Talk of change: Temporal contrasts and collective identities

Abstract

While temporality is generally acknowledged as a critical ingredient in processes of identity formation, studies of identity talk usually assume collective identity is essentially about establishing or facilitating a sense of temporal self-continuity. These studies do not detail how organizational actors might recast their identity narratives and reflectively put together stories about a changing or changed identity. The ethnographic research presented in this article reports how the editors of a Dutch national newspaper constructed their newspaper’s identity in temporal discontinuity talk, discursively constructing a contrast between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’, between legacies from a common past and plans for the future. As the organizational identity literature is primarily focused on talk of temporal continuities, I draw on studies of organizational change and nostalgic and ‘postalgic’ narratives in order to develop an understanding of the temporal dimension of collective identity talk that does not rule out, but incorporates, discontinuity and change.

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