Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Drawing on dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) and employing a case study approach, this article aims to provide insights into the dialogical processes through which two British-born siblings of Pakistani background construct and negotiate their cultural identities. The analysis suggests that both young people were moving towards their multivoiced cultural identities through a constant positioning and re-positioning within their communities, which resulted in dialogical negotiation of aspects of differences/similarities and belonging within their majority and minority communities as well as living in a multicultural society. When their negotiation is a struggle shaped by issues of racism and religious discrimination, two opposing processes are constructed, a dynamic dialogical and a monological one. We introduce the notion of hibernated I-positions as a resource to deal with rapid change, threat and uncertainty. I-positions that are inactive, or are in a hibernated state and silenced, are always available to re-emerge and become engaged in a new dialogue to help retain identity continuity. In this article, we challenge linear assumptions which assume that all immigrant groups undergo the same kind of psychological acculturation process.

Keywords

Cultural identities dialogical self ethnic minority groups hibernated I-positions heterogeneity voices

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahmad

(2006). British Muslim perceptions and opinions on news coverage of September 11. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 32(6), 961–982.

Aveling

L. E.

Gillespie

(2008). Negotiating multiplicity: Adaptive asymmetries within second-generation Turks’ “Society of mind”. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 21, 1–23.

Bhatia

Ram

(2004). Culture, hybridity, and the dialogical self: Cases from the South Asian diaspora. Mind, Culture & Activity, 11(3), 224–240.

Campbell, D., Taylor-Norton, R., & Dodd, V. (2005, 23 April). Words of warning backed by little clear evidence. The Guardian, p.12.

Ferguson, J. (work in progress). What is the lived experience for people with Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy? (Master’s thesis, Department of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University, UK).

Flick

(1998). An introduction to qualitative research, London, UK: Sage.

Hall, S. (2006). Once more around cultural identity. Paper presented at an Annual Lecture, Queen Mary’s, University of London.

Hermans

H. J. M.

Kempen

H. J. G.

(1998). Moving cultures: The perilous problems of cultural dichotomies in a globalizing society. American Psychologist, 22(10), 1111–1120.

Hermans

H. J. M.

(2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture & Psychology, 7(3), 243–281.

10.

Hermans

H. J. M.

(2003). The construction and reconstruction of a dialogical self. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 16(2), 89–130.

11.

Kim

Triandis

Kagitcibasi

Choi

S. C.

Yoon

(1994). Individualism and collectivism: Theory, method and applications, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

12.

König

(2009). Moving experience: Dialogues between personal cultural positions. Culture & Psychology, 15(1), 97–119.

13.

Kraus

(2000). Making identities talk. On qualitative methods in a longitudinal study. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1(2).

14.

O’Sullivan-Lago

de Abreu

(2010). Maintaining continuity in a cultural contact zone: Identification strategies in the dialogical self. Culture & Psychology, 16(1), 73–92.

15.

Prokopiou

Cline

(2010). Constructing cultural and academic identities in community schools: A socio-cultural and dialogical approach. In: Lytra

Martin

(Eds.) Sites of multilingualism: Complementary schools in Britain today, Stroke-on- Trent, UK: Trentham Books, pp. 71–83.

16.

Rassool

(1999). Flexible identities: Exploring race and gender issues among a group of immigrant pupils in an inner-city comprehensive school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(1), 23–36.

17.

Satrapi

(2008). Persepolis, London, UK: Vintage Books.

18.

Stone

Muir

Smith

(2004). Islamophobia: Issues, challenges and action. A report by the commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, Stroke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

19.

Tappan

B. M.

(2005). Domination, subordination and the dialogical self: Identity development and the politics of “ideological becoming”. Culture & Psychology, 11(1), 47–75.

20.

Todoulou-Polemi

Vassiliou

(1998). The grouping process across cultural change. Group, 22, 105–119.

21.

Triandis

(2001). Individualism – collectivism and personality. Journal of Personality, 69(6), 907–924.

22.

Valsiner, J. (2000a). Making meaning out of mind: Self-less and self-full dialogicality. Paper Presented at the First International Conference of the Dialogical Self, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

23.

Valsiner

(2000b). Social consumption of cannibals. Culture & Psychology, 6(1), 88–96.

24.

Valsiner, J. (2004a). Temporal integration of structures within the dialogical self. Keynote Lecture at the Third International Conference on Dialogical Self, Warsaw, Poland.

25.

Valsiner

(2004b). Three years later: Culture in psychology–between social positioning and producing new knowledge. Culture & Psychology, 10(1), 5–27.

26.

Vassiliou

V. G.

(1981). Outlining the synallactic collective image technique as used within a systemic, dialectic approach. In: Durkin

J. E.

(Ed.) Living groups, New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel, pp. 216–227.

“Silent” monologues,“loud” dialogues and the emergence of hibernated I-positions in the negotiation of multivoiced cultural identities

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References