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
Man: And where are you from, Marie-Jeanne?
Marjane: I’m French. [I should say that at the time, Iran was the epitome of evil and to be Iranian was a heavy burden to bear. It was easier to lie than to assume that burden]
Woman A: She [Marjane] told my brother that she was French.
Woman B: And your brother believed her?
Woman A: What do you think? Have you heard the way she talks?
Marjane [to them]: You are going to shut up or I am going to make you! I AM IRANIAN AND PROUD OF IT!
Extracts from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2008, pp. 197–199).
The aim of this article is to contribute to the advancement of dialogical self theory as a conceptual framework and its application to complex everyday phenomena such as shifts in cultural identity development of young people from ethnic minority communities situated in contemporary multiethnic societies. A number of authors (e.g. Bhatia & Ram, 2004; Hermans & Kempen, 1998) have, from both a cultural developmental and dialogical perspective, criticised the tendency in much of the literature on immigrant identity to portray ethnic minority young people as being in between their two cultures (minority and host), and to investigate immigrant identity under the topic of “acculturation” in cross-cultural psychology. Within this mainstream tradition, many scholars (e.g. Kim, Triandis, Kagitcibasi, Choi, & Yoon, 1994; Triandis, 2001) have studied immigrant identity as an ahistorical, static, fixed, bounded and distinct entity separated from its sociocultural context.
Bhatia and Ram (2004) challenged the traditional cross-cultural approaches by emphasizing the heterogeneity of the psychological processes that operate during acculturation for different groups. They employed a dialogical approach to examine how second-generation South Asian-American women in the diaspora negotiated their multiple cultural identities and showed that their acculturation process was a struggle shaped by issues of race, sexuality and gender. This is an illustration of the acculturation process which for many non-White, non-European/Western immigrants is a difficult and complex process in which developmental trajectories are negotiated and may be opposed. Rassool (1999) found a similar level of complexity in a study of the formation of identities by first- and second-generation immigrant pupils at a comprehensive school in Britain. The process was characterized by discontinuity and difference, and these identities were created in an ongoing dialogue between past and present and they were “continually being shaped within and through everyday interactions with the social world” (Rassool, 1999, p. 27).
In this article, working from a cultural dialogical perspective, we challenge linear universal assumptions on minority identity by viewing culture as a fluid, unfinished process which is constantly created and renewed within historical, political and economic discourses. In this sense, identity is seen as historically and culturally constructed, which is not a property of individuals, but rather is constructed in discourse, shaped by a range of social, cultural and historical forces. We aim to give an account of the different integration processes members of an ethnic minority family undergo. The research question that we aim to address is: How do the cultural realities that are faced by ethnic minority young people, such as those presented in our case study, influence the development of their cultural identities?
Dialogical self theory
To address this question, we will draw on a dialogical self theoretical perspective (Hermans, 2001). In this theory, identity is conceptualized in terms of a multiplicity of voiced positions among which dialogical relationships can develop. Internal positions are positions that are perceived by individuals as part of themselves, and external positions are positions that are perceived by individuals as part of the environment. External positions refer to other people and objects in the environment that the individuals perceive as relevant from the perspective of some of their internal positions, and they are usually considered as mine (Hermans, 2003). All these internal and external positions are part of the self (I-positions) and their significance is derived from their mutual transactions over time.
I-positions are theoretical constructs used to express the idea that the “I” is always positioned in space and time (Hermans, 2003). Self or identity is conceptualized as a multiplicity of different and even opposed I-positions which are able to move from one spatial position to another influenced by changes in time and situation (Aveling & Gillespie, 2008; Hermans, 2003). We need to stress here that I-positions are both internal and external positions and from a dialogical self standpoint the traditional identity question of “who am I?” should be rephrased as “Who am I in relation to the other?” and “Who is the other in relation to me?” (Hermans, 2003, p. 104). These rephrased questions imply that one’s sense of identity is influenced by his/her relationships with others (Hermans, 2003). As Hermans argued, “the self-in-relation-to-the-other is a form of social exploration and discovery as part of an unfinished dialogue, both external with the actual other and internal with the imagined other” (Hermans, 2003, p. 104). The “I” is capable of giving each position a voice so that dialogical relationships between the different positions can be established (Hermans, 2003).
The voice is a phenomenological construct with theoretical implications which allows us to identify the various relations between parts, I-positions, and the whole self (Valsiner, 2004a). Thus, the voices act as characters interacting in a story, unfolding their experiences from their own standpoint while they agree, disagree and negotiate with each other (O’Sullivan-Lago, & de Abreu, 2010). According to König (2009), the fact that people tell very varied stories about a new culture during their acculturation process can be explained by the multiplicity and diversity of the voices populating the self. In the case studies that follow, we will draw on these constructs and demonstrate why we believe that the theory would benefit from the addition of a new concept of “hibernated I-positions”.
The development of cultural identities of ethnic minority young people in Britain
In this article, we argue that we cannot fully understand the experiences of members of a British family from a minority background unless we understand the situation of the minority community in the context of wider British society. In other words, we cannot understand identity development unless we contextualise it, that is, locate it within a specific historical and cultural time and space (Hermans, 2003; Valsiner, 2004b).
In British society, as in most Western societies, there is much anti-Muslim prejudice. Recent reports on British-Muslims (e.g. Ahmad, 2006; Stone, Muir, & Smith, 2004) have described a rise in Islamophobia in Britain after the terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11, 2001. As Ahmad (2006) pointed out, “within minutes of the planes crashing into the twin towers in New York, Islam and terrorism became inseparable, inextricably linked” (p. 962). Campbell, Taylor-Norton and Dodd (2005) showed how exaggerations from the media had severe consequences on British Muslims’ lives. Representations of Islam as violent (Ahmad, 2006), and contemporary images of Muslims as terrorists and backward, are widespread in the Western post-colonial context. This shift from racial discrimination to religious discrimination could be, to use a phrase by Stuart Hall, a new “emerging problem-space” (Hall, 2006). This highlights how both a historical event and a group’s or person’s place in that history channel contribute to their cultural and historical co- construction of their identities.
The case studies discussed in this article are part of a larger project (Prokopiou & Cline, 2010). The data set consisted of interviews with 16 ethnic minority adolescents attending Pakistani and Greek community schools in England, their teachers and their parents. The young people in the Pakistani group revealed a number of voices when they positioned themselves as ethnic minority young people who were born and living in England. The cases of Fahim (18) and his sister, Azra (13), have been chosen for the purpose of this article because these two young people demonstrated clearly how their cultural identities are constructed and re-constructed through a constant positioning and re-positioning within their communities and a continuous interaction within themselves and with others.
Semi-structured episodic interviews (Flick, 1998) with open-ended questions were used. This technique was considered as the most appropriate technique to explore the complex phenomenon of identities’ construction by revealing their dialogical character. By conceptualizing interviews as “dialogues”, the aim was to invite the interviewees to talk about themselves and articulate their own representations through various positions (Kraus, 2000). For example, the young people were asked questions such as “How do you feel living in this country?” and “How do you feel being of a Pakistani background in this country?” Another reason for using episodic interviewing was that this method was seen as having the advantages of both narrative and semi-structured interviews (Flick, 1998). The participants were free to select the episodes, such as specific situations and examples, they wanted to recount and they had the choice to present them in any form they wanted. For example, some participants chose to just give descriptive accounts and others gave narratives which usually incorporated past and present characteristics of the situation.
A dialogical analytical model
The voices of Azra and Fahim were revealed by using an analytical procedure which was developed for this study and was designed to examine the dialogical processes of identities. The main objective of this procedure was to interpret the processes through which young persons’ identities are constructed and reveal their dialogical character. The analytical procedure is graphically illustrated in Figure 1.
The dialogical arena of identities – an analytical model.
In this study, participants were asked to talk about their experiences of belonging to an ethnic minority group in Britain in order that an analysis could be made of the positioning dynamics that are involved in these experiences. The first step involved the identification of the emerging I-positions related to that specific domain of participants’ lives. For instance, we asked Fahim and Azra to talk about their feelings of being ethnic-minority young people living in Britain, and in the analysis we identified the interview extracts in which their I-positions in relation to that domain were illustrated.
The next step was to identify within these statements, the voices created through that positioning which in turn were related to other I-positions (that is, internal and external positions) which created other voices. All the I-positions theoretically meet at the next step where by utilizing Valsiner’s (2000a) conceptualization of the meeting point of these I-positions as an arena for dialogue, the I-positions were brought together in the so-called dialogical arena of I-positions. The aim is that at the end all the I-positions will be compared and explained in the so-called dialogical arena of identities where the processes of “negotiation, cooperation, opposition, conflict, agreement and disagreement” (Hermans, 2001, p. 253) that influence the construction of young people’s identities will be unfolded as a chain of meanings. In Figure 1, the dialogical arena of identities’ development is represented as a space reflected or mirrored by the multiplicity of young peoples’ I-positions. This model allows the study of the relationship between positions in the three ways that Hermans (2003) proposed: (a) between internal and external (b), between internal and internal positions, and (c) between different external positions. The final step was to abstract the import (Todoulou-Polemi, Vassiliou, & Vassiliou, 1998; Vassiliou & Vassiliou, 1981) of each interview extract, that is, the minimum description of it, which preserves the essence of what the young people said, and arrange these imports in sequence, in order by presenting their views rather than our interpretation to reveal the dialogical character of their voices.
Outlining the dialogical identities processes: The emergence of hibernated I-positions
Earlier in this article, we mentioned that from a dialogical standpoint an important question as regards identity is “who am I in relation to the other” (Hermans, 2003, p. 104). From that perspective, these young people’s inter-construction process (e.g. the process with their social world) was mainly characterized by conflicts between what they felt about themselves and how others in their majority community perceived them as members of a specific ethnic minority community.
Identifying the voices
Unfolding the dialogue between Fahim’s and Azra’s voices
“Silent” monologues
As seen above, the dialogue of these young persons with their mainstream society is an asymmetrical and power-related one between the two communities (Hermans, 2003; Tappan, 2005). Both of them described their minority community as being perceived negatively by their mainstream society. In the case of Fahim we have an internalisation of the negative perceptions or these “externally authoritative” (Tappan, 2005) perceptions of his majority community, and he responded by wanting to change the unfavourable (as perceived by the mainstream society) into the favourable (Valsiner, 2000b). Fahim felt he was forced to hide his Muslim identity when this identity was threatened. For him, being negatively stereotyped generated fears resulting in the religious aspect of his cultural identity becoming “invisible”. At this point, Fahim’s dialogical negotiation of his identities appears to follow a monological direction and brings to our mind Stuart Hall’s argument that when a struggle starts against “otherness” some people choose not to be visible as “other” (Hall, 2006). We could argue that the racism and discrimination Fahim experiences in the mainstream society have a big impact on him because these attitudes are infused with the power and privilege that are associated with being “just white” in his mainstream society. It is this power that the external voice of his mainstream community is infused with that forces his internal voice that speaks of the enrichment of having multiple backgrounds into silence. For that reason the external voice takes central stage.
“Loud” dialogues
On the other hand, Azra adopts a more dynamic process to combat racism. Her dialogical arena of voices is full of dialogical oppositions. In the above extracts, Azra talked through the I-positions of being an ethnic minority person born in England and through this multiple positioning of herself her internal position “I as Pakistani” becomes less dominant than the internal position “I as English”. At this point, it is interesting to note that for Azra, moving from an “I” to a “we” position – which is an I-position of herself – represented cultural similarity with the other young people who are all born in England and therefore share a common inherited identity which can speak through the position of “we”. It seems that Azra’s shift to a “we” position is a kind of a dialogic coalition in order to support her “I as English” position. When, however, her internal position “I as English” meets her external position “my mainstream society”, where the voices are contested with meanings such as “terrorists”, we witness the emergence of the I-position that was subdued or hibernated. Another dialogical coalition is formed in order to support once again her multiple identities (see Figure 2).
Azra’s dialogical process.
The phenomenon of hibernation is used here as a metaphor for an important dialogical process in identities construction. The hibernated I-position creates a voice which returns from something that seemed subdued or assimilated. We conceptualise I-positions as moving in cycles; some are fully active and voiced; others are inactive or are in a hibernated state and silenced but they are always available to remerge and become engaged in a new dialogue to help retain identity continuity. Individuals draw upon these hibernated I-positions of identity as a resource to deal with rapid change, threat and uncertainty. Even if hibernated I-positions seem subdued in one’s dialogue with himself/herself and others, they are still nurturing the inner dialogue and are part of the continuous self-system. Thus, for example, Azra’s I-position “I as Pakistani” remerges creating the voice of “I am proud to be Pakistani” in order to retain emotional-cognitive and psychological continuity when that is threatened by the increasing racism in her mainstream society. It is interesting to note, that her new voice which emerged to challenge a confrontational voice (Muslims as terrorists) became confrontational itself (English as muggers/drinkers).
In Fahim’s case (see Figure 3) we have an opposite process. Fahim’s response to racism by his mainstream society generates fears for his future and subordinates the minority aspect of his cultural identity or sends it into a hibernated voiceless I-position so that his multiple identities are fragmented.
Fahim’s monological process.
The potential use of the concept in other spheres of identity development includes examining the experiences of people with acquired physical impairments. For example, Ferguson (work in progress) used the notion of hibernation to conceptualise why people with an acquired visual impairment may experience resurfacing of feelings of loss, after they apparently have come to terms with their new “blind identity”. The concept of hibernation in the dialogical self provides understanding of why a stage of total acceptance is often not there. The “I as a disabled” position, that may be hibernated in the day-to-day reconstructed life of the blind person, can resurface with changes in the environment or special events, such as the birth of a child, a wedding, etc., events that the “I” wishes he could be able to experience visually.
Concluding thoughts
The research question that we hoped to address concerned how the cultural realities that are faced by ethnic minority young people, such as those presented in our case studies, influence the development of their cultural identities. We have attempted to show that the introduction of the concept of “hibernation” could make it possible for dialogical self theory to provide a fuller and more nuanced account in these situations. Cultural identities consist of a rich repertoire of I-positions which are always moving in a never-ending process and always ready to be engaged in dialogue with the external positions of self. Some of the I-positions that played a part in the formation of cultural identities earlier may be suppressed or forgotten and appear lost for some time under the complex pressures of life in a multicultural society. But these I-positions are dormant and may be revived if the dynamic pressures change. In everyday life it is impossible to deal with all our I-positions daily (I-as-a-daughter, I-as-a-student, I-as-a-mother, I-as-an-employee, I-as-a-Muslim, etc.). So, one or more may be dormant for a while so that we can focus on those that are relevant to the immediate situation in which we find ourselves. Thus, to take a trivial example, we may not wish to talk about our employment identities while on vacation. However, when we face a situation that creates a serious threat to an aspect of our identities, the suppression and amnesia for a sensitive I-position may be more intense and sustained, as was the case for Fahim. There are individual differences in the operation of these processes. Thus, Azra reacted to the same social situation as her brother in a contrasting way: paradoxically, her hibernated I-position, I-as-Pakistani, was defiantly revived when under threat.
Thus, we can argue that the phenomenon of hibernation has multiple possibilities. The state of hibernation in the self could be potentially useful when its role is to protect, or metaphorically speaking to conserve, energy during a period where acceptance for one’s I-position is scarce. In that case, hibernation could be a useful mechanism that protects our “threatened” I-positions by temporally putting them in a state of inactivity. However, an I-position cannot stay inactive for ever as the self always seeks to become “all of who I am” (my multiple identities) and in cases of prolonged hibernation there is a danger that the “silenced” or marginalized I-positions may appear in everyday life in the form of disturbances and conflicts that could lead to increased anxiety and emotional vulnerabilities (e.g. being afraid to say you are Muslim although this is a highly valued aspect of your cultural identity).
In addition, I-positions that return from a state of hibernation and are engaged into a new dialogue with one’s individual internal and external positions bring a renewed energy that could be potentially useful (e.g. to protect other I-positions such as I-as-Muslim) even through competitive discourses. But at the same time, if there is a lack of awareness, they could be potentially harmful as they could lead other I-positions into prolonged hibernation. For example, the religious aspect of my identity could overwhelm my sense of what it means to be a multicultural person and prevent me from developing a full and rich I-position as I-as-multicultural.
From the above discussion, it is evident that the dialogical processes in which these young people were involved cannot be fully described in terms of static concepts such as acculturation or separation. The phenomenon of hibernation could have implications for those educators in Britain who have yet to appreciate that there is a need to understand these young people’s struggle of negotiating their multiple identities within mainstream contexts and help them to reinforce “loud” dialogues with all aspects of their multivoiced cultural identities. Dialogical self theory can describe the ongoing development of shifting cultural identities more fully only if it accounts for the appearances and temporary disappearances of various I-positions through a mechanism such as hibernation.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The research on which this article is based was partially funded through a bursary to the first author from the University of Bedfordshire, UK. We would like to thank the young people, teachers and parents of the case study schools who participated in the project and the late co-founder of the Athenian Institute of Anthropos, Dr Vasso Vassiliou, for her inspirational guidance in applying methodological tools developed by the Institute to this study.