Sue Widdicombe

• University of Edinburgh

Food assessments and preferences have been a topic of great interest within academic literature as food can invoke powerful identity associations, and preferences can be rooted strongly in culture and history. Moreover, discursive psychologists have examined the social and practical significance of food assessments in the context of eating practice...

Our focus is on three key aspects of self-identity, continuity, uniqueness and agency. They have been researched from a diverse range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Our aim is to articulate the different ways in which these intangible qualities have been translated into objects of research and knowledge, and the assumptions that re...

Recognition and misrecognition have been theorized as key concepts for social justice. Misrecognition involves being disrespected or labelled in ways which do not accord with a person’s self‐identify. Racism can be understood as a specific form of misrecognition but little research has explored this form or drawn on notions of misrecognition in the...

This chapter will outline Discursive Psychology (DP) and show how it provides a conceptual and analytic approach to authentic identities. A distinguishing feature of DP is that it is thoroughly empirical and data-driven: rather than starting with assumptions of what authenticity is or by distinguishing different types (e.g., self versus social auth...

Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) transformed HIV into a chronic disease but its individual and public health benefits depend on high levels of adherence. The large and rising number of people on ART, now also used as prevention, puts considerable strain on health systems and providers in low and middle as well as high-income countries, which are our f...

Identity has often been approached by asking questions about it in interviews. However, speakers sometimes reject, resist or modify category membership because of the sensitive inferential and interactional issues invoked. This article aims to provide a systematic analysis of category-eliciting question–answer (Q-A) sequences from a large corpus of...

We examine members' spontaneous accounts for joining and participating in an online emo forum. The Internet and social networking sites are central features of contemporary youth cultures; the analysis of interaction on emo forums can thus provide a way of appreciating emo as a ‘Community in Practice’. We analyse popular discussion threads collecte...

Interviews are used as a research tool in numerous studies of identity. They have also been studied as social interactions in themselves. From this perspective, analysts have looked at the ways interviews generate identities, and how both parties work to fulfill the associated roles and expectations (e.g., the interviewer's neutrality). Interviewer...

Psychologists' attempts to define and measure religion reveal substantial variability, a lack of consensus, cultural variation and differences between religions. A discursive psychology approach can address variability in meanings and the inferential issues that may inform claims to be religious. This paper identifies strategies used by Syrian Musl...

This article examines lay knowledge about causes of infertility. We use discursive psychology to analyse semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled Malawians with a fertility problem. We observe that respondents deny knowledge of causes, sometimes emphatically, but this co-occurs with descriptions of potential causes. We show that these re...

This article examines the ways in which sufferers talk about early stroke and the effects this chronic condition has on identity. Traditional research into chronic illness has largely used medical, psychiatric or cognitive models. We adopt a social constructionist perspective and use a discourse analytic methodology to study data collected via focu...

The declining participation of older people in the workforce has become a matter of concern in many parts of the world, including the European Union. Steps however taken to date to increase the participation of older people have proceeded on the basis of a limited understanding of the identities of these individuals and the consequences for employm...

This paper examines how people account for health-seeking behaviour regarding infertility in developing countries, where infertility is a serious problem. Traditionally, studies of health related behaviours focus on how individuals' decisions depend upon a combination of demographic and cognitive characteristics and practical inhibitors. However, t...

Purpose – Evidence suggests that the notion of diversity in employment has failed to meet expectations of increased inclusion and organizational competitiveness in an ever‐changing and globalizing economic context. This paper aims to consider the use of language of diversity in an organizational context. Design/methodology/approach – Using discour...

ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) or CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) is a debilitating illness for which no cause or medical tests have been identified. Debates over its nature have generated interest from qualitative researchers. However, participants are difficult to recruit because of the nature of their condition. Therefore, this study explores the...

In recent years the principle of equality of opportunity in employment has been widely promoted as a means of addressing the marginalization of various groups of workers, including older workers. Evidence suggests, however, that equal opportunities have not improved prospects for older workers. The present study employs discourse analysis to examin...

An illustrative analysis is offered demonstrating the potential of conversation analysis for psychotherapy research. Extracts are presented from an unresolved problematic theme selected from an unsuccessful eight-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The authors identify descripti...

In this paper we examine some ways in which members of subcultures make comparisons between and within subcultural groups and one function served by such comparisons. Specifically, we illustrate how social comparisons are used to achieve authenticity for the subcultural group and for the self as a member of that group. Our analysis focuses on the l...

It has been argued that the self-concept is divided into two sub-systems, one relating to personal and the other to social identities. The salience of these identities will depend upon the particular situation. How can the relationship between the individual's personal and social identities by conceptualized? To answer this question, Turner, Hogg,...