Social Identity

In writing about identity and belonging, Miller (2003) explained that belonging entails “something much deeper than that which pure emotion can guarantee; it has to be something rather more

ontological—something more fundamental to who and what we are (p. 217), yet stressed that belonging and identity are not the same. Scholars studying belonging have often referred to experiences of

“identity,” but have also asserted that “belonging” more adequately captures the emotional aspects of identities in social life, including the desire for attachments to peoples, places, and modes-of-being (e.g. Anthias, 2002, 2006; Miller, 2010; Probyn, 1996; Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2010).

Rather than undertake an exhaustive examination of the theory of identity—and scholars have noted that theories abound (e.g. Anthias, 2002; Brubaker & Cooper, 2000; Jenkins, 2014; Yuval-Davis, 2010)—I focus on how identity can assist with our understanding of how individuals experience and negotiate SofB to and with individuals and groups. To this extent, the concept of “social identity” is useful. Social identity scholar Jenkins (2014) wrote: “identity is the human capacity—rooted in language—to know ‘who’s who’ (and hence ‘what’s what’). This involves knowing who we are, knowing who others are, them knowing who we are, us knowing who they think we are, and so on (p.

6). Thus, at the most basic level, social identity allows us to sort people individually and collectively and in turn, potentially evaluate or establish relationships which can create SofB.

3.2.2.1 SofB as Commonality

SofB is not only about social identity and involvement, but also about experiencing “terrains of commonality” and perceptions of “fitting in” in relation to groups (Fortier, 1999). Psychologists have argued that SofB “encompasses the attribute of fit, sharing similar or complementary characteristics that allows the individual to feel a part of a group, system, or environment” (Hagerty et al., 1996:237).

To better understand the experiences of commonality and fit, scholarship which defines social identity on the basis of similarities and differences is useful. For example, Jenkins (2014) explained: “to identify something as an A is to assert that it has certain properties in common with all other As, and that it differs from Bs, Cs, and so on” (p. 22). Thus, social identity is relational and comparative; by knowing who one is or is not, one can identify to whom or where one belongs—or does not. Jenkins continued:

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Knowing who’s who involves processes of classification and signification that necessarily invoke criteria of similarity and difference…the above criticisms converge in a recognition that foregrounding difference underestimates the reality and significance of human

collectivity. Whatever else might be involved in knowing who’s who, it is undeniably a matter of similarity and solidarity (p. 24).

Because SofB has been conceptualized as feelings of commonality resulting from the experience of fitting in, examining the social and relational aspects of identity via experiences of similarity and difference, inclusion and exclusion can likely capture how SofB is socially constructed or challenged.

3.2.2.1.1 Ascribed Identity

Notably, the social identity process can be flawed; knowledge versus perceptions of who we are can erroneously structure social identities, potentially influencing SofB in the process. Thus, the question of who is defining an identity is important. While it is human nature to speculate about an individual’s identity—even without knowing that individual—what we think we know of that individual’s identity is not necessarily a reflection of their own construction of their identities (Jenkins, 2014). The

distinction between ascribed and achieved identity is important to acknowledge, as the former entails imposition by outsiders, whereas the latter is selected and constructed by oneself (e.g. Huddy, 2001;

Jenkins, 2014; Taylor, 1989). Self perceptions and choice matter when constructing social identities, and suggest that the same may pertain to SofB.

3.2.2.2 Boundaries of Belonging: SofB as Group Membership

Scholars have acknowledged that individuals can enact their identities to symbolize association with or belonging to groups or cultures. In this regard, SofB is linked to social connectedness. This nuance of SofB entails feelings of attachment (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Lambert et al., 2013; Yuval-Davis, 2006), a sense of community (Anthias, 2006; Christensen & Jensen, 2011), a sense of intimacy with the world (Boym, 2001), and attraction and social cohesion (Marshall, 2002). For example, Anthias (2006) has written that belonging entails “feelings of being part of a larger whole,” which includes “emotional and social bonds” (p. 21). Scholars additionally stipulate that belonging and SofB entail desire for such attachments (Marshall, 2002; Yuval-Davis, 2006) and the longing to belong to peoples, places, and modes-of-being (Kumsa, 2006; Probyn, 1996). Yuval-Davis (2006) has argued that the desire to

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belong and achieve SofB is so pervasive that fear of separation or exclusion is a major motivating factor for group membership or conformity.

Because the human desire to achieve SofB is in part driven by experiences and perceptions of

attachments to peoples and communities attention to the concept of the “group” is important. In turn, this can capture how SofB is constructed through social connections. Scholars have observed the relationship between group identities and SofB, for example, Jenkins (2014) wrote that social identity is about “belonging and community, of ‘us’ and ‘we’ (p. 24). Brubaker and Cooper (2000) noted that experiencing collective identity often entails the “emotionally laden sense of belonging to a distinctive, bounded group, involving both a felt solidarity or oneness with fellow group members and a felt difference from or even antipathy to specified outsider” (p. 19). These conceptualizations involve an in-group experience resulting in SofB via feelings of similarity, community, and inclusion in

contradistinction to non-members. However, Jenkins (2014) has also acknowledged that the concept of a “group” does not necessarily indicate definitive boundaries or homogeneity.

3.2.2.2.1 Overlapping Boundaries

Instead, numerous scholars have asserted that “boundaries” not only denote separation and exclusion, but also areas and conditions for communication, exchange, negotiation, bridging, and inclusion (e.g.

Bowker & Star, 1999; Lamont & Molnár, 2002; Peterson & Kern, 1996; Rosaldo, 1989; Thelen, 1999).

Thus, experiences of inclusion and exclusion and membership and non-membership likely relate to constructions of SofB. However, the mere observation of differences does not necessarily indicate exclusion, nor capture how these distinctions are experienced. SofB is integral to capturing the social phenomenon of everyday life, social identities, and group interactions. As boundaries of group

“belonging” and membership have been conceptualized as complex, blurred, overlapping, and even contradictory, these conceptualizations suggest that SofB may also be more dynamic than current binary constructions suggests.

3.2.2.2.2 Fluidity & Dynamism

One argument against conceptualizing groups as neatly bounded relates to the notion of fluid and dynamic individual identities, as well as the argument that neither social identities nor groups should be solely characterized by difference. It has been argued, for example, that difference alone does not establish who one is, and furthermore, that tolerance, recognition, and encouragement of differences

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are crucial to modern-day democracies (e.g. Anthias, 1998; Butler, 1990; Jenkins, 2014; Kabeer, 2005;

Modood, 2005; Taylor, 1994). Experiences of similarity, commonality, and cohesion are thus

seemingly in tension with celebrations and encouragement of difference and diversity. Jenkins (2014) has maintained that it is impossible for individuals to exhaustively assert all possible differences without also noting similarities. Additionally, social identity has been argued to be fluid and

contingent (Butler, 1991; Yuval-Davis, 2006); continually negotiated, temporal, and complex (Wenger, 1998); never a finished product, metonymic, and hybrid (Bhabha, 1994); multiple, overlapping, and potentially contradictory (Christensen, 2009); and dependent upon context, situation, and meaning (Anthias, 2006). If social identity scholars have contended that identities are ongoing, fluid,

contingent, relational, and contextual, these arguments suggest that SofB should not be examined or defined in definitive, fixed, stable, or absolute terms.

3.2.2.2.3 Liminality

Another tool which allows scholars to capture ambiguous boundaries of belonging is the concept of

“liminality.” Súarez-Orozco et al (2011) used to the term in their study on undocumented immigrants, and wrote that “liminality has been theorized as the transitional moment between spheres of belonging when social actors no longer belong to the group they are leaving behind and do not yet fully belong in their new social sphere” (p. 444). Liminality can thus be used to capture in-between experiences.

Suárez-Orozco et al (2011) have used the term to capture the blocked rites of passage that 1.5GUY encounter as “a labyrinth of liminality that complicates the normative stages of development in

multiple ways” (p. 443), becoming an “interminable” state. While Suárez-Orozco et al (2011) have not studied these transitions or experiences through the lens of SofB, they have nonetheless found that 1.5GUY experience uncertainty and stress, suggesting negative influences to SofB worthy of further attention.

Life course scholars (e.g. van Gennep, 1960, 2011; Turner, 1987, 2002) have used liminality to capture the ambiguity that occurs when individuals transition from one life stage to another, for example from childhood to adulthood, engagement to marriage, pregnancy to childbirth. Turner (1987) and van Gennep (2011) have categorized three stages in this process:¹⁶ separation, where an individual or group

16 Typical examples are funerals (separation); pregnancy or engagement (transition); and childbirth or marriage (incorporation) (e.g. Turner 1987; van Gennep 2011)

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is detached from previous ways of being; transition, a liminal stage where practices are ambiguous and neither neatly reflect past nor coming stages; and incorporation, a stable, consummated, and clearly defined stage. These same scholars have argued that while rites of passage include ambiguous periods, they are visibly and measurably completed. Liminality is a temporary, rather than permanent state and when transitions are completed, for example in birth, puberty, marriage, and death (e.g. van Gennep 2011), there are usually cultural celebrations.

3.2.2.2.4 In-betweenness: Hybridity vs. Partiality

Post-colonial scholar Bhabha’s (1994) conceptualization of hybridity and the “third space” further explains how neither boundaries nor identities are clearly defined, but rather multiple, fluid, and overlapping. Bhabha explained the third space as “continually, contingently, ‘opening out,’ remaking the boundaries, exposing the limits of any claim to a singular or autonomous sign of difference—be it class, gender or race” (p. 313). Thus, processes of social identity are interminably ongoing. He further contended that the resulting “difference is neither One nor the Other but something else besides, in-between” (p. 313). In an interview, Bhabha stated “all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity but for me the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge” (Rutherford, 1990, p. 211). Notably, this notion of the third space is less concerned with definitively targeting origins and causes, and instead captures the ongoing proliferation of identities.

Bhabha considered the third space to be innovative and hybridity a sign of dynamism. As such, hybridity and the third space capture richness, rather than ambiguity; cultural differences and the subsequent social identities are conceptualized as positive, rather than liminal, negative, or lacking:

What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond

narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative signs of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself (Bhabha, 1994, p. 2).

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Because social identities are intrinsically related to the hybrid third space, and because SofB is

constructed through social processes, including those of identification, this conceptualization suggests that 1.5GUY’s SofB could be hybrid as well, especially as 1.5GUY have two or more cultural and identificational reference points.

The in-betweenness that Bhabha has celebrated in his concept of the third space is not always how real life is experienced. For example, Kebede (2010) researched 1.5 generation, Ethiopian-North American asylum seekers in Canada and found that these youth experience unique challenges to their SofB due to both their in-between immigration cohort and legal status. As asylum seekers, they are neither legal nor undocumented. Due to their asylum status, they cannot return home even if they so desire. Kebede (2010) argued that the SofB “the 1.5-generation might have felt before leaving their country of origin is irreversible because they cannot simply return to where they originally came from and feel that they belong in the way that those who never left can” (p. 6). Kebede (2010) concluded that due to these particularities, these “young people of the 1.5-generation will go through a period (or periods) of immense struggle to ‘belong’” (p. 6). Though asylum seeking status and ULS are not the same,

individuals with either status cannot simply return to their homelands without consequences. If Kebede (2010) has found that SofB is challenged particularly due to immigration cohort and the inability to return to one’s home, the 1.5GUY’s SofB may be similarly be in-between or similarly challenged.

In another geographic, legal, and institutional context, Applied Linguist Benesch (2008) has observed that in the majority of English language learning literature on 1.5 generation immigrants—regardless of legal status—individuals are often described as being in-between. However, this in-betweenness is conceptualized as incompleteness or partiality, not hybridity. Benesch (2008) has argued that scholars often posit the 1.5 generation as “perpetually partial” individuals who are “positioned as nonnative (Them) but on the way to becoming native (Us)” (p. 298). These individuals, their identities, and their linguistic practices do not quite resemble those of the majority. Benesch (2008) has furthermore contended that the “the dichotomous construction of first-and second-generation immigrants with its modernist notion of fixed native and non-native cultures allows for this demographic partiality, of being neither first nor second, neither ‘newcomer’ nor ‘U.S.-born’” (p. 298). This observation serves as a caution against similarly positing the 1.5GUY as perpetually partial individuals. The research on hybridity, the third space, partiality, and in-betweenness inspire questions as to how the in-betweenness

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of 1.5GUY’s immigration cohort, life stage, and ULS influence SofB, including in partial or hybrid manners.