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Self-help and the surfacing of identity: Producing the Third Culture Kid
- Source :
- Emotion, Space and Society. 24:27-33
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2017.
-
Abstract
- In this paper, I argue for a need to expand our understanding of the role that self-help plays in the constitution of identities. Using the example of the Third Culture Kid (TCK) industry, I argue that self-help acts as a space of biopower through its role in managing the emotional experience of having been globally mobile as a child. To do this, the paper looks at how the TCK, as a subject, is surfaced as comfort in relation to the ascribed grief and insecurity of identity that is associated with childhood global mobility. Data are derived from a multi-sited ethnography, including a narrative analysis of TCK literature, reader discussions, participant observation at a TCK event and an online survey. The argument contributes to scholarly critiques of self-help by examining processes of production and consumption of TCK subjectivity enacted through the TCK industry. Thereby, the paper contends that in researching self-help we need a wider understanding of its production and consumption, how people are persuaded to use it, and how they respond to ideas presented within it.
- Subjects :
- Subjectivity
Social Psychology
05 social sciences
0211 other engineering and technologies
0507 social and economic geography
Identity (social science)
021107 urban & regional planning
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
02 engineering and technology
Participant observation
Consumption (sociology)
Narrative inquiry
Argument
Aesthetics
Sociology
Third culture kid
050703 geography
Social psychology
Biopower
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17554586
- Volume :
- 24
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Emotion, Space and Society
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........0bb3313d603df5bc678ed5d56a53ee97