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A person's identity, both social and personal, can be said to be constituted by several different aspects, such as gender, age, ethnicity, class and also religious affiliation. In a country like Sweden, where only a small number of youths are involved in religious organizations, it is, however, not necessarily uncontroversial for youths to present themselves as religiously active. To openly declare your religious commitment, places you in particular collective identities associated with certain beliefs or stereotypes that may challenge norms surrounding how Swedish youths are expected to think, behave and act. This article examines how a number of youths, active in the Christian youth organization of one of the Swedish free churches, present themselves and their religious involvement to friends at school. The results show different strategies used for handling experienced or anticipated reactions to their involvement in a religious organization and the collective identities they may be ascribed because of it.

Immigrants' extensive contributions to Canada include cultural and linguistic diversity, underscoring the need to understand the complexities and identity construction of linguistic minorities. Drawing on sociocultural and poststructural perspectives on language, identity, and power (Duff, 2007, 2019; Foucault, 1978; Norton, 2013), this multiple case study of six university-aged 1.5 and second generation Korean Canadians explores the dynamic interplay of heritage language learning experiences, situated contexts, and identity construction. Drawing on participants' lived experiences and perspectives, the data include in-depth interviews with the primary participants, a focus group with community leaders, and the researcher's reflection journals. Offering insight into the participants' first institutional heritage language learning experiences at a university, the findings reveal how deeply these linguistic minorities' heritage language learning trajectories and identity construction were situated within complex webs of familial, sociocultural, political and transnational factors, and individuals' different ways of reacting to the social forces. Endeavors to immerse themselves into a range of linguistic and cultural contexts gave these young adults valuable life lessons and unique identities as Korean Canadians, within which they shifted their bilingual/cultural identities. Their heritage language played a critical role in the participants' multiple identities, broadening their social spaces. University-aged Korean Canadians' experiences underscore the importance of sociocultural contexts of linguistic minorities' identity and heritage language learning, the close relationship between language and identity, and the critical role of institutional inclusion of heritage languages, alongside the role of the home, educational institutions, communities, and society. ; May 2020

'Aesthetics' is the new 'it' word among Gen-Zs. They stand for stylized visual trends shared on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The suffix -core is frequently used on these social media platforms to describe the various aesthetics. These micro-cores have emerged as mediums of self-expression and catalysts for social change amongst Gen-Zs. This study aims to understand the concept of trending micro-cores and the impact they have on framing identities of today's youth, who have grown up amid warnings of impending doom brought on by climate change, pandemic lockdowns and economic collapse. The study discusses four micro-cores – Barbiecore, Y2K, quiet luxury and e-girl/e-boy – to understand their meaning, origin and relevance in current cultural contexts. It follows a qualitative approach with an interpretivist paradigm to develop themes from literature by analysing website, blogs and social media content. The study then triangulates the data by surveying Gen-Z participants to understand their perspectives on the influences that urge people to adapt to these micro-cores.

With the rise of web 2.0 and social media platforms taking over vast tracts of territory on the internet, the media landscape has shifted drastically in the past 20 years, transforming previously stable relationships between media creators and consumers. The Social Media Reader is the first collection to address the collective transformation with pieces on social media, peer production, copyright politics, and other aspects of contemporary internet culture from all the major thinkers in the field. Culling a broad range and incorporating different styles of scholarship from foundational pieces and published articles to unpublished pieces, journalistic accounts, personal narratives from blogs, and whitepapers, The Social Media Reader promises to be an essential text, with contributions from Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, Tim O'Reilly, Chris Anderson, Yochai Benkler, danah boyd, and Fred von Loehmann, to name a few. It covers a wide-ranging topical terrain, much like the internet itself, with particular emphasis on collaboration and sharing, the politics of social media and social networking, Free Culture and copyright politics, and labour and ownership. Theorizing new models of collaboration, identity, commerce, copyright, ownership, and labour, these essays outline possibilities for cultural democracy that arise when the formerly passive audience becomes active cultural creators, while warning of the dystopian potential of new forms of surveillance and control.

"Colonial and Post-Colonial Identity Politics in South Asia analyses the colonial and post-colonial documentation and caste classification among Muslims in India, demonstrating that religion negotiated with regional social customs and local social practices whilst at the same time fostering a shared religious belief. The central question addressed in this is book is how different castes assert their identity for classification and how caste encountered colonial documentation. Identifying the colonial context of the documentation of caste among Muslims, and relying on colonial documentation in various census reports, Gazetteers, government or police records, ethnographic studies and travelogues, the author demonstrates the sheer diversity of attempts and caste among Muslims. The book deconstructs how under Colonialism Muslims were categorized into three broad but overlapping categories - Ashraf, Ajlafs and Arzals - and that Muslims were categorized into Asiatic, Non-Asiatic, Foreign, Mixed and Hindustani -Muslim categories. It argues that few colonial theories applied to Muslims. Finally, the author explores post-colonial documentation of castes among Muslims in various Commission reports, particularly in Backward class commission reports and its interplay in the reservation politics of the contemporary period and examines the growth of various Muslim caste organizations in different parts of India and their role in identity politics. Providing a new perspective on the issue of minorities in India, this book will be of interest to scholars of religion, Islam, history, politics and sociology of India"--

This article proposes a classification of motivations for collective action based in three of Tetlock's (2002) metaphors of social functionalism (i.e., people as intuitive economists, politicians, and theologians). We use these metaphors to map individual- and group-based motivations for collective action from the literature onto the distinction between individuals who are strongly or weakly identified with their social group. We conclude that low identifiers can be best understood as intuitive economists (supported by both early and recent work on collective action), whereas high identifiers can be best thought of as intuitive politicians or theologians (as recent work on social identity has started to explore). Interestingly, our classification reveals a remarkable lack of attention for the intuitive theologian's motivation for collective action. We therefore develop new hypotheses for future research, and derive recommendations for policy and practice from our analysis.

Popular analyses of political discontent among young people converged on a global level after the advent of the economic crisis in 2007-08. They have referred to pervasive alienation ; frustration ; disappointment ; and fear ; depicting a generation exploited by ruthless business owners ; neglected by policy elites ; and abandoned by older generations. The analyses likewise share an understanding of the meaning of 'youth' ; namely a population defined by narrowing economic opportunities under global market capitalism and subsequent protest. This paper attempts to go beyond this conception to explore the emergence of a new framework for agency. More specifically ; the paper aims to go beyond interpreting the behavior of 'youth' in the Arab World ; especially among educated young men and women ; as simply about protest. Instead ; the paper posits that concurrent trends in privatization of public services ; increasing individual and local responsibility for social problems and job creation ; job insecurity ; and greater exposure to rights and government accountability are influencing capacity to influence local change and likewise ; challenging boundaries between social ; political ; and economic agency. Drawing on longstanding research on social activism in Morocco ; the paper adapts the language of theorists of generational formation and consciousness (see Edmunds and Turner 2002 ; 2005) to argue that the initial consequence of market reform in the eighties and nineties was the formation of an 'interval generation' ; disenfranchised economically and unrepresented politically. Over the past 5-10 years ; though ; the entrenchment of globalization and neoliberal ideology have led to the emergence of an 'active generation' maneuvering to influence policy and liberal market capitalism through altering local economic and social opportunities. This maneuvering is particularly apparent in the rise of social entrepreneurship ; not just as an employment policy ; but also as an indicator of how the boundaries between economic ; political ; and social agency at a local level have blurred.

"Ausgangspunkt der nachstehenden Überlegungen ist die psychoanalytische und sozialpsychologische Wendeforschung in Deutschland. Es wird die These vertreten, daß sich die Auseinandersetzung mit der westlichen Alltagskultur in den neuen Bundesländern in einem schrittweisen Prozeß vollzieht, der als Intimisierung der Wendeproblematik bezeichnet werden kann. Dabei werden persönliche Eigenschaften, Werte und Gewohnheiten, die mit dem westlichen Lebensstil identifiziert werden, im Osten Deutschlands zunächst als Eigenschaften einer fremden Bevölkerungsgruppe, später als Eigenschaften anderer Personen im privaten Umfeld und schließlich als mehr oder weniger ichsyntone eigene Persönlichkeitsanteile empfunden. Klinisch-psychoanalytische und behandlungstechnische Implikationen dieses Phänomens werden an einer Fallvignette erörtert. Weiter wird davon ausgegangen, daß unter dem in der DDR herrschenden sozialen Anpassungsdruck bevorzugt Abwehrmechanismen entwickelt wurden, die bei der Bewältigung der Wendeerfahrung anankastische Mechanismen der Identitätssicherung mobilisierten. Diese These wird ergänzt durch die unbestrittene Beobachtung einer weitgehenden Zerstörung der kulturellen und sozialen Strukturen bürgerlicher Öffentlichkeit in der DDR. Die Bewältigung der mit diesen Deformationen einhergehenden psychosozialen Problemlagen ist dadurch erschwert, daß der sich als Alternative anbietenden westlichen Alltagskultur eine durch Anhedonie, Egozentrismus und narzißtischen Austauschstrukturen gekennzeichnete Sinn- und Identitätskrise attestiert wird, und die Strukturen bürgerlicher Öffentlichkeit auch hier - wenn auch auf andere Weise – gefährdet erscheinen." (Autorenreferat)

The writings of Dakota author Zitkala-Ša include her memoirs from her elementary education in a white boarding school, as well as some original Native American stories. While there has been much modern scholarship on how Native American women have reconciled their racial and gender identities, I will be examining the link between Native American feminism and assimilation in the boarding school system, exploring the specific aspects of Native femininity that Zitkala-Ša highlights in "A Warrior's Daughter." This short story outlines a young Dakota woman's effort to rescue her lover from the hands of an enemy tribe. Through the main character, Tusee, Zitkala-Ša calls for Native women to accept their important tribal responsibilities, including motherhood, and embrace their ethnic identities. Tusee's characterization is also used to denounce the oppressive rules of white femininity imbued in Native American girls by the assimilative education system used in the Western boarding schools of the time. Likewise, I will also investigate Zitkala-Ša's political work and advocacy for Native American women, examining how her own efforts to halt assimilation and fight for social equality are mirrored in her works of fiction, specifically in "A Warrior's Daughter." By analyzing her arguments in the short story as well as her political activism, I uncover Zitkala-Ša's efforts to protect important gender roles that are central to the propagation and preservation of Native American customs and traditions, thus allowing future generations to maintain their tribal ways of life.

I embrace Mills's (1940) conception of motives to offer new insight into an old question: why do people join social movements? I draw upon ethnographic research at the Crossroads Fund, a "social change" foundation, to illustrate that actors simultaneously articulate two vocabularies of motives for movement participation: an instrumental vocabulary about dire, yet solvable, problems and an expressive vocabulary about collective identity. This interpretive work is done during boundary framing, which refers to efforts by movements to create in‐group/out‐group distinctions. I argue that the goal‐directed actions movements take to advance social change are shaped by participants' identity claims. Moreover, it is significant that Crossroads constructs its actions and identity as social movement activism, rather than philanthropy. This definitional work suggests that analyzing the category social movements is problematic unless researchers study how activists attempt to situate themselves within this category. Hence, methodologically attending to organizations' constructions of movement status can theoretically inform research which essentially takes social movements as a given, in exploring their structural components.