This chapter explores the ways in which identity claims and identity fragmentation have played a significant role in reshaping the global political agenda. The disruptions to the post-Cold War international order and increased insecurity and political unrest have also impacted the way we debate and conceptualise identity. Globalisation and critiques of ‘identity politics’, however, have important effects for understanding the ‘politics of identity’ and the ways in which ideas about identity constitute not only subjects but states and organisations. This chapter examines some of the contours of these debates with a view to refocussing attention on the politics of identity, specifically regarding how identity works, and the effects (and affects) it produces.

This chapter examines a segment of Palestinians who were granted citizenship in Lebanon through a process of tawtin, a naturalization strategy underpinned by notions of national belonging and identity. It draws upon interviews and observations with naturalized citizens and refugees to illustrate and reveal patterns of citizenship practice that challenge national discourses of tawtin, and suggest the emergence of a paradigm that posits citizenship-as-rights, and not identity. Despite the dichotomous discourse that posits Palestinian identity in dialectic to citizenship, naturalized Palestinians constructed dynamic spaces for both to exist, somewhat harmoniously. Despite the globalization of human rights and the rise of universal personhood, access to rights remains inextricably bound and dependent upon access to citizenship. Analyses of citizenship practice remains, for the most part, conscripted to frameworks that posit citizenship-as identity on the one hand, and the subsequent emergence of citizenship-as-rights on the other. Belying these existing frameworks is a negotiation and re-negotiation of citizenship by individuals that inherently challenges them from within. This necessitates a paradigmatic shift from the top-down lens within which tawtin of Palestinians in Lebanon is presented, towards a bottom-up approach that explores the individuals’ agency in its conceptualization.

This final chapter focuses on how working memory affects career development and workplace performance for individuals with dyslexia. Drawing on psychological assessments and case experience, the authors emphasise the importance of understanding one’s cognitive profile – particularly strengths in reasoning and verbal skills, alongside weaknesses in working memory and processing speed – to inform vocational choices and workplace strategies. The chapter explores how self-understanding can help individuals make better career decisions, prepare for role demands, and navigate employment challenges. Practical considerations are addressed, including when and how to disclose a diagnosis, seek reasonable adjustments, and use strategies or supports to manage memory-related challenges in complex or high-pressure environments. The importance of achieving a goodness of fit between individual abilities and job demands is stressed, as is the value of mentoring, training, and supportive work cultures. Drawing from empirical research and real-life examples, the chapter identifies key success factors, such as the ability to self-advocate, use assistive technologies, and structure tasks effectively. Overall, it presents a hopeful and pragmatic perspective: while working-memory challenges are real, informed planning and targeted support can enable individuals with dyslexia to thrive in diverse careers across the lifespan.

In this book we have attempted to draw together strands of research evidence and practice within psychological science to explain what dyslexia is and how its effects can be mitigated. We have noted that much of the research in the field has focused on children and their difficulties with learning to read and spell (Chapter 1). We wanted to focus on dyslexia as a lifelong condition that persists into adulthood and affects people’s experiences in education, employment, and their social lives.

Drawing on narrative theory, this chapter bridges understandings of security, popular culture and identity to show how stories matter. It argues that television shows are a site where gendered, raced, and nationalised identities are narrated, and particular subjectivities created. It applies this critical narrative approach to an analysis of the television series Homeland, a popular drama that tracks the efforts of the CIA to thwart the latest terrorist threat to America. This analysis considers both the meaning within Homeland and the process of meaning-making by members of the show’s British audience; in doing so, it moves away from understanding audiences as passive consumers of ideological messages contained in texts, to understanding how audiences negotiate their understanding of the show and themselves. It also considers how these terrorism stories articulate gendered and racialized boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. This links security and identity, politics and culture, texts and audiences. Although it demonstrates the articulation of identity within security stories, it also draws attention to ways that audiences can resist those identities.

Across the 1990s, a ‘culture war’ raged between Australian Prime Ministers Keating and Howard. At its crux, their discursive battles reflected divergent and competing conceptions of Australian nationhood, and Australia’s place in the world. For Keating, Australia’s future and interests resided in a comprehensive engagement with Asia. For Howard, Australia’s identity was situated firmly within the Anglo-sphere. This chapter examines how such articulations of national identity related to foreign policy during the Keating and Howard governments. Through an exploration of foreign policy language, it will illuminate the efforts made by Australian governments to link foreign policy objectives with particular conceptions of Australian national identity. Specifically, this chapter will highlight the deliberate attempts by Keating and then by Howard to fuse elements of their foreign and domestic agendas in pursuit of a vision that took in very particular and radically different conceptions of Australian identity. It aims to pose important questions about what Australian foreign policy language might reveal about contested notions of national identity, and following that, how foreign policy can be understood as part of a political project to define what it means to be Australian.

The contact hypothesis has been the go-to social psychology concept for promoting better relations between unequal social groups since its inception in the context of ‘racial’ de-segregation in the USA. The idea that contact between groups reduces prejudice has been applied to a range of dominant / subordinate social groups such as ethnic groups, homo/heterosexuals, cis and trans people. This chapter will question whether the aims and premises of contact theory are still useful in the context of increasingly subtle and systemic biases and inequalities, and whether and how it might be usefully extended to relations between more complex identities than simple pre-defined oppositional ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. To do so, it considers some examples of intergroup othering using case studies pertaining to backlashes against gender, sexual and ethnic diversity in the contemporary Australian context. This chapter proposes the fruitful combination of queer ethics, post-tolerance political theory and the social psychology concept of ‘allophilia’ (love for the other) to move towards fostering ‘positive regard’ as an alternative way to tackle prejudice. It suggests that queer ethics can lend a convincing strategy here, which I call ‘reading queerly’, that is, being able to approach an other with an openness that neither homogenises nor subordinates difference.

Within the space of roughly two decades, Sweden has changed from a neutral country to one that is currently engaged in a range of activities and practices that are far removed from the definition of neutrality. Its engagement with NATO, contribution of forces to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya, and its role as a leading framework nation in the emergent EU Battle Groups suggest at first glance the shifting demands of global security practices. The rationale of the move away from traditional state-centric security, however, obscures a more complex picture. In this chapter, we investigate specific aspects of these changes in relation to Swedish security policy, specifically robust forms of military intervention. We argue that rather than reflecting global security practices, deeper endogenous processes are at work. Significantly, such engagements are part of disembedding norms around neutrality and revising public and elite memory of Sweden as a neutral state. By focusing on identity and memory, we posit that Sweden’s current military engagements are concerned with rewriting identity and with a view to making new memories (or a ‘memory bank’) of wartime experiences. This has played a crucial part in not only justifying and naturalizing specific practices and actions, but also reconstituting identity in the process.