One of the outcomes of the recent demographic shift to cities was a concomitant insecurity about identity. This was exploited by fraudsters, including the notorious Shakespeare forger, John Payne Collier. News of his misdemeanours broke in the summer, when the country was also learning about George Eliot’s ‘real’ identity. Unlike her contemporaries, Eliot’s identity could not be secured by a group or network of friends and acquaintances, which made her vulnerable to the machinations of Joseph Liggins, who claimed to have written her fiction. The revelation of her identity was coldly received by some women writers, who might have feared for their own reputations, and The Athenaeum, which sought to pillory Eliot as a distraction whilst they championed Payne Collier. Eliot’s own take on the identity question may be seen in ‘The Lifted Veil’, which defends the necessity of the multiplicity of identity, and of a degree of mystery.

The loss of community is often seen as one of the reasons for the alienating experience of modernity. Community seems to allow for a civic-minded solidarity that counteracts the legitimation crisis of democracy by returning agency to citizens. Such a demand for a communitarian correction to liberal constitutional democracy is not without dangers, even when this demand is intended to stand in the service of a more democratic life. This chapter traces the fate of this communitarian desire in a broader transatlantic field, highlighting the uncanny connections among the philosophical debate about communitarianism, the antidemocratic and authoritarian drift in American conservative political and legal thought, and central aspects of European neofascism. These connections should make us suspicious about the democratic potential often ascribed to community. The ease with which arguments for a communitarian correction of democracy can be used against democracy suggests that community lacks an intrinsically democratic and emancipatory potential.

An important aspect of the developmental pathway for international adoptees involves issues of self-identification and the formation of a cultural–social identity. This chapter will review existing literature and highlight key challenges related to identity development among international adoptees. A major focus within this research is transracial adoption, which will also be discussed. Special attention will be given to practices aimed at fostering identity, including partial identification with the country of birth through linguistic and cultural connections.

Recognising the processes of social marginalisation to which they were subjected, some patients found rhetorical power in their disadvantaged position. They used asylum periodicals to challenge the distinction between sanity and insanity, evoke sympathy and better understanding, and foster a sense of solidarity among fellow inmates across institutions. These sentiments found their clearest expression in Excelsior (1857–1878), the publication of the James Murray Royal Asylum in Perth, Scotland. Though edited by the physician superintendent, William Lauder Lindsay, this periodical was especially militant in its attack on the misrepresentation of mental illness and keen to cultivate a sense of an existing tradition of lunatic literature and a cross-institutional imagined community of patients. This chapter assesses the successes and failures of this mission. Despite tensions and antagonism behind the scenes, it argues that Excelsior was a space where the clashing voices of different actors could be reconciled and united around the common goal of representing the asylum and its inhabitants before the outside world.

This chapter turns to the forces of unity that drove patients’ publishing projects, focusing on the role of asylum periodicals in construing and maintaining real and imagined communities within and beyond the asylum. Producing and consuming periodicals brought together various actors with distinct skill sets, enabling, to a degree, transgression of the institutional boundaries that otherwise kept different groups of patients separated. This transgression fed into the representation of the asylum community as a family on the pages of asylum periodicals, reenforcing the institutionally imposed family model, according to which patients were ascribed the role of children under the care and protection of a father-like superintendent and a motherly matron. However, asylum periodicals show not only the manifestation of this framework’s application but patients’ active engagement with these symbols. Finally, the chapter explores former inmates’ continuous involvement in asylum periodicals, suggesting that some patients formed lasting and meaningful connections during their stay in mental institutions and relied on the asylum for support during their reintegration into society.

This chapter explores the processes and form of the imagined national community in Rwanda in light of global discourses of difference, focusing on the space of identity that the state narrative of unity allows for Twa to navigate their subjectivisation as Rwandans. Our data shows that many Twa buy into the government’s narratives of national unity and ‘Rwandan-ness’. They choose to identify themselves as Rwandan and appear willing to forgo Twa identity for the promise of belonging and progress that they understand national narratives of unity to offer. To understand this as forced assimilation – whether through the violence of law or economic circumstances – is too simple a reading: Twa individuals are actively using the ‘Ndi Umunyarwanda’ programme messaging to create spaces of inclusion for themselves within Rwandan society.

This chapter provides a critical reflection on past and current research on ethnic and racial discrimination and youth development with recommendations for future research directions. First and foremost, I emphasize the need for positionality, reflexivity, and representational ethics to avoid advancing false or problematic narratives and to advance research that is more transparent and accountable. It also is necessary to distinguish and better contextualize ethnic discrimination (rooted in ethnocentrism) and racial discrimination (rooted in modern imperialism and White supremacy) rather than conflate these two constructs and measure them in ahistorical ways. These considerations require researchers to select or develop critically appropriate measurement tools, moving beyond commonly used measures that may not be relevant or appropriate to all racialized groups. Ethnic and racial discrimination during youth development requires special considerations, as discrimination coincides with identity formation and pubertal development. Yet there remains limited research on the ways in which these developmental tasks and experiences interplay. Given the complexities of how ethnic and racial discrimination manifest during youth development, researchers may want to consider novel methods like storytelling to embody discriminatory experiences and strengthen ecological validity.

‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ is Berlin’s best-known publication. This chapter has three main sections. The first sets the essay in the context of the Cold War and Berlin’s personal background and commitments. The second section reviews the main themes and arguments of the essay, which include the distinction between negative and positive liberty, Berlin’s association of the negative idea with liberal democracy and the positive idea with authoritarian politics, the relation between liberty and national identity, and the tracing of totalitarian thought to a foundation in moral monism, to which Berlin responds with his concept of value pluralism. The final section engages with some of the critical issues raised by ‘Two Concepts’. Is the essay too limited by Berlin’s Cold-War context? Is he too hostile to positive liberty and too uncritical of negative liberty? Is his account of identity too narrowly focused on nationalism, or is it an open-ended invitation to the excesses of identity politics? Is his value pluralism compatible with liberalism? I argue that in all these respects, Berlin’s position has problems, but also that he gives us the tools to respond to those problems.

Chapter 16 examines what it means to be a primary mathematics teacher in a professional context. It considers the attributes of effective mathematics educators, the requirements for professional accreditation, and the value of professional learning and engagement with mathematics education networks. You will also reflect on your preparation for the LANTITE and how to continue developing your identity as a confident and capable mathematics educator.

Chapter 13 explores the concept of mathematical identity and how both students and teachers come to see themselves in relation to mathematics. It examines the impact of maths anxiety – particularly in the early years of teaching – and how identity is influenced by community, context, and experience. The chapter highlights the importance of understanding and responding to diverse school settings, including rural, regional, and remote communities. You will also consider how to meaningfully embed the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priorities – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and sustainability – within mathematics lessons.

We step inside a closed-door customs committee meeting in Brussels, following Louise and her colleagues his chapter offers a rare, immersive account of a customs committee working group, where twenty-seven member states, interpreters and Commission officials grapple with the minutiae of classifying consumer goods – from vacuum cleaner parts to decorative balloons – amidst a whirlwind of digital tools, linguistic compromises and political maneuvering.

Through vivid ethnographic detail, we reveal how EU law is crafted. Here, the classical diplomat – negotiator, mediator, generalist – confronts the realities of digital mediation. Through Louise’s eyes, and in rare ethnographic detail, we witness the labour of multilingual lawmaking: interpreters juggling languages and distractions, delegates scrolling for images to clarify a product’s classification and the relentless clicking of keyboards as twenty-seven member states haggle over every word, comma and image in a three-column Word document.

This chapter reveals how digital technologies, while promising efficiency and speed, also fragment attention and introduce new layers of complexity. The negotiation room becomes a microcosm of the EU’s ‘Brussels effect’ – its power to set global standards – where the mundane (classifying vacuum cleaner parts or decorative balloons) intersects with the monumental (shaping trade, safety, and environmental rules for 500 million citizens). As interpreters and diplomats alike rely on digital tools to bridge linguistic and political divides, the chapter asks: How is the craft of diplomacy transformed when screens and algorithms mediate human judgement? And what does this mean for the future of EU governance, as AI begins to reshape the invisible labor that keeps the Union running?

Propaganda and storytelling are key themes of this chapter. It examines the important roles of providence and martyrdom in constructing stories of the Irish rebellion and beyond, whether in the depositions or other accounts, including print. Both themes were important in building the rebellion and subsequent warfare as a confessional conflict, with providence and martyrology used for polemical purposes: to demonise the enemy, demonstrate divine favour for one’s cause and support co-religionists in their struggles. This played a crucial role in articulating the period as one of religious conflict above all, as violence, suffering and other ills were narrated and understood through recognisable confessional vocabulary, imagery and tropes. The chapter also considers the importance of martyrdom and martyrology in the emerging imperial context, with victims of violence in colonies – including Ireland – described in martyrological terms that contributed to justifying empire and disguising the violent intent and reality of imperial ventures.

This chapter examines ideas of belonging, the self and identity through the prism of ethnic and religious categories. It explores the complexities of seventeenth-century Irish identities, especially surrounding changing confessional and national markers, together with evolving concepts of race, and how these could generate violence and conflict. It uses a number of case studies. One is the attempt to convert a large number of Protestants to Catholicism, and the violence surrounding it that showcases the knotty nature of religious and ethnic groups, as both those who refused and those who conformed were subject to bloodshed. Irish Protestants are also considered, as a group who straddled these two categories, with evidence that they were subjected to particular pressure to convert, as being ‘in keeping’ with their Irishness. Finally, the expulsion of the Irish from several Munster towns and cities in 1644 is addressed, with Lord Inchiquin’s status as an Irish Protestant of particular interest in his justification for the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish violence that was central to this episode.

Chapter 3 analyzes some of the ways that stereotypes harm people’s sense of self and identity. One way is through expressive harm, which is the harm that results from the unwitting and inevitable perpetuation of stereotypes. Stereotypes have a pervasive cultural power that enables them to control people’s thoughts, feelings, behavior, and social interactions even when people actively disavow the stereotype. Other ways that stereotypes harm people’s sense of self and identity are through the internalization of oppressive social scripts, which ascribe motivations and expectations for behavior, and through stereotype threat, in which people inadvertently and paradoxically act in ways that correspond to stereotypes even as they are trying hard to avoid fitting stereotypes. When people with mental illness internalize oppressive social scripts and experience stereotype threat, they incorporate negative stereotypes into aspects of their experience and identity, which damages their identity and sense of self and also diminishes their autonomy.

This chapter is on the production of African literature at the intersection of colonialism, colonial institutions, and the African subjects conscripted into modernity. The key argument is that, irrespective of the languages used, the emergence of creative writing on the continent was determined by systems and processes of colonization and colonial institutions including the Christian missions and schools and European ideas about modernity. In addition to providing a critical account of the overdetermining power of colonial institutions in the invention of African literature, the chapter examines the self-fashioning of Africans as writers and intellectuals and how the task of writing and the forms that it generated changed as the desire to master colonial ideas and institutions was transcended by decolonial aspirations.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o was a leading postcolonial literary voice, advocating for the centrality of indigenous languages. His central argument is that since language was a fundamental instrument of colonisation, it is equally integral to the process of decolonisation. This has resonated among intellectuals and writers from formerly colonised societies who seek to redress legacies of colonialism. During the transitional period in South Africa, Ngugi became the most sought-after speaker on the preservation and development of African languages, shaping the discourse about language, culture and identity. Ngugi’s language ethos played a critical role in the recognition of indigenous languages in the constitution of South Africa. This chapter traces the impact of Ngugi’s language activism, particularly as it has shaped the author’s own development as a writer in both English and IsiXhosa. Through an autoethnographic lens, this chapter foregrounds personal reflection on Ngugi’s influence. It challenges the reductive tendency to confine Ngugi’s legacy solely to his direct intellectual and literary output, arguing for a more expansive appraisal of his enduring influence in shaping and sustaining language discourse among the formerly colonised. It recognises the evolution of Ngugi’s ideas over time and attributes this to his responsiveness to the shifting dynamics of contemporary society and global discursive formations.