Identity work and non-ascribed identity: the case of survivor politics

• In Event: 3451 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Biography, Identity, and Social Bonds

Abstract

This ethnographic study explores how anti-sexual violence activists coordinate their political action around the identity of the sexual assault survivor. It extends research on identity work in social movements by asking: how do activists coordinate public political action around a non-ascribed identity that is private, invisible, and sensitive? The study draws on 20 months of participant-observation and fifteen semi-structured interviews with members of a sexual-violence survivor advocacy student organization. Members engaged in three forms of identity work. First, they facilitated the coming out of individuals as sexual assault survivors; Second, they constructed survivors as an identity among other identities, such as ethnic or sexual identities. Third, members constructed a group identity of “survivors and allies”. These forms of identity work mapped consistently into two separate styles of interaction. While the first two forms of identity work required the acknowledgment of one’s identity as a survivor or non-survivor, the latter one downplays the difference, creating tension between the three and requiring members to switch between them. Beyond the particular case of survivor politics, this study highlights that organizations may need to engage in multiple forms of identity work simultaneously, depending on the nature of the identity at their center; in turn, organizations rely on their members’ ability to alternate between styles of coordinating action that go together with different forms of identity work.

Author

• Yael Findler, USC