This volume brings together essays that, individually and collectively, address the force of the literary text with regard to problematic identities. They work out of shared concerns with literary representations of this issue in different regions, nations and communities that often prove divided; they pursue questions related to textual identity, where the literary text itself is contested internally, or in its generic and historical relations. In sum, these studies actively test identity, as social or literary concept, discovering in difference the very condition of a useful, if paradoxical, sense of personal or textual coherence. What happens to us when we move between different cultures or different societies, defined in geographical or historical terms? What happens to texts and textual practices in these same circumstances? What happens to us when we are obliged to adapt to a new social order? Homi Bhabha speaks of “cultural difference” as calling into play what he calls “cultural translation.” What happens to identity, the narrative that fashions a continued sense of self, in this case? Difference, raised to alterity, demands that we accord functional and philosophical value not just to other aspects, but also to the aspect of the other. At the level of personal or textual agency, however, difference contests and threatens to subvert stable selfhood, composing a scene of conflict. Even so, it often proves to be instrumental in re-charging a sense of the cultural valence of the literary text – not least by virtue of its political implications. In this regard, the border – where difference materialises – has considerable presence in contributions to this volume, prompting appreciation of texts that work on or travel across such borders, however haphazardly and dangerously, but also those that compose “border textualities.”

English Roman Catholic women’s congregations are an enigma of nineteenth-century social history. Over ten thousand nuns and sisters, establishing and managing significant Catholic educational, health care and social welfare institutions in England and Wales, have virtually disappeared from history. Despite their exclusion from historical texts, these women featured prominently in the public and private sphere. Intertwining the complexities of class with the notion of ethnicity, Contested identities examines the relationship between English and Irish-born sisters. This study is relevant not only to understanding women religious and Catholicism in nineteenth-century England and Wales, but also to our understanding of the role of women in the public and private sphere, dealing with issues still resonant today. Contributing to the larger story of the agency of nineteenth-century women and the broader transformation of English society, this book will appeal to scholars and students of social, cultural, gender and religious history.

Publisher's description: Since the earliest days of the silent era, American filmmakers have been drawn to the visual spectacles of sports and their compelling narratives of conflict, triumph, and individual achievement. In Contesting Identities Aaron Baker examines how these cinematic representations of sports and athletes have evolved over time--from The Pinch Hitter and Buster Keaton's College to White Men Can't Jump, Jerry Maguire, and Girlfight. He focuses on how identities have been constructed and transcended in American society since the early twentieth century. Whether depicting team or individual sports, these films return to that most American of themes, the master narrative of self-reliance. Baker shows that even as sports films tackle socially constructed identities such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, they ultimately underscore transcendence of these identities through self-reliance. In addition to discussing the genre's recurring dramatic tropes, from the populist prizefighter to the hot-headed rebel to the "manly" female athlete, Baker also looks at the social and cinematic impacts of real-life sports figures from Jackie Robinson and Babe Didrikson Zaharias to Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.

Identity Trouble assembles contributions from a variety of discourse fields to discuss the pressures on traditional understandings of identity. The focus is on failures and uncertainties in people's construction of their identities when faced change and the contributors raise critical questions about identity and how it may be reconfigured.

Identity is one of the most theorised and contested of all sociological concepts and sport is fertile ground for an examination of its complexities. This book offers a wide-ranging and up-to-date exploration of the sport-identity nexus, drawing examples from a variety of sporting contexts and geographical locations, and incorporating a diversity of perspectives including players, spectators, officials, the media and policy-makers. Covering key themes in the social scientific study of sport such as gender, ethnicity and national identity, it considers the impact of social, cultural and technological change on the formation of sporting identities. Including original real-life case studies, each chapter makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between sport and identity. As this relationship is embedded within the broader structures of power that frame social inequality, this book also poses important questions about the role of sport-related initiatives in our society today, as well as in years to come. Sport and Contested Identities: Contemporary Issues and Debates is fascinating reading for all students and scholars of the sociology of sport.

In this collection leading anthropologists provide a comprehensive yet highly nuanced view of what it means to be a Greek man or woman, married or unmarried, functioning within a complex society based on kinship ties. Exploring the ways in which sexual identity is constructed, these authors discuss, for example, how going out for coffee embodies dominant ideas about female sexuality, moral virtue, and autonomy; why men in a Lesbos village maintain elaborate friendships with nonfamily members while the women do not; why young housewives often participate in conflict-resolution rituals; and how the dominant role of mature married householders is challenged by unmarried persons who emphasize spontaneity and personal autonomy. This collection demonstrates that kinship and gender identities in Greece are not unitary and fixed: kinship is organized in several highly specific forms, and gender identities are plural, competing, antagonistic, and are continually being redefined by contexts and social change.

The theoretical arguments and ethnographic perspectives of this book place it at the cutting edge of contemporary anthropological scholarship on identity with respect to the study of ethnicity, nationalism, localism and gender.

Offers historical comparative and cross-national perspectives to the debates on the politics of recognition.

Costa Rica is a country known internationally for its eco-credentials, dazzling coastlines, and reputation as one of the happiest and most peaceful nations on earth. Beneath this façade, however, lies an exclusionary rhetoric of nationalism bound up in the concept of the tico, as many Costa Ricans refer to themselves. Beginning by considering the very idea of national identity and what this constitutes, this book explores the nature of the idealised tico identity, demonstrating the ways in which it has assumed a white supremacist, Central Valley-centric, patriarchal, heteronormative stance based on colonial ideals. Chapters two and three then go on to consider the literature and films produced that stand in opposition to this normative image of who or what is tico and their creation as vehicles of soft power which aim to question social norms. This book explores protest literature from the 1970s by Quince Duncan, Carmen Naranjo, and Alfonso Chase who narrate their experiences from the margins of society by virtue of their identity as Afro-Costa Rican, feminist, and homosexual authors. Cinema from the twenty-first century is then analysed to demonstrate the nuanced position chosen by national directors Esteban Ramírez, Paz Fábrega, Jurgen Ureña, and Patricia Velásquez to challenge the dominant nation-image as they reinscribe youth culture, a female consciousness, trans identity, and Afro-Costa Rica onto the fabric of the nation.

This study explores the idea voiced by journalist Henry McDonald that the Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist tribes of Ulster are '...the least fashionable community in Western Europe'. A cast of contributors including prominent politicians, academics, journalists and artists explore the reasons informing public perceptions attached to this community.