Toward α “Sunlit Path”: Stigma Identity Management As α Source of Localized Social Change Through Interaction

Abstract

We articulate a process through which individuals with a stigmatized identity can be agents of social change toward the acceptance and/or valuing of their identity in their workgroup. We posit that whether and how individuals communicate to others about their stigmatized identity (i.e., stigma identity management) can enable them to overcome their power disadvantage by influencing the meanings that the stigmatized identity and comparative dominant identities take on in negotiations of identity meanings. Drawing on theories of negotiated order, identity threat, and stigma identity management, we describe how changes in identity meanings emerge from an ongoing process of negotiations between stigma holders and their coworkers—negotiations that are influenced by and inform symbolic power relations and shared identity meanings in the group. We extend understandings of stigma identity management strategies by expanding beyond the current focus on outcomes for individual stigma holders toward how such strategies can change the local social context in which stigma holders and their coworkers interact.