Stigma, identity and power: : Managing stigmatized identities through discourse

• Autores: Sammy Toyoki, Andrew D. Brown
• Localización: Human Relations, ISSN-e 1741-282X, Vol. 67, Nº. 6, 2014, págs. 715-737
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We analyse how men incarcerated in Helsinki Prison managed, through talk, their stigmatized identities as prisoners. Three strategies are identified: �appropriation� of the label �prisoner�; claiming coveted social identities; and representing oneself as a �good� person. The research contribution we make is to show how inmates dealt with their self-defined stigmatized identities through discourse, and how these strategies were effects of power. We argue that stigmatized identities are best theorized in relation to individuals� repertoires of other (non-stigmatized) identities that they may draw on to make supportive self-claims. Prisoners, like other kinds of organizational participants, we argue, often have considerable scope for managing diverse, fragile, perhaps even contradictory, understandings of their selves.