Marked identities. Narrating lives between social labels and individual biographies

Western society has become increasingly diverse and inclusive, but stereotypes still pervade public discourse. How do people who for different reasons have a marked status in society manage their identity and respond to stereotypes? This edited volume explores this issue with people who either belong to a culturally salient group(travellers, Jewish survivors, Canadian First Nation women, ex-GDR citizens) or whose circumstances make them potential targets of discrimination(teenage mothers, homeless people, substance users and individuals with autism). The interviews in these chapters reveal how their life narratives resist, change or incorporate society’s views about them.