The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes

13. Identity Dilemmas, Discursive Fields, Identity Work, and Mobilization: Clarifying the Identity–Movement Nexus

263 13 Identity Dilemmas, Discursive Fields, Identity Work, and Mobilization: Clarifying the Identity–Movement Nexus In this chapter, I elaborate a number of dilemmas that are pertinent to understanding the relationship between identity and the mobilization of potential and actual movement adherents. I use the term dilemmas to encompass both identity-related issues that confront scholars examining the identity–movement nexus and activists tussling with the strategic use of identity, although in this chapter, I focus on the former. That is, I examine a set of identity dilemmas that encumber our understanding of the identity–movement nexus because they are either glossed over or insufficiently examined among social movement scholars. The identity dilemmas I elaborate include the dilemma of multiple identities, the dilemma of identity salience, the dilemma of pervasive identities, and the dilemma of discursive fields and identity work. In discussing these identity dilemmas and related topics, I do not pretend to cover the vast literature on identity in the fields of psychology, social psychology, and sociology; rather, I draw most heavily on the literature within sociology and sociological social psychology that bears most directly on participant mobilization within the study of social movements. Before elaborating each of the listed dilemmas, I contextualize the movement field’s current interest in the relevance of matters of identity and collective identity for understanding participant mobilization. Contextualizing the Importance of Identity and Collective Identity Interest among social movement scholars in the relationship between identity, particularly collective identity, and participant mobilization crystallized during the latter fifth of the past century, largely owing to the intersection of three sets of factors. The first set encompasses broad contextual factors that make David A. Snow david a. snow 264 matters of identity and collective identity pressing issues for increasing numbers of individuals and social categories. A core tenet of the symbolic interactionist perspective in sociology is that interaction between two or more sets of actors minimally requires that they be situated as social actors (Stone 1962), which entails the announcement or attribution of identities. Inasmuch as this is true, it is arguable that the reciprocal avowal and imputation of identities has always been a necessary condition for interaction among humankind. Yet it is also a sociological truism that matters of identity become more problematic and unsettled as societies become more structurally differentiated, fragmented, and culturally pluralistic, loosening in some instances and shattering in others the cultural and structural moorings to which identities were once anchored, thus giving rise to the construction, extension, negotiation, and challenge of various combinations and permutations of identities. The latter part of the twentieth century has generally been regarded as one such period of identity and collective identity effervescence and clustering, with a number of scholars characterizing this period in terms of identity crises and collective searches for identity (Castells 1997; Gergen 1991; Giddens 1991; Klapp 1969;Turner 1969). Embedded within this context is the second factor associated with the crystallization of scholarly interest in identity and collective identity in relation to politics and social movements: the rise of identity politics and identity movements in the 1970s (Bernstein 2005). The politics and movements that cluster under the identity canopy include those associated with marginalized status groups tied mainly to racial, gender, and ethnic divisions, sexual orientation , disabilities, and religious orientation. Concrete examples of movements emanating from these groupings and for which identity is accented include the feminist movement, lesbian–gay–bisexual–transgender movements, the Black Power movement, the disability rights movement, and, most recently, the fat acceptance movement. For these movements—often clustered along with less identity-oriented movements, such as the environmental movement , under the new social movements umbrella (Kriesi et al. 1995; Laraña, Johnston, and Gusfield 1994; Melucci 1989)—concern with distributional inequities and injustices tends to take a backseat to procedural issues and injustices bearing on rights and associated matters of inclusion and exclusion and to group reputational issues. Central to each movement’s objectives is reframing dominant, stereotypic characterizations and public understandings, as reflected in such slogans as “Black Is Beautiful,” with the goal of greater self-determination and, in some cases, self-understanding. The emergence and clustering of these movements over the past quarter of a century no doubt stimulated interest among movement scholars in the identity–movement nexus. Among the scholars who made this nexus a focus identity dilemmas, discursive fields, identity work 265 of their work, none was more influential than the...