Identity Theories

Sheldon Stryker - Identity Negotiation

Sheldon Stryker has a theory that people 'negotiate' with others to create their identities. People may negotiate their favourite fashion, films, bands and many other things, and with many people participating in similar activities. This creates the concept of a 'subculture' with people in one group who participate in similar actions and share experiences. 

Here are some example subcultures including:

• Football Fans
• Punks
• Metal-heads
• Goths/ Emos
• Hippies
• Nerds/ Geeks
• Bodybuilders/ Fitness Fans
• Cos-players 
• Hipsters
• Super fans
• Collectors 
• Hackers
• Gamers
• Adult fans of Lego
• Bronies
• Horror fans

Francesca Poletta & James M Jasper

They believe that identity is constructed by people outiside of the group. From birth people are designated gender roles, are made to watch certain children's shows and many things like that, British young people's identity is constructed by the media, which is mainly run by older people outside of their social group. As adults are the main group that run the media, British young people are seen through the view of adults, which sometimes leads to them being demonised. Young people can either go against how they are portrayed, or follow that example.

David Snow

David Snow believes that there is no actual definition of a 'collective identity'. He believed people felt a sense of individuality "one-ness" or individuals grouped together "we-ness". 

He believed there was no actual identity as an individuals identity could be similar to others, for example fans of rock music are all similar. 

Collective identity includes shared attributes and experiences, a main example of this is football fans can see themselves as 'better' than fans of other teams.

Tafjal & Turner

Tafjal and Turner theorised that there is no such thing as personal self, there is a collection of selves within one person. A person will have different interests and conversations depending on who they are with. One of the reasons for this is because there are ever expanding groups. A school student will act differently with their teacher, their parents and their friends. Social contexts are supposed to trigger different identities. 

Mikhail Bakhtin

Bakhtin believed that people cannot be labeled by an identity, as an identity is something which is ever changing and can never fully be revealed. The easiest way to consider this concept is that people change over time and that they do not like being labelled. Discovering the identity is a life long project. 

A huge time for people to experiment with identity is when they are young, this is the time they experiment with different activities, subcultures and music, and a lot of the time 'grow out' of their identity. Many people associate with the 'emo' subculture within their younger years 

David Gauntlett

His first theory is that people are expected to have an identity. He believes that modern western society puts pressure on on individuals to make choices about their identity and lifestyle. Society expects people to have certain interests and behave in a certain way. He also believes that identity is limited due to finite resources. People may not be able to afford to pay  for the fashion or lifestyle they want. 

This links to Ulrich Beck who noted everyone wants to "live their life" but it is "not a very experimental life". 

Gauntlett's second theory is that everyone wants to find themselves and find their identity, so they experiment with different lifestyles, hobbies, films, music, food and many other things to see what fits and what they like. Similar to the point I have made before, when someone is young they are likely to be experimenting with many different identities to see what they like, someone may try for example a football club, despise it and then move on to trying something else. He believes finding an identity is problematic and roles are uncertain.