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

2. Identities are answers to the questions “Who are you
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

3. 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
Tilly, 1999

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. Identity disputes are occasions for eliciting and producing “accounts”
accounts: 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

9. 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

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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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”

15. Passing
goal is information control and concealment of stigmatizing attributes
accomplished by manipulating one’s appearance, e.g., using disindentifiers

16. 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)