Identity Work Among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction and Avowal of Personal Identities

TLDR

The paper examines how homeless street people construct and avow personal identities to gain self‑worth and dignity, addressing gaps in understanding identity formation at the bottom of status systems. It aims to deepen empirical and theoretical insight into the links among role, identity, and self‑concept in this population. The authors conduct an ethnographic field study of homeless street people to gather data. They identify three generic patterns of identity talk—distancing, embracement, and fictive storytelling—whose subtypes vary with street‑time length, and discuss their theoretical implications for the role‑identity‑self relationship.

Abstract

This paper elaborates processes of identity construction and avowal among homeless street people, with two underlying and interconected objectives in mind: to advance understanding of the manner in wich individuals at the bottom of status systems attempt to generate identities that provide them with a measures of self-worth and dignity and to shed additional empirical and theoretical light on the relationships among role, identity, and self-concept. The data are from an ethnographic field study of homeless street people. "Identity talk" constitutes the primary form of "identity work" by means of which homeless street people construct and negotiate personal identities. Theree generic patterns of identity talk are alborated and illustrated: distancing, embracement, and fictive storytelling. Each form contains several subtypes that vary in usage according to the length of time one has spent on the streets. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical implications of the findings and suggesting a number of grounded propositions regarding the relationship among role, identity, and self.