“WHO ARE YOU?” AND “WHO ARE THEY?”

Identities are answers to the questions:

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Identities are answers to the questions “Who are you?” and “Who are they?”

Identities are relational, contextual Identities form through social interaction Their content and meaning – the boundaries

of identities – change over time

Tilly, 1999

Identities consist of: a boundary separating me from you or us

from them a set of relations within the boundary a set of relations across the boundary a set of stories about the boundary and

relations

Tilly, 1999 4

Identities form through pairing - comparing, contrasting, & relating - social categories

a social category consists of a set of sites that share a boundary distinguishing all of them and relating all of them to at least one set of sites visibly excluded by the boundary

identities separate us from them, imply distinct relations among us, among them, and between us and them

Ch. 42: Being Middle-Eastern American: Identity Negotiation in the Context of the War on Terror

Amir Marvasti

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Stigma & management of spoiled identity

objective: to show how Middle Eastern Americans manage the stigma of their “spoiled identities,” especially in the aftermath of September 11th

analytical method: combines symbolic interactionism (SI) and structuralism SI attends to how meanings and identities are constructed

through everyday social interaction Structuralism focuses on how micro-level interactions are

conditioned by social structure - social context and history

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Goffman on stigma “When a stranger is present before us,

evidence can arise of his possessing an attribute that makes him different from others…He is thus reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one. Such an attribute is stigma.” Stigma is variable social construct and not a fixed

characteristic of a person

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Identity disputes are occasions for eliciting and producing “accounts” accountsaccounts: encounters in which a person is

called to explain unanticipated or untoward behavior—whether his/her own or that of others, and whether the cause of the statement arises from the actor himself or someone else accounts are conditioned by structural factors,

social-historical context, e.g., political turmoil war

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Media images shape social context Middle Eastern Americans are suffering “ill-fame”

(Goffman, 1963) perpetuated by the mass media their “public image . . . seems to be constituted from a small

selection of facts which . . . are inflated into dramatic news-worthy appearance, and then used as a full picture [of their identity],” e.g., racist stereotypes and fear of terrorism perpetuated by the media

the stigma of being Middle Eastern American is not external to interactions but is constructed or rejected via interaction, accounts, & self-presentational strategies

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Five forms of accounting strategies humorous accounting educational accounting defiant accounting cowering passing

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Humorous Accounting

uses humor as a diversion technique substance of account is incidental and is

deliberately trivialized account-giver acknowledges demands of

encounter while undermining legitimacy and urgency of request for an account

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Educational Accounting

takes deliberate pedagogical form where account-giver assumes role of educator, informing & instructing account-taker

combats stigma by correcting stereotypes unlike humorous accounting, educational

accounting centers on the informational substance of the account

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Defiant Accounting

like humorous accounting, account-giver exerts agency by challenging other’s right to the request

unlike humorous accounting, stigmatized make explicit demands for counter-explanations

interaction explicitly focused on the fairness of the exchange

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Cowering

in “defensive cowering” the stigmatized go along with stereotypical demands of setting in order to avoid greater harm

artful practice and agency take backseat to external conditions

stigmatized is virtually powerless in the face of rigid demands of the setting

more about “saving body,” or one’s physical safety, than “saving face”

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Passing

goal is information control and concealment of stigmatizing attributes

accomplished by manipulating one’s appearance, e.g., using disindentifiers

As described by A. Marvasti, in post-9/11 NYC, US flags were deployed as disidentifiers among people suspected of disloyalty, to pass as loyal Americans (“Being Middle Eastern American: Identity Negotiation in the Context of the War on Terror,” 2005)

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