Exploring a Social Identity Theory of Shared Narrative: Insights from Resident Stories of Police Contact in Newark, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio

Abstract

Narrative identity theorists have long held that individuals construct identities as a coherent tale of their past, present, and future selves. These life stories are structured along predictable scripts borrowed from cultural master narratives. Heretofore, legitimacy theorists have relied on social identity theory to explain legitimation processes. I propose integrating elements of narrative identity theory with social identity for a more complete legitimation theory. I analyze 92 in-depth interviews with individuals who encountered the police departments of Newark, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio. Respondents’ narratives followed common narrative scripts, suggesting a shared master narrative guiding interpretations of police encounters. A significant proportion of the sample interpreted their views of the police from a group-based lens, while an equally significant proportion used alternative narratives. An integration of social identity, narrative identity, and current legitimacy theory holds promise for a more comprehensive model of legitimation and a more complete theory of self.

“It’s Just Flourishing Hope Everywhere”: The Experiences of Incarcerated Men Sharing Their Stories

“…The findings support research on storytelling being a reflective vehicle for people to understand their past in the telling, gain clarity and meaning, and use this experience to build a future and identity informed by their past, no matter how painful (Blount-Hill, 2020;Bove & Tryon, 2018;Cash, 2016;McConnell, 2016;Pasupathi & Rich, 2005;Reith & Dobbie, 2012). The sharing of stories in this setting, particularly about the toll of using substances on their lives and those they love, allowed the participants to confront the depth of the consequence and cross a threshold they described as "therapeutic" and "cathartic," with a degree of healing that helped them to "[feel] lighter afterwards" and take some of "the pain away.…”

“…Narrative storytelling has historically been an important form of communication for passing along information and sharing individual experiences (Cash, 2016; Scott et al, 2013). Storytelling provides individuals with the power to make sense of the past, create new meanings for the future, and contribute to the development of one’s identity over time (Blount-Hill, 2020; Bove & Tryon, 2018; Cash, 2016; McConnell, 2016; Pasupathi & Rich, 2005; Reith & Dobbie, 2012). Narrative as written and verbal communication has the ability to define how one relates to others and the world (Cash, 2016).…”

“Being Diverse and Being Included, Don’t Go Together in Policing”—Diversity, Inclusion, and Australian Constables

“…The outward projection of a collective group identity enables police to differentiate themselves from citizens, thereby enabling police to categorize non-group members either by their non-employment as police officers or (in the case of many diverse groups of people) classify civilians as outgroup members due to differences in identity, which mark them as being different to majority group members [3,11,46,66]. The collective police identity, therefore, significantly shapes officers' policing of groups of people with whom they do not identify [3,46,[68][69][70]. Within the police organization, the collective group identity also enables the organization to maintain rules, procedures, and the hierarchical management of the organization.…”

“…Traditional recruitment practices in Australia operationalized the ideal officer, and whilst modern Australian police organizations have focused on overcoming these outdated ideas of the idealized officer, many of them still base their guidelines on conventional ideas regarding what police work entails and how it should be conducted [3]. However, much of the body of the literature examining police work determines that positive policing and outcomes of justice, as well as positive police-citizen engagement, relies more on the inclusion of diverse people within policing and that this inclusion will diminish outdated traditional modes regarding how police conduct work [3,46,68,70,71].…”

Clarion call: A comment on Hamm et al.'s (2022) diagrammatic map for a future research agenda

“…Some civilians may never encounter police, though, at least not in the course of police work. Still, the public ‘encounters’ police through vicarious storytelling (Blount‐Hill, 2021), the police station building (Headley et al, 2021), and their media sources (Dawson, 2018). All of these are contexts of socialization that can inform police attitudes without reliance on an individual officer or her interpersonal claims.…”