Social Identity and Sense of Community

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

grew up in Taiwan? Of course, this is not part of my research, but I do think it will be one topic worth studying in the coming years.

2.2.2 Social Identity and sense of community

One aspect of collective identity is social identity, group identification connects social and collective identity (Klandermans, 2013). According to Tajfel (1979), social identity is the sense of belonging to the social world, groups which we belong to were the important source of pride and self-esteem. Cameron (2004) raised a three factor model of social identity, the three factor ties facet of social identity.

Which includes: (1) centrality - refers to the frequency which the group comes to mind and the subjective importance of the group to self-definition; (2) ingroup effect – refers to specific emotion that arise from group membership; and (3) ingroup ties – refers to the psychological ties that bind the self to the group. According to Davidson and Cotter (1989), the aspects of group consciousness, belongingness and identity are the facets of ―membership‖ in sense of community.

The study of the sense of community located under the study of social psychology, McMillan & Chavis (1986) define sense of community with four elements: membership, influence, reinforcement and shared emotional connection.

Sarason (1974) defined sense of community as: “the perception of similarity to others, and acknowledged interdependence with others, a willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving to or doing for others what one expects from them, the feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure”.

Some studies investigates the relationship between community and identity, and the results indicate that identity is positively correlated with the sense of community: Barbieri and Zani (2015) study the relationship between migrant‘s identity, sense of community and well-being, the result indicates that immigrants have a strong sense of belonging to their community of origin, but have also developed a specific sense of community in the receiving context; Kenyon and Carter (2010) study the ethnic identity, sense of community and psychological well-being of American Indian youth, the results indicate that adolescents with a stronger ethnic identity had a

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

stronger sense of community as well; Connor et al. (2004) studies the sense of community, identity statuses and loneliness on Italian and Belgian adolescences, the result indicate that identity-achieved individuals exhibit a higher level of civic involvement in the community. For Hong Kongers in Taiwan, what‘s the relationship between sense of community and their identity? Did their identity have a positive correlation with their sense of community?

Furthermore, there are also a few studies on the sense of community in Hong Kong, for example, Mak, Cheung & Law (2009) conceptualized the sense of community in Hong Kong along two dimensions: the territorial and the relational element which refers to people‘s identification to a shared geographical location and the quality of social ties and relationships, without reference to specific locations; Au et al. (2020) found that the sense of community mediated between social participation and community support and health services. However, sense of community related studies of Hong Kong rarely discuss the relationship between the sense of community and identity.

Individual have multiple identities. In most studies, Chinese identity (nation) usually counts as the superordinate identities and the Hong Kong identity (region) usually counts as subordinate identities. Klanderman‘s study in 2004 is an example.

According to his word, one example of multiple identities is dual identities, which occur when superordinate identities and subgroup identities going together. Thus, in the case of Hong Kong, the superordinate identity should be ethnic ―Chinese‖ and one of the subgroup identities should be ―Hong Konger‖. However, some studies discuss Hong Kong identity in another way. Here, the concept of multi-social identity can be touched upon.

Brewer (1999) explains the identity transition using three alternatives to show how individual might experience the relationship between one social identity (A) and another one (B):

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

Figure 2. Three alternatives of social identity by Brewer, 1999

Brewer applied these figures to explain Hong Kong‘s identity during 1985-97:

The circle A represents the social identity ―Hong Kongers‖ and B represents the social identity ―Chinese‖. In 1985-95, combined group identities satisfy needs for inclusion and distinctiveness. Most of the respondents identify themselves ―Hong Kongers‖ or ―Hong Kong Chinese‖, as shown in the figures above: fig. b) represents the compound identity which differentiated itself from mainland Chinese; fig. c) represents Hong Kongers is the superordinate social category while Chinese ethnic identity is the subordinate identity. In 1995-1997, more support the Hong Kong identity and differentiated themselves from Chinese identity, and more claim themselves primary Hong Kongers. In the section ―Beyond 1997‖, Brewer predicted that those who are more identified with the Hong Kong‘s distinctive regional identity

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

would be more likely to leave and migrate to other countries where substantial Chinese communities already exist. In which related to the migration trend in Hong Kong nowadays, people usually migrate to countries and cities where a large group of Hong Kongers live. These figures also represent the way in which most Hong Kongers identify themselves: purely Hong Kongers or Chinese Hong Kongers.