Negotiating identities: an examination of the 'play' of agency in the forging and doing of Black Caribbean marginalised men's identities.

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Sharpe, D.M., 2005. Negotiating identities: an examination of the 'play' of agency in the forging and doing of Black Caribbean marginalised men's identities. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This thesis explores and examines different subjective conceptualisations of black Caribbean men's self-identity. I have focused on intersecting points of oppression in the narrated accounts of eleven participants, who I have defined as multiple marginalised. I explore how black men's identities are forged, normed, and performed as they move between domestic, community, and paid-work environments. The themes that emerged from the study, which I and the participant identified as central to their identities, are 'migration and settlement', the 'body', 'sexuality', and 'lifestyle choices'. I examine each of these themes in Chapters Four, Five, Six, and Seven and how they influence and shape the participants self-identities. The black public sphere provides the backdrop to the study; and how we interact with each other as black people. I blend empirical descriptions and theorising of alternative social histories and realities (where 'race' is not necessarily prioritised as the organising structure to identities) that invite us to rethink how black men's identities are constructed. The identity categories that are constructed through this study are becoming 'black British', 'black and disabled', 'black and gay', and 'black and bourgeois'. I deconstruct how they are positioned to notions of 'normality' within/outside black communities and perceived sometimes as 'inferior' identities to other black men.

I have used developmental approaches in visual research methods along with in-depth interviewing to generate ethnographic accounts that have detailed critical moments in the narrative of self-identity. The accounts focus upon critical moments in the participant's 'life projects' and convey rich descriptions of how men's identities have been a cause, effect, catalyst, and the possibilities opened up by critical moments. These times are the most uncertain and/or ill-defined areas in stories of selfhood were crucial choices are often made that influence and shape who they become. I emphasise a number of different pathways black men at the margins sometime take to negotiate the social constraints and impingements placed against them.

Item Type:

Thesis

Creators:

Sharpe, D.M.

Date:

2005

ISBN:

9781369316483

Identifiers: