Nostalgia and the narrativization of identity: A Turkish case study

Abstract

This paper offers an interpretation of the collective identity-narrative of a Turkish faculty of vocational education. Particular attention is focused on the importance of nostalgia in acts of collective self-authorship. Nostalgia, it is argued, is key to the understanding of the dynamics of individual and organizational identity-construction in several ways: it can be a means of maintaining a collective sense of socio-historic continuity, a source of resistance to hegemonic influence and a defence against anxiety. The research contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it illustrates how groups assemble shared storylines that subjectively constitute their collective identity. Second, it analyses the different ways in which acts of collective nostalgia can inform the stories by which individuals and groups understand their present circumstances, preserve self-esteem, and react to perceived threats. Third, it theorises nostalgia as giving access to a shared heritage of apparently authentic and identity-relevant values and beliefs, as an emotional support during periods of organizational change, and as a form of uniqueness claim central to processes of individual-organization identification.