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theses

ETD doctoral

This dissertation is an ethnographic account of how young, Jewish professionals in New York City resolve identity dilemmas as they attempt to reach normative adulthood. I examine how this group leans on friends and family members to help them get through bouts of uncertainty. The study reveals how these processes play out in two contexts that were particularly dominant for these respondents, specifically dating and community. I draw on 15 months of participant observation and 28 formal interviews to interrogate the processes by which a religious minority group navigates the freedom they encounter in an urban setting, as well as the insecurity associated with their desire to become “adults.” My data illustrates how this minority group living in New York City undergoes a dynamic, iterative, six-stage process in which they resolve their identity tensions and deal with their uncertainty in different ways.

The study highlights the utility of incorporating ethnographic methods with theories developed by communication and technology and sociology scholars to better understand uncertainty management practices for young minority groups. I build on extant research on uncertainty management, apply it to the case of emerging adulthood, and outline how my informants attempt to find a compatible romantic partner and a personal Jewish community. The respondents brought their close friends and family members into those contexts to cope with their uncertainty. Participants engaged in mediated and interpersonal communication with their loved ones, which facilitated their development of skills related to coping with uncertainty, information management, validation, and perspective shifts. I expand on Brashers, Neidig, and Goldsmith’s (2004) theoretical conceptualization of social support as assisted uncertainty management through which support is exchanged for the religious minority group who makes up my population of interest.

Next, I lend insight into the concept of context collusion (Davis & Jurgenson, 2014), which takes place when individuals intentionally bring norms, symbols, information, and people from one situation into others using online or face-to-face modes of communication (Davis & Jurgenson, 2014). I argue that minority groups who engage in context collusion can bring together their once disparate social identities into a positive, integrated, secure sense of self. I explain how informants threaded different parts of their identities together into various situations in different venues around the city. Lastly, I expand on Giddens’ (1991) concept of ontological security by explaining how members of a minority group in New York City trying to reach normative adulthood attempt to feel more secure in themselves, in their relationships, in their environment, and in the direction of their future. They resolve these identity tensions through an ongoing, iterative process of merging their social identities and receiving social validation from their communicative communities, which I define as communities with distinct form of communication and a socially recognized communication purpose. In summary, these informants learn to build and rebuild their sense of self in a variety of ways as they communicate with their loved ones and try to reach normative adulthood.

ETD_11164

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-z3b1-hw13

The author owns the copyright to this work.