Symbolic Interaction and Identity Construction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 63)

Against a backdrop of shifting political climates, digital transformations, and evolving cultural landscapes, Volume 63 of Studies in Symbolic Interaction offers a timely and incisive exploration of how identities are built, performed, and negotiated within contemporary social worlds, demonstrating the enduring relevance of symbolic interactionism for understanding how individuals make sense of themselves and others.

Across its chapters, contributors examine identity work in both everyday life and specialized contexts - from political self‑fashioning and the negotiation of religious practice to relational dynamics in the act of coming out. Further studies illuminate online identity performance, digital storytelling as a tool for meaning‑making, and the stigmatization faced by people experiencing homelessness. Together the chapters not only reveal the diverse sites and strategies of identity construction but also show how these processes continue to refine and extend symbolic interactionist theory.

This collection is illuminating reading for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in identity and social interaction. By illustrating how identities are continually shaped through interaction, it offers both theoretical advancement and rich empirical insight for those seeking to understand the complexities of selfhood in the contemporary world.

Shing-Ling S. Chen is Professor of Mass Communication in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Northern Iowa, USA. Trained by Carl J. Couch as a symbolic interactionist, she studies information technologies and social orders, as well as communication processes and social relationships.