Nested Identities

This groundbreaking work explores the vital importance of territory and space to any genuine understanding of nationalism and identity. Too often, the contributors argue, national identity is analyzed apart from the lands that are integral to its formation, as territory is seen as a commodity to be brokered rather than as central to a group's self-definition. This volume combines theoretical insights with structured case studies on how national identity manifests itself in space and at different geographical scales.

Globalization, the information technology revolution, individualization and other processes in contemporary society all impact on organizations. This text analyzes the framework of these organizational relationships and the dynamics of identity formation and bonding on several levels.

This new volume is the first to bring together social and organizational psychologists to explore social identity theory in organizational contexts. The chapters are wide ranging - they deal with basic social identity theory, organizational diversity, leadership, employee turnover, mergers and acquisitions, organizational identification, cooperation and trust in organizations, commitment and work, and socialization and influence within organizations. This book is an integrative platform for a closer relationship between social psychologists and organizational psychologists who study social identity processes in organizations.

Using a theoretical approach and a critical summary, combining the perspectives in the postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis and narratology with the tools of hermeneutics and deconstruction, this book argues that Jean Rhys’s work can be subsumed under a poetics of cultural identity and hybridity. It also demonstrates the validity of the concept of hybridization as the expression of identity formation; the cultural boundaries variability; the opposition self-otherness, authenticity-fiction, trans-textuality; and the relevance of an integrated approach to multiple cultural identities as an encountering and negotiation space between writer, reader and work. The complexity of ontological and epistemological representation involves an interdisciplinary approach that blends a literary interpretive approach to social, anthropological, cultural and historical perspectives. The book concludes that in the author’s fictional universe, cultural identity is represented as a general human experience that transcends the specific conditionalities of geographical contexts, history and culture. The construction of identity by Jean Rhys is represented by the dichotomy of marginal identity and the identification with a human ideal designed either by the hegemonic discourse or metropolitan culture or by the dominant ideology. The identification with a pattern of cultural authenticity, of racial, ethnic, or national purism is presented as a purely destructive cultural projection, leading to the creation of a static universe in opposition to the diversity of human feelings and aspirations. Jean Rhys’s fictional discourse lies between “the anxiety of authorship” and “the anxiety of influence” and shows the postcolonial era of uprooting and migration in which the national ownership diluted the image of a “home” ambiguous located at the boundary between a myth of origins and a myth of becoming. The relationship between the individual and socio-cultural space is thus shaped in a dual hybrid position.

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region focuses on the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural framework in the Black Sea region. The volume shows how the common inheritance interferes with different religious and political institutional backgrounds, fostering the formation of a particular cultural area. The interdisciplinary approach combines contributions from the domains of sociology, political science, international relations, and security studies and employs qualitative and quantitative analyses.

Jekatyerina Dunajeva explores how two dominant stereotypes—“bad Gypsies” and “good Roma”—took hold in formal and informal educational institutions in Russia and Hungary. She shows that over centuries “Gypsies” came to be associated with criminality, lack of education, and backwardness. The second notion, of proud, empowered, and educated “Roma,” is a more recent development. By identifying five historical phases—pre-modern, early-modern, early and “ripe” communism, and neomodern nation-building—the book captures crucial legacies that deepen social divisions and normalize the constructed group images. The analysis of the state-managed Roma identity project in the brief korenizatsija program for the integration of non-Russian nationalities into the Soviet civil service in the 1920s is particularly revealing, while the critique of contemporary endeavors is a valuable resource for policy makers and civic activists alike. The top-down view is complemented with the bottom-up attention to everyday Roma voices. Personal stories reveal how identities operate in daily life, as Dunajeva brings out hidden narratives and subaltern discourse. Her handling of fieldwork and self-reflexivity is a model of sensitive research with vulnerable groups.

In this ebook, a collection of 18 papers presents empirical research, as well as novel theoretical considerations, on how multiple identities are being managed by the individuals holding them. The papers draw on theories from social psychology in the context of the social identity approach. The first chapter presents eight papers on different types of multiple identity configurations in a variety of contexts, and the costs and benefits of these configurations for the individual (e.g., well-being). The second chapter gives insights on how conflict between multiple identities is managed by individuals. And the final chapter analyses how multiple identities impact intragroup and intergroup relations.