identity

• our work as a source of identity;

  Gini (1998): our occupational status (employed and unemployed), what we do, your working environment and conditions, the hours of work, and even hours salary, play a significant role in the construction of our identities.
• Parker (1971 & 76): peoples' occupations and how they experience work are strongly related to their leisure and vice versa and shows your identity.
• Parker; 3 patterns;

  1. opposition - hard physical work (mining) tend to seek leisure in activities which contrast with work and offer a form of escape
  2. neutrality - routine, boring work without an extreme physical need (factory work, typing jobs) tend to seek leisure with relaxation with family
  3. extension - high commitment and reward (mix work and leisure like academics) tend to go to an activity or place that feeds their academic or career e.g. conference on vacation
• people who cannot work for various reasons may experience negative thoughts about their identity because of lack of any status/lack of a social identity.

  anomie; disconnect and not knowing your place in society due to rapid social change
• Riach and Loretto (2009): studied older workers and folks with disability in relation to employment. they found that the termination of employment (being fired or company close), difficulty in finding work, or the ability to find work had negative effects on the individual.
• Riach and Loretto (2009) cont.: individuals may experience loss of friends, disruption of routines, loss of previous identity as a worker, decline in self-confidence and a lack of self-esteem.
• Riach and Loretto (2009) cont.: many of older workers and folks with disability still did voluntary work, education and wanted to feel useful and show they are still employable. when looking for a new job, they might end up not accepting a lower paying job or a lower titled job than the one they previously had
• Bauman (2005): in occupations you are producing something (like a lecture) but the postmodernists say its becoming more what you buy than produce which is a central source of identity
• Parker's model does not explain the leisure patterns of those who don't work, work part-time, of students, or in retirement - he ignored the choice that people make about leisure
• feminists; Parker completely ignored women. the study was mostly focused on men working full-time. women were asking themselves why their leisure and hobbies tend to revolve about things like cleaning, cooking etc. women who work part-time jobs and part-time at home don't get paid at home -> this could make it worrying for women as the husband who has a full-time job with full pay could leave them and the women wouldn't have the same amount of work experience to support the family
• Doherty (2009): work is still important - he studied a range of workers and range of organisations. he found that many people still have full-time jobs that influence their identity. in contrast, it is unemployment and recessions rather than work changes that effect identities.
• Doherty (2009) cont.: part-time jobs should not be dismissed as being a part of your identity. we are seeing trends of up-skilling -> even with a PhD, one could find difficulty in finding a job. Doherty finds that there is still satisfactory to be found in jobs (those in routine timed jobs used it as an outlook to meet new people)
• leisure affects our identity and work affects our leisure. young peoples' leisure is different to that of older people - if an older person wants to go clubbing, they would be an odd one out
• postmodernists support the ideas that class, gender and ethnicity aren't that significant in forming identities anymore - they are more fluid and constantly changing
• Lyotard (1984): sees the metanarratives as not being important anymore
• Rejek and Roberts (1995/ 1978-1986): argue that today it is the choices we make in terms of lifestyle, consumption and leisure that define who we are
• Bocock (2004): through our consumption patterns, we are buying lifestyles and our identities - through brands, holidays etc you supplement your identity.
• tourism; tourists are going to places like Paris because it is trendy and not for the history etc. to add it to your identity - its not about taking a break or a vacation but to enhance your experience and your lifestyle identity
• Urry (1995): places are not just interesting places to have fun but now come with an identity attached
• Urry (2002): the tourist gaze - it is the difference between the place you know vs the adverts etc. which show parts of the place what are commodified as a package to be sold. how tourists view different objects, scenes, experiences and landscapes, these are specially designed and packaged to seem unique for tourists.
• media saturation; the way media makes the place, content or food etc. to look better than it actually is to make people want to go or have it. a real that is not real -> we are constantly given the desire to consume and see influencers going to places that make us want to buy stuff and go there
• Strinati (1995): media has a lot of power over our lifestyle choices. the fact that you can buy anything from any where in the world means your lifestyle choices aren't limited to where you live - including music, fashion etc. we have now also started to embrace other trends - shopping is no longer about going into a store and buying what you need but is now a hobby
• Miller et al (1998): shopping for identities - a brand has more meaning than the clothing
• Baudrillard/Klein/Bauman & May (2001/1999/2004): brands have become more important than the products - people focus on buying the lifestyle and body image (buying your way to physical perfection) - people enticing you to buy a membership.
• Baudrillard/Klein/Bauman & May (2001/1999/2004) cont.: consumers can buy the body identity they wish to project and they can buy them by services and products e.g. fitness clubs, dietary products, cosmetic surgery, body piercings, tattoos, implants, steroids, hair extensions, dying hair, dental procedures etc. where people consume and change their identities at will.
• Giddens; project of the self - working on yourself as a project rather than being a person - the self is becoming an increasingly reflexive self, which is the idea that people change according to the feedback around them.
• Although not everyone is able to change themselves into how they want to be due to culture, religion, money and time, etc. not everyone is able to find the time to hire a chef instead of making their own food. Generally, it is not really fair for everyone as a lot of people who are poorer than others cant find time to even have an aesthetic. Ethnicity, disability, occupational status, age, gender, etc affect what lifestyle you want to identify as.
• the financial market; what is affordable, available etc. people in certain countries do not have the same opportunities to pick and choose their identities or things like phones, cars, clothes etc. A lot of the things available to us is who is going to make money from it. Technology corporations etc. influence what we are allowed to buy from adverts etc. (from Marxists)
• Clarke and Critcher (1985): you only have choice based on what capitalism tells you to choose from - what the market allows you to buy
• money also comes into age because your leisure choices depend on how much your parents will give you if they even give any. needing permission for events along with help with transportation are needed for young people to have a social life
• the life cycle has an impact as there are certain phases which increase or limit certain abilities
• Bauman and May (2004): choices are made within a context of inequality. (you can not separate the idea of being a pick and mix from the idea of the world being inequal). many leisure activities have become commercialised and some are too expensive to be accessible for the working class. most things are what we can buy on a low income
• Bourdieu; the concept of taste - choices we make are influenced by taste which is influenced by class
• patriarchy; a lot of leisure hobbies for women are frowned upon
• research also shows that young people are less committed to the culture of their ethnicity and care more about whatever they want.