The delicate business of identity

Abstract

Sue Widdicombe is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She has published on identity and interaction, discursive psychology and conversation analysis, youth subcultures, Arab and Syrian identities. 2 AbstractIdentity has often been approached by asking questions about it in interviews. However, speakers sometimes reject, resist or modify category membership because of the sensitive inferential and interactional issues invoked. This paper aims to provide a systematic analysis of category-eliciting question-answer (Q-A) sequences from a large corpus of Syrian interview data concerning several identities. Using conversation and membership categorization analysis, four Q-A sequences are identified: minimal confirmation of questions seeking the hearably demographic fact of membership; modifying membership claims in response to factual-type questions by rejecting some not other category-bound attributes; characterising membership as fact and nominating an alternative identity in contrast to questions about feelings; and, in response to questions seeking confirmation of a category implicated through the prior talk, warranting the denial of membership. The analysis therefore highlights a paradox: asking direct questions about category membership is used to generate talk about the topic of identity that would be difficult to collect otherwise, but this may in turn provide for a reluctance to self-identify, thus making identity a delicate business.

Reconsidering self‐deprecation as a communication practice

“…This interactional approach to identity presents a challenge to much social psychological work that treats self‐descriptions as a reflection of an internal state or personality dimension, and to the self‐help genre that promotes the use of positive affirmations (and avoidance of negative self‐talk) as a route to feeling good about ourselves and maintaining positive relationships. Indeed, findings suggest that psychologists may gain a richer understanding of negative self‐descriptions, and the range of mechanisms that are at play when identities are made relevant in talk, by considering the interactional organization of instances of ‘identity talk’ (Antaki & Widdicombe, ; Speer, ; Widdicombe, ).…”

“…This interactional approach to identity presents a challenge to much social psychological work that treats self-descriptions as a reflection of an internal state or personality dimension, and to the self-help genre that promotes the use of positive affirmations (and avoidance of negative self-talk) as a route to feeling good about ourselves and maintaining positive relationships. Indeed, findings suggest that psychologists may gain a richer understanding of negative self-descriptions, and the range of mechanisms that are at play when identities are made relevant in talk, by considering the interactional organization of instances of 'identity talk' (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998;Speer, 2012b;Widdicombe, 2017). I want to end by reflecting on the implications of these analyses for a CA understanding of action formation: The data presented here demonstrate a members' explicit orientation towards, and labelling of, the kinds of talk that are recognizable as particular kinds of actions (sounding sexist, giving someone an 'earful', sounding arrogant, mumbling on, 'bugging' one's recipient, sounding selfish, and speaking bluntly or using 'incorrect' language).…”

“…Instances were analysed using CA (see Sidnell, , for an overview). CA has been used to great effect to consider in interactional terms what is traditionally conceived as a psychological or cognitive matter (Mikesell et al ., ; Potter & Edwards, ), including the production of identities in talk (Antaki, Barnes, & Leudar, ; Antaki & Widdicombe, ; Widdicombe, ). CA does not deny the existence of thoughts and feelings.…”

Being an ‘older parent’: Chrononormativity and practices of stage of life categorisation

“…[yes ] 27 Tim: not having a relationship to to do that in The shared laughter early on marks the topic of the timing as perhaps something to be expected but also as potentially sensitive (Widdicombe 2017). Answering the interviewer's initial question, Tim immediately mobilises the category pair parent-parent to provide a key reason for postponed parenthood.…”

Framing and switches at the outset of qualitative research interviews

“…Similarly, comparisons of telephone and face-to-face interviews reveal how the appearance of completion, clarification requests and adequacy checks may vary with respect to mode, but nevertheless illustrate some important interactional devices that participants employ to find out if their questions and answers appear to be sufficient and relevant in the emerging talk (Irvine et al, 2013). Moreover, in asking questions about identity as a topic in research interviews, it has been shown that interviewees confirm, but also negotiate, modify and even resist the suggested categories seemingly related to the interview interaction where management of self-description appears to be a delicate issue (Widdicombe, 2017). Hence, these studies acknowledge the interactional character of the interview event and convincingly argue for the value of highlighting its subtleties to better understand the collaborative knowledge production.…”