Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis explores the identity talk strategies used by sheltered homeless women to navigate their personal identity in the midst of experiencing a deeply stigmatized social identity. Based on field observation and twenty qualitative interviews with sheltered homeless women at a Midwestern homeless shelter, this analysis examines the identity talk strategies used by sheltered women to disavow stigmatized social identities and to restore cognitive congruence. Using the identity talk framework of Snow and Anderson (1987), three categories of identity talk are explored: distancing, embracement, and fictive storytelling. Findings suggest that sheltered homeless women actively utilize these identity talk strategies to purposefully disavow stigmatized identities; however, sheltered homeless women utilize these identity talk strategies in divergent ways.
Source: TigerPrints (Clemson University)
Author: Sarah L. DeWard
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W243365546