Table Of ContentThe Identity Dilemma
In the series Politics, History, and Social Change,
edited by John C. Torpey
Also in this series:
Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, Imagined Liberation: Xenophobia, Citi-
zenship, and Identity in South Africa, Germany
Philipp H. Lepenies, Art, Politics, and Development: How Linear Perspective
Shaped Policies in the Western World
Andrei S. Markovits and Emily Albertson, Sportista: Female Fandom in the
United States
Nicholas Toloudis, Teaching Marianne and Uncle Sam: Public Education, State
Centralization, and Teacher Unionism in France and the United States
Philip S. Gorski, The Protestant Ethic Revisited
Étienne Balibar, Sandro Mezzadra, and Ranabir Samaddar, eds., The Borders
of Justice
Kenneth H. Tucker, Jr., Workers of the World, Enjoy! Aesthetic Politics from
Revolutionary Syndicalism to the Global Justice Movement
Hans-Lukas Kieser, Nearest East: American Millennialism and Mission to the
Middle East
Ernesto Verdeja, Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Politi-
cal Violence
Rebecca Jean Emigh, The Undevelopment of Capitalism: Sectors and Markets
in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany
Aristide R. Zolberg, How Many Exceptionalisms? Explorations in Comparative
Macroanalysis
Thomas Brudholm, Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to For-
give
Patricia Hill Collins, From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and
Feminism
Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider, translated by Assenka Oksiloff, The Holo-
caust and Memory in the Global Age
Brian A. Weiner, Sins of the Parents: The Politics of National Apologies in the
United States
A list of additional titles in this series appears at the back of this book
The Identity Dilemma
Social Movements and Collective Identity
Edited by
Aidan McGarry and James M. Jasper
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2015 by Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System
of Higher Education
All rights reserved
Published 2015
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The identity dilemma : social movements and collective identity / edited by
Aidan McGarry, James M. Jasper.
pages cm. — (Politics, history, and social change)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4399-1251-5 (hardback: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-
1252-2 (paper: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-1253-9 (e-book)
1. Group identity. 2. Social movements. I. McGarry, Aidan, editor.
II. Jasper, James M., 1957– editor.
HM753.I343 2015
305—dc23
2014044765
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction: The Identity Dilemma, Social Movements, and
Contested Identity • James M. Jasper and Aidan McGarry 1
1 Scholarly Research on Collective Identities • James M. Jasper,
Marisa Tramontano, and Aidan McGarry 18
PART I: STRATEGIC IDENTITIES IN PROTEST MOVEMENTS
2 “Sectarianism: Danger”: Nonsectarian Social Movements and
Identity Politics in Divided Societies • John Nagle 45
3 Autonomous Social Movements and the Paradox of Anti-
identitarian Collective Identity • Cristina Flesher Fominaya 65
4 The Challenges of Using Survey Instruments to Measure the
Identities of Environmental Protesters • Clare Saunders 85
5 Contested Identities in Struggles for Human Rights: A Long View
• Neil Stammers 108
PART II: STIGMATIZED GROUPS AND COLLECTIVE
IDENTITY DILEMMAS
6 Survivors, Consumers, or Experts by Experience? Assigned,
Chosen, and Contested Identities in the Mental Health Service
User Movement • Marian Barnes 131
vi Contents
7 Enacting Memory and the Hard Labor of Identity Formation:
Rethinking the Romani Movement and Its Historiography
• Huub van Baar 150
8 Those Who Are Full Can Never Understand the Hungry:
Challenging the Meaning of Infertility in Poland
• Elżbieta Korolczuk 170
9 Making the Extreme into the Ordinary: Cultural Legacies
and the Identity Work of Hungary’s Right • Umut Korkut 192
Contributors 211
Index 213
Preface
I
dentity remains an essentially contested concept, discussed and applied
across multiple disciplines yet little understood. The Identity Dilemma ex-
amines the meaning and content of identity for groups and communities
in diverse sociopolitical and cultural contexts. Research on identity exploded
in the 1980s and 1990s as academics attempted to make sense of the changes
resulting from social movements in the global north, such as feminism, gay
rights, and environmentalism. It was assumed that identity had had its day as
successive groups and communities around the world destabilized the mean-
ing of identity and rejected the application of labels and the homogenizing
potential of group ascription. However, identity has been thrust into the spot-
light once more as emerging political movements, including Occupy, the Arab
Spring, anti-austerity protests across Europe, and popular mobilizations in
countries as diverse as Ukraine, Turkey, Thailand, and Brazil, use labels and
collective identity in new and imaginative ways. It was in this context that a
small group of scholars came together to explore issues in the relationship
between identity and social movements.
In September 2012, a symposium, “Contested Identities and Social Move-
ments,” was convened at the University of Brighton. It was generously funded
by the university’s Culture, Identity, Society research cluster at the School of
Applied Social Science, which draws on critical theory to examine the inter-
section between social structures and identities in local, national, and interna-
tional contexts. Leading and emerging scholars working on identity and social
movements were invited to present their research, and James Jasper delivered
the keynote address. It became clear that in addition to a focus on contested
viii Preface
identities, a central thread that ran through each presentation was how protest
movements negotiated collective identity—what James Jasper called “the iden-
tity dilemma.” All the contributors included in this volume presented their
papers at the Brighton symposium. In addition, we invited Elżbieta Korolczuk
to contribute a chapter after meeting at the Theory, Action and Impact of
Social Protest (TAISP) social movements conference at the University of Kent
at Canterbury in October 2012.
Each chapter in The Identity Dilemma presents an identity dilemma or a
paradox that protesters must address. While not exhaustive, the book presents
cases of collective identity and social movements in a range of political and
cultural contexts, addressing themes of strategic identities in protest move-
ments as well as stigmatized groups and collective identity dilemmas. It is
an analytical contribution to the literature on social movements and identity
in terms of the importance of identity formation and negotiation for social
movement actors. It also presents new and innovative empirical research on
a range of movements (for example, mental health, far right, Roma, and en-
vironmentalism) in historical and contemporary political contexts, including
postconflict Northern Ireland and Lebanon, Spain, the United Kingdom, and
Poland. The book attempts to build bridges between American and European
scholars working on social movements by illustrating areas of common con-
cern. Identity remains a crucial concept for those working on social move-
ments, which will help us understand the interplay between collective action
and strategic choice.
I acknowledge the support of the Culture, Identity, Society research cluster
for funding the symposium, the University of Brighton Research Sabbatical
Fund for providing a sabbatical to work on this volume, and the Department
of Government at Columbia University, where I spent my sabbatical as a vis-
iting scholar in 2013. The volume greatly benefited from the editing and or-
ganizational skills of Marisa Tramontano as well as her knowledge of social
movements, past and present. Thanks also to Anna Zhelnina for her work
on the index. The individual contributors have, at various times, given Jim
and me suggestions that have shaped the book, and I also acknowledge their
patience in getting the book published. I thank Rowan McConnell for his con-
tinued understanding when my research work encroaches into my “real life.”
Aidan McGarry
Brighton, UK, July 2014
The Identity Dilemma
Description:Collective identities are politically necessary, or at least useful, as banners for recruiting others and engaging opponents and the state. However, not every member fits or accepts the label in the same way or to the same degree. The Identity Dilemma provides eight diverse case studies of social mo
