Identity needs to be actively talked into being, not just triggered by common fate

Evidence

Paton and Irons’s (2016) study of wildfires suggests that common fate may not have an automatic effect in creating unity and that people need to be motivated to talk to others about shared issues so that they are seen as shared. The notion of talking a shared identity into being (cf. Postmes, Baray, Haslam, Morton, & Swaab, 2006; Postmes, Haslam, & Swaab, 2005), and the role of leaders (or identity entrepreneurs; Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins, 2005) and organised groups in this process, may be particularly important in those kinds of disasters where there is an ongoing or repeated risk. It is well established that flooding can create a sense of community (e.g., Twigger-Ross et al., 2011); but in the months following a flood, this “altruistic community” may run out of both energy and resources (Kaniasty & Norris, 1999); and secondary stressors (Lock et al., 2012) may become more salient as people try to get repairs made to their home. There is a need for shared social identity just at a time when the contextual affordances for such an identity may be diminished. — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 161

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘identity entrepreneurs’ and ‘talking a shared identity into being’ as the active-mechanism terminology the reader needs.
• QUESTION: This temporal decay of altruistic community is the key weak spot in exogroup-free solidarity — what sustains it when emergency affordances vanish?
• SEED: Angle: mutual aid as an identity-maintenance problem in slow-burn disasters (floods/wildfires) where the urgent bond decays but need persists.
• XREF: connects to: Identity is now a matter of choice rather than inherited absolute truth — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 112; Identity is constructed through discourse and dialogic interaction, not self-creation — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 23; Identity is both a source of agency and increasingly constructed rather than given (+1 more)

Related

• Shared identity can be an outcome of mutual aid, not only its cause (similarity 0.82)
• Shared identity can emerge rapidly during, not before, an emergency. (similarity 0.81)
• Emergency responders should deliberately cultivate shared identity with survivors. (similarity 0.80)
• Shared identity that enables crowd helping often emerges during an emergency rather than pre-existing. (similarity 0.79)
• Shared emergent identity from common fate explains collective support amid disasters (similarity 0.79)
• Shared identity with a crowd increases helping and decreases pushing others aside. (similarity 0.79)
• Shared identity turns crowds from irrational mobs into solidarity-based adaptive resources (similarity 0.79)
• Disaster survivors who feel shared fate identify socially and give emotional support (similarity 0.78)
• People act together because shared identity lets each expect others will join (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Identity is constructed through discourse and dialogic interaction, not self-creation #corroborates (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 23
• Identity is now a matter of choice rather than inherited absolute truth #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 112
• Identity is both a source of agency and increasingly constructed rather than given #expands (0.75)
• Identity is constituted within representation rather than pre-existing it #corroborates (0.72)