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Ethno-Religious Identities: An Identity Structure Analysis of Clergy in Ireland, North and South
Natahalie Rougier
The study investigates clergy's construal, appraisal and redefinition of ethno-religious identity in Ireland. Informed
by theoretical insights from Self and Identity research, contemporary debates in the sociopsychological approach of
Ethnicity and Religion - and using Identity Structure Analysis as its framework of reference - the current investigation
offers an in-depth theoretical and empirical conceptualisation of ethnoreligious identity in which "ethnicity" is not
apprehended arbitrarily as a collection of characteristics transmitted from generation to generation in a mysterious
fashion, but construed and redefined continually by individuals, according to their biographical, socio-cultural and
historical circumstances. Importantly, individuals in the study are not simplistically categorized as "Catholics" and
"Protestants", but differentiated according to their specific denominational affiliation and "geographical" location.
Guided by a set of nine theoretical postulates, the study demonstrates that clergy members from the different denominations
differ - sometimes significantly - in their appraisal of and identification with both their own and their 'alternative'
ethnicity. Most significantly, the frequently assumed homogeneity of the "Protestant" community - and thus of the "Protestant
identity" - is here clearly and unequivocally refuted, and several denomination-specific "locational" variations in clergy's
identity construal are highlighted and discussed. A careful examination of their respective "informal ideologies" further
confirms that the different clergies' psychological processes are indeed substantiated and sustained by differentiated sets
of values and beliefs.
The psychological impact of "ordination" is also considered, and individuals' perceived increase in self-evaluation following
this event is interpreted in terms of their reappraisal of perceived similarity with both their positive and negative role
models, and in relation to the image they believe their lay members have of them.
The main findings of the investigation are interpreted and codified in a series of empirically-derived theoretical
propositions which contribute to the validation and expansion of the ISA metatheoretical framework
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