The micropolitics of identity in adverse circumstance - A study of identity making in a total institution

This article is about the micropolitics of identity construction by residen ts in a total institution. Data come from two hundred hours of participant observation during a four-month period of full-time employment as a nurse a ide. interactional analysis of observations suggests that residents' person al narratives, whether real or imagined, become who some residents conceive themselves to be and define residents' expectations for interactional othe rs. Changes in institutional culture occur as staff begin to recognize in i nteraction the ways residents think of themselves. The narrative accounts a nd interactional struggles to define self that the author discovered in the institution are not unlike conceptions and processes of identity construct ion, maintenance, and change that confront all human actors. These accounts provide insight into the liberating possibilities of personal identity cla ims.