People on the tweets: Online collective identity narratives and temporality in the #LebaneseRevolution

Our study examines collective identity development in the early stages of a social movement as it narratively unfolded on Twitter during the 2019 October revolution in Lebanon. Based on a sample extraction of Twitter content from the first month of the revolution and using both thematic and narrative analyses, our study uncovers an entangled temporality where past, present and future strands of narrative time intervene in online identity narratives. Disentangling these digital narratives enabled us to identify three temporal-thematic categories that outline the contours of the emergent online identity: a revisited narrative past evoking collective nostalgia, a disruptive narrative present creating an urgent “presence in the now,” and a prefigurative narrative future that allows online members to collectively re-imagine and co-create their collective selfhood. Taken together, these findings support better understandings of collective identity emergence in digitally-mediated social movements in three different ways. First, building on the organizational literature on temporality in collective identity formation, we highlight how temporal narratives online support and accelerate a nascent collective identity through their immediacy and global reach. Second, by approaching narrated time theoretically and not chronologically, we address recent calls that challenge linear temporal narratives. We highlight how entangled temporality contributes to the emergence of a social movement’s online collective identity. Ultimately, from a methodological perspective, we offer an approach for “disentangling” digital temporality and propose (ante)narrative theory as a useful interpretive lens for better apprehending identity-relevant social media content.

Masculinity, embodiment and identity-work: How do organisational members use their bodies as identity resources to (re) accomplish hegemonic masculinity?

This article focuses on a rugby organisation, in which a distinct configuration of hyper-masculinity exists as the hegemonic one. Using three storified accounts that emerged during ethnographic research, empirics show that when a player’s body fails to align him with hegemonic masculine ideals, he encounters an identity-threat and a separation from the organisational collective. In turn, a player participates in embodied remedial identity-work processes, to (re)accomplish hegemonic masculinity and (re)integrate with the organisational collective, using his body as an identity-resource to counter the identity-threat. Empirics reveals the extent to which the body underpins expressions of hegemonic masculinity, and how important the body is as a site that is used to symbolically maintain a viable organisational identity. Ontologically, it is emphasised that men whose bodies appear to fit normative organisational ideals do not necessarily encounter the embodied aspects of their organisational experiences unproblematically; rather, their bodies – like those of less normative actors – are vulnerable to identity threats and a source of exclusion. This encourages scholars to think about the relationship between embodiment, gender, hegemony and integration in organisational settings in more nuanced ways.

Learning from difference and similarity: Identities and relational reflexive learning

Within organizations there is reciprocal interplay between identity construction and learning. Processes of learning are enabled and constrained by identity practices; concomitantly, the possibilities for learning are shaped by the identity positions available to individuals. There is a dynamic between the impositions of organizations and people’s freedom to shape their identities and learning plays a crucial role in this. Our purpose in this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of the intersection of identity work and learning as a response to experiences of being different. Experiences of difference include moving into a new role, encountering a disjuncture with others while in a role or a difference in broader life which is reacted to as if it were a problem in an organizational setting. Being different produces a variety of challenges and the papers in this special issue trace how people cope with vulnerabilities, develop resilience and often collaborate in their learning. We focus on how people reflect on their own identity and learn and how, by learning together with people who have similar experiences, micro-communities can support, develop and enhance their insight and identity-positions.

After the Pain: Reflexive Practice, Emotion Work and Learning

We consider how reflexive practices can enable learning from negative emotional experiences. We study these experiences in academic organizations through a relationally reflexive autoethnographic method. Our findings contribute to theory in three ways. First, we show how learning involves practices with different modalities of emotion work and reflexive orientations that internalize or externalize the effects of this work. Second, the subsequent characterization of emotionally responsive reflexive practices shows how isolation and a sense of inadequacy can be avoided and, third, leads to a process model that shows how learning is potentiated in a supportive social context that accommodates emotional vulnerability.

The choice to disclose (or not) mental health ill-health in UK higher education institutions: a duoethnography by two female academics

Purpose

This study aims to review how the mental ill-health of academic staff is regarded in higher education institutions (HEIs) and explore the decision to disclose (or not) a mental health condition whilst working in this sector.

Design/methodology/approach

The choice to disclose is explored by using duoethnography undertaken by two female academics working in this context who both experience mental ill-health. Both authors recorded their experiences, which were then shared with each other and analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings

The themes that emerged from the authors’ reflections comprise: a discussion of the connection between work-life identities and the impact of mental ill-health in the workplace; a consideration of the elements that influence our decision to disclose (or not) mental health diagnoses within HEI; and an examination of the additional burden of identity work for those who experience mental ill-health.

Originality/value

The study contributes to this evidence base by exploring the choice to disclose a mental health diagnosis in HEIs. It investigates this highly personal decision and suggests that this choice depends on the context in which we are located and how we experience our different identities in the workplace. Furthermore, it highlights the importance for HEIs to develop positive employment practices to support academic staff with mental ill-health to disclose a mental health condition and to achieve a good workplace environment whilst emphasising the need for more empirical work to explore the decision to disclose (or not) in this sector.