Rhetoric and Ideology in Social Identification: The Case of Second Generation Irish Youths

This article presents a social psychological analysis of ethnic identity among children born in England of Irish parents (hereafter referred to as second generation Irish). However, rather than drawing upon the cognitive models of identity currently popular within social psychology (e.g. Turner, 1987; Hogg and Abrams, 1988) it emphasizes the rhetorical aspects of identity, following the work of Billig (1987). It is argued that identity is not simply the automatic cognitive output of social categorizations (as currently conceived) but an active process, used and constructed in various ways to achieve certain goals. The argumentative nature of identity is revealed and located within a wider ideological context of intergroup relations and political conflict between Britain and Ireland. This is achieved through an analysis of the natural discourse of second generation Irish youths, obtained from ethnographic observation of those youths actively involved in the social and cultural activities of the Irish community in a large English city.