question of identity is particularly vexing, with important consequences for their futures, as well as the host society?s. In this paper, I apply a micro-level analysis to the question of the evolving social identities and affiliations of 1.5 and second generation refugees based on in-depth interviews conducted in 2001 with five subjects in the Pacific Northwest. While the ?immigrant? identities of the second generation FSU Jews can be explained to a limited extent by the segmented assimilation model, further analysis of the subjective understandings of religious minority refugees who departed a complex and disintegrating multi-national system for a multicultural society that includes diverse co-ethnics raises new questions and suggests new conceptual insights. In this paper, I use the case of the FSU 1.5 and second generation to explore the concept of identity strategy, and its relation to the process of sorting out ethnic affiliations after ethnic un-mixing. The objective is to understand the ways these young people combine and deploy their own first-hand home-country memories, inherited home-county memories, a more official diasporic/co-ethnic narrative of collective destiny, with their everyday interactions in multicultural America both to construct affiliations and to create external boundaries between themselves and others. I suggest that identity strategies for the 1.5 and second generation are characterized by a multi-layered and evolving interconnectedness between ?foreigner? and ?co-ethnic,? with regard to the ways they mark boundaries among themselves, and between themselves, their parents, and members of other groups including American Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the result of two months of participant observation in an anarchist collective in a large Midwestern American city. Theories of collectivist organizations, social movements, and leisure groups provide relevant insights but fail to completely capture the distinctiveness of this group. I argue that it is best viewed primarily as an imagined community that provides its members with identity, meaning, and moral vision that are transportable to their lives outside the collective. In order to provide powerful transportable meaning and moral vision, the group must provide individual and collective identities that demand commitment to a distinctive, organic community of other equally committed persons. In other words, in order for this collective to be an effective imagined community, it must become a powerful actual local grounded organizational community. The paper gives ethnographic details to illustrate how collective and individual identities are formed and maintained through the resolution of means/ends conflicts, by defining protagonists and antagonists, and by the ritualized recounting of narratives. I argue that this group derives particular strength from distinguishing itself from other imagined communities by articulating and appropriating an extreme and unusual ideology in contemporary American life, anarchism. In this endeavor, the collective must enter into moments of both chaos and organization. The tenuous balance of these moments against each other is not a strange paradox of contradictory values, but rather precisely and effectively provides a powerful pathway through life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary point of the paper is to show that laboratory member’s claims regarding their knowledge producing capabilities are not simply indicators of their true natures but also deployments in an arena of authority and control. Scientists and operatorsat the lab can be seen as enacting performances that link the technical and the organizational and privilege each groups? own status and authority over the other’s. What more can be said about such performances? In what kinds of forums are particular performances effective and why? From what kinds of cultural resources are they drawn? In order to pursue these questions further this paper traces the history of an effect known as ?ion trapping? as well as the history of the relationship between the particle group and the x-ray group at a mdern synchrotron laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to address a "competing closets" dimension of the synthesis of social smokers and chimerical social space(s). The research question I address is how do social smokers navigate their oscillating orientations toward smoking with reference to personal biographies, individual identities, social advantage and cultural charm? Moreover, what are the benefits and deficits of this situational identity? Bi-socially oriented between smoking and non-smoking, social smokers blur the illusory boundaries of the traditional smoking dichotomy which has previously been framed in terms of addiction and self-control. I discuss in this paper the results of tape-recorded in-depth interviews. Overall, findings suggest that emulation, identity and orientation are all factors that fuse into a social smoking practice. Furthermore, there are general markers of social smoking that include: (1) gifting and borrowing a cigarette; (2) fashioning a stylized use of a cigarette to complement personal images of self; (3) cigarettes complement individual alcohol consumption; (4) cigarettes celebrate and add luxury to social events. I conclude with explanations and interpretations of the practice that center on interactional advantage, deviance, the "bi-sexuality" of smoking practice and the smoking "imaginary" that allows the social smoker the ability to take part in a distinctive cultural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger, on-going research project which addresses the intersection of popular culture and identity within the process of reading. The author considers several theories which inform her work on the intersection of culture, identity, and reading. Empirical research on comic book readers prompted further analysis of the ways that images and the stories within which they came to life intersected with sociological categories such as race, class, and gender. Prior work done in the field of Cultural Studies, with its focus on people’s everyday lives, proved to be one of the better models for studying comic books and readers in a way that considered both the construction of meaning in everyday lives and the significance of social and individual identities within such constructions. The process of reading was ideal for the exploration of concepts of identity within theories of popular culture; theories that attempt to define what it is to be ?popular’ or ?of the people’. This paper sets the groundwork for an analysis of relationships between historical definitions of popular culture, the cultural artifactual character of texts - specifically comic books, and the construction and maintenance of social identities linked to popular culture. A brief review of the debates within the studies of culture and over the term ‘popular’ highlight the importance of attempting to study a cultural process such as reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a conceptual framework for understanding differences among women in their commitment to their appearance. Based on life history interviews with 50 women between the ages of 18 and 35 years, this paper delineates a multi-faceted conception of appearance commitment that includes two broad dimensions: practices and ?emotion work.? In the sample of women interviewed, variation was found in both bodily practices (diet, exercise, makeup, apparel choices, etc.) and emotional preoccupation with appearance issues. Emotional preoccupation was found to consist of four key facets, including: comparisons with other women; awareness of others? appearance expectations; body-image; and the development of strategies for managing appearance itself and bodily concerns. Respondents spoke about these elements in ways that suggested they are aspects of an ?inner dialogue.? While social pressures are a key element of emotional preoccupation with appearance, such dialogues suggest that women critically reflect on pressures and consciously construct strategies for both bodily and emotion management. Such strategies are important examples of agency. Three categories of commitment to appearance (derived from the intersection of practices and emotional preoccupation) were found among women interviewed: minimalist, moderate, and enthusiast. This work may contribute to the existing body literature by describing the variation that exists among women in the salience of appearance to their identities. Moreover, the concept of appearance commitment that is developed here may also strengthen existing understandings of women?s body-image and participation in beauty practices by taking into account both actions and their cognitive/emotional underpinnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

K-16 partnerships, in which colleges work together with K-12 schools to improve education for at-risk students, are a new trend in educational reform. One example of this trend is the South Dakota State University-Flandreau Indian School Success Academy. SDSU-FIS Success Academy is an early and intensive college preparatory program for students attending the Flandreau Indian School, the oldest continually operating federal Indian boarding school in the country. SDSU-FIS Success Academy, now in its third year, serves 250 freshmen, sophomores and juniors and involves more than 60 SDSU faculty, staff and students. Plans are underway to make Success Academy a four-year college bridge program during the 2003-04 academic year. This paper examines Success Academy from a critical theory perspective. Success Academy rests on six fundamental assumptions that contribute to its effectiveness: o Cooperate respectfully. o Be persistent, always keeping the long-term perspective in mind. o Change the system, not the student. o Realize that the cultural capital it takes for low-income students of color to succeed in school can be acquired rather than inherited. o Strengthen the ethnic identity of the students you serve, realizing that this can empower them to succeed in school and to prevail over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. o Enlist the help of significant others in the lives of Native American students?their relatives, tribal leaders and other Indian students?to help them construct positive self-definitions of themselves as successful scholars. The paper concludes with evaluation data, both quantitative and qualitative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Narcissus Queen Pageant among Chinese in Hawai’i to explore how Chineseness has been constructed for the community through the female body in over half of a century. Through interviews, field observations, video documentation of pageant activities, archival and web research of pageant souvenir books and local English and Chinese newspapers, and periodicals, it demonstrates that the Narcissus Festival and its Pageant were an invention out of the political, economic, and cultural interests of its practitioners in post-WWII local, national, and international contexts. They were also a result of contestation, negotiation, appropriation, and repression of alternative discourses. The paper also analyzes how, with such symbols Narcissus,ECheongsam,Eand Chinese customsEin the Pageant, Chineseness is defined as traditionEand pastEin opposition to modernityEand progress;EChinese cultureEis romanticized as homogeneously ancient, wise, loving, and harmonious. Above all, it demonstrates how, throughout the 54 years of the Narcissus Queen Pageant, the imaginedEChinese community is constructed on the site of the female body. It is through Chinese female bodies that the audiences find the meaning of Chineseness as defined by the patriarchal and orientalist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary social life requires the complicated negotiation of various identities, but some, like sexuality and religion, seem so incompatible to be reconciled. In the past 5-10 years, there have been increasing tensions between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and LGBTQ movements, raising questions as to the possibility of their reconciliation. While the Marriage Equality movement won a victory in the US Supreme Court, the LDS Church later included same-sex married couples under their definition of apostasy. The tensions of these two cultures and ideologies are reproduced on an individual scale as members of the Mormon church who are attracted to members of the same sex are having to negotiate between conflicting meanings of sexuality and spirituality. Relying on data collected from 56 interviews with lesbian, gay and bisexual Mormons and 25 hours of ethnographic research at LGBTQ Mormon conferences and firesides, this paper revisits identity research done on religion and sexuality using intersectionality and hybridity to view how both Mormonism and LGBTQ movements' conceptions of sexuality become mutually shaped. This paper outlines how the negotiation of religion and sexuality for LGB Mormons queers Mormonism as well as Mormonizes homosexuality. This project will add to current theories of intersectionality and identity as well as scholars interested in the interplay between religion and sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asexuality is a sexual orientation category representing a lack of sexual attraction or interest in sex with other people, challenging normative notions of universal and innate sexual desire. Despite the vast heterogeneity of dispositions and identity categories within the asexual spectrum, asexuality remains relatively understudied and marginalized within the sociology of sexualities. In this paper, I use data from the 2017 Asexual Community Census (N=6,791) to elucidate key sociological questions that asexual populations raise relevant to gender, sexuality, family, and social movements. Results focus on the demographic characteristics of the asexual community, specifics of respondents' sexual dispositions, and points of connection and disruption between asexual and LGBTQ oppression. I argue that the growth of asexual collective identities over the last few decades is symbolic of key shifts in sexual identities, spaces, concepts, and questions that can extend sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes discursive frames used to construct sexual assault victims as worthy or unworthy of sympathy. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with friends, family members, and partners who received disclosures of sexual violence, the present study explores how informal supporters evaluated victim's narratives and behaviors in determining their emotional investments. Participants in the study used frames around relationship status, gendered ideals, disclosure timing, signs of trauma, and victim's engagement with recovery work. Building on prior scholarship, this research argues for a more central role of sympathy in research concerned with the social construction of victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research finds that workers in stigmatized jobs attempt to fashion positive occupational identities for themselves. However, these strategies are premised on stable and continued engagement with stigmatized employment. How might workers manage occupational stigma in comparably unstable and temporal lines of work? In this paper we examine the "stickiness" of occupational stigma on work careers - the degree to which facing stigma in one's line of work shapes other occupational pursuits and informs distinct strategies of stigma management. Using qualitative data on two differently stigmatized worker cohorts in Los Angeles - sex workers and restaurant workers - we show that the strategies individuals employ to manage stigma in their work lives varies by the type of stigma they face. Whereas sex workers try to normalize their "dirty" labor and bundle together temporal jobs within the same industry, restaurant workers attempt to downplay their service jobs and bundle jobs outside the industry. We close by discussing how variation in stigma stickiness can affect individual work careers in an era of increasingly unstable employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extant literature concerning the existence and experiences of LGBTQ community in the United States sometimes overshadows that of those who identify as "intersexed"; that is those who are born with biological traits that make it unclear to determine whether they are conclusively male or female (Haynes, 1999). This could mean some variance of chromosomes beyond the dichotomous 46XX or 46XY, abnormal hormone balance, or difference in appearance of genitalia. Despite the lack of discussion concerning intersexed individuals, it is undeniable that these individuals indeed exist, as some 1% to 4% of the population falls into this category, creating non-binary categorization of biological sexuality (WHO 2010). For many, intersexuality challenges the idea of the existence of only two sexes, and thus, only two relative genders. The research attempts to gain a greater understanding of American millennial awareness, acceptance, and attitudes towards the intersexed in regards to a binary view of gender. More specifically, we focus on the relationship between religiosity and views of homosexuality, and how these variables may influence and/or be influenced by intersex awareness and acceptance. This paper presents nuanced theological suppositions along with an original quantitative analysis of survey research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have focused on collective identity in study of social movements, personal identity theories provide a valuable tool for accurately understanding a range of social movement behavior. In this paper, I apply concepts from personal identity theories to understand accurately how individuals view their identities related to participation in the environmental movement. Using interview data collected from participants in the People's Climate March, I discuss the contents of participants' "environmental movement identities" and find a diversity of normative expectations that are incorporated into identity standards. The varied self-concepts found in the data indicate significant heterogeneity in how people understand their identities and participation that could impact their specific behavioral choices. The concept of environmental movement identity allows for a more accurate understanding of the broad array of environmental behaviors that constitute participation in the environmental movement, including private behaviors through which people identify as participating in movements for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on case studies of two organizations - an Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house - this paper analyzes how teachers, texts and students describe and narrate the process of spiritual formation. I find that the narratives of becoming circulating in these communities mirror an epic literary format in which individuals are continuously confronting and overcoming obstacles in pursuit of an ever-elusive goal (Thornborrow and Brown 2009). I refer to this ideal typical narrative form, with its central unifying logic of progressive attainment, as the journey narrative, and dedicate the first half of the paper to elucidating its central characteristics. In doing so, I highlight similarities and differences with previously identified ideal typical self-change narratives both within and outside of the religious field. In the second half of the paper, I analyze the "cultural work" (DeGloma 2007, Wuthnow 2011) performed by the structure of this shared narrative. First, I argue that the journey narrative both depicts and helps to construct the spiritual self as an aspirational - rather than an ascribed or achieved - identity. By transforming practitioners into perpetual aspirants, this narrative form therefore helps to sustain practitioners' commitment to the practice and identification with the community through time. Lastly, I argue that the journey narrative is used to perform 'boundary-work,' helping practitioners distinguish themselves and the community from culturally salient out-groups in the broader cultural field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the life course transition to old age and social movement participation through a case study of aging women active in the Minutemen, a branch of the U.S. nativist movement that conducts armed patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border to oppose undocumented immigration (Chavez 2008; Doty 2009; Shapira 2013; Vina et. al. 2007). Although people age 65 and older comprise one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population (Werner 2010), social movement scholars know very little about how the transition to old age affects individuals' proclivities to join social movements or the transformative effect participation may or may not have on activists (Valiente 2014). Empirically, this paper draws on extensive ethnographic and interview data to document how aging women engage in a dual process of identity construction as they work out both what it means to be political and what it means to be old in a post 9/11 world through their movement participation. Analytically, it develops a framework for conceptualizing the affinity between the transition to old age and social movement participation that emphasizes how movements across the political spectrum may become crucial spaces-social, ideational and physical-where aging individuals construct new and gender-specific ways of enacting old age at a time when cultural norms regarding what it means to age successfully in the U.S. are in flux (Arber & Timonen 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores connections between housing status, identity, and social relationships over time. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative interview data collected over six months from seven individuals transitioning out of homelessness and into government supported housing, this paper examines identity shifts during such a status change. Individuals distanced themselves from both homeless and formerly homeless associates, and connected with others through groups not affiliated with homelessness or shelter life. Consequently, those leaving stigmatized statuses may experience vast changes in their social networks to aid such a transition. Furthermore, when exiting a stigmatized status, social distancing may be particularly important as it helps redefine the self as apart from that stigma. Relational associations may be based on ideal identities following shelter life. Implications for research and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the empirical data from twenty-seven young women who have been interviewed and their social lives observed through the lens of social media since 2004. The research seeks to situate their context of femininity as they have reflected on and revealed aspects of self with their friends and networks through mediated technology. Theoretically, the paper draws on the work of George Herbert Mead to understand how the women's cultivation of self extends an unfolding femininity that is being constantly modified. The research suggests that emphasis should be placed on a digital social self that is 'made to be feminine'. The empirical data considers the voice and actions of young women whose symbolic self is built on the context of real events, relationships and ten years-worth of experiences. This allows for a suitable theorisation of individual agency as an 'I', as well as the focus on the construction of a feminine 'me', through digital and non-digital contexts. Finally, the research reveals how young women experience gender across a range of mediated spaces and provides insight into how they define and practice being feminine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper discusses the proposed changes in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM - 5), which eliminates Asperger Syndrome (AS) and replaces it as "Autism Spectrum Disorder." The social framing and consequences of including and now excluding the Asperger diagnosis in the DSM will be discussed, including impacts on identity of adults with AS and the influence of everyday life. Methodology/approach This research is based on 19 interviews with adults diagnosed or self-diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Central themes surrounding issues of identity and everyday life experiences were determined using grounded theory approaches. Findings This study demonstrates how a particular diagnosis can have consequences for a person's life and how disease categories can come to carry a symbolic significance beyond the diagnostic criteria. The study shows how the diagnosis and self-diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (AS) is fused with individual identity and how the Asperger identity is positively embraced. The proposed changes to eliminate the Asperger diagnosis in DSM - 5 threaten these assertions of Asperger identity and could potentially enhance stigma experienced by people with AS. Regardless of its removal, Asperger identity must be considered within the broader context of people's everyday lives and how experiences in social interaction and communication can be strong agents of identity construction. Social Implications The proposed changes to eliminate the Asperger diagnosis in DSM - 5 is a social issue that will impact individuals with Asperger Syndrome and their families, as well as healthcare professionals, health insurers, researchers, state agencies and educational providers. Originality/value of paper This paper offers a unique insight into identity construction based on the diagnosis and self-diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper furthers an understanding of the process of identity construction and reconstruction among individuals with conflicting religious and sexual identities. Drawing on interviews with individuals previously involved in the ex-gay movement who attempted to change their sexual identity, I analyze the strategies individuals use to reconstruct their sexual and religious identities. Five stages of identity processes are discovered and exemplified: constructing the religious convert, compromise between conflicting identities, constructing the ex-gay identity, rejection of ex-gay and religious identity, and integration of a religious and homosexual identity. Individuals pass through these stages at various routes throughout their life towards developing an integrated identity involving a successfully incorporated homosexual and religious identity. This analysis suggests that individuals employ many strategies to resolve dissonance between conflicting identities, and that identities change over time and context. This paper concludes by discussing the fluidity of identity construction and the role that identity based movement's play in the construction of individual and collective identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes adoptive ethnic identity and the factors that account for its formation. Adoptive ethnic identity is as an identity rooted in the deployment of the ethnically-linked symbols and practices associated with another ethnic group to such a degree that an individual regards herself and is regarded by others as an associate of that ethnic group. The rise in the ideology of multiculturalism and its accompanying value of diversity, demographic shifts, intermarriage, mass higher education, and international travel help account for the development of adoptive ethnic identities. Adoptive ethnic identity manifests in the deployment of ethnically-linked symbols and practices, including language, artistic expressions, and as part of a course of study. The paper distinguishes adoptive ethnic identity from other concepts of ethnicity, namely assimilation, symbolic ethnicity, and "going native." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]