Perspective Chapter: Understanding Young People’s Experiences – An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

A developed conceptual model to understanding experiences of young people with ethnic heritage is explored in this chapter. Through a synthesis of some of the traditional approaches to identity and personality, the author argues for the move towards a more comprehensive, extensive, and evolving approach to understanding lived experiences: the conduct of everyday life. Coupled to that is an understanding of the continuity of experiences using the concept of Personhood in Practice to articulate young people’s learning and development in the context of lived experiences. Bringing together such approaches, the chapter presents an integrative review showing the development of a conceptual model. It gives an example of how such model was used in my PhD research to draw findings to understand the experiences of an under-researched and overlooked community: the British Yemenis.

1. Introduction

Human experiences have been extensively studied in the social sciences with various theoretical traditions and fields of research addressing different areas of study. New and evolving ideas, approaches and perspectives for understanding human experiences are continuously being explored. Of particular interest to the study of young people’s experiences is the move away from previously articulated cognitivist trait-based perspectives—which view human experiences as informed by information processing activity that is situated in a given mind and that is analytically and practically separated from the world [1, 2, 3]—to the belief that experiences emerge out of a relational nexus between the subject and the world [4, 5]. In other words, experiences must be understood as an emergent property that already presupposes the relational interface between the subject and the world, and cannot be conceptualised as an a priori faculty situated within an already constituted individual [6, 7]. This chapter focuses on developing a conceptual approach to understanding the experiences of British Yemeni young people, an approach that privileges the relational nexus between subject and the world.

The understanding of what young people do and why they do it, has been of continued interest in sociology and psychology, specifically in the study of identity and personality. In this chapter, I consider some of the explanatory approaches that focus on understanding young people’s experiences by exploring what might be viewed as some of the dominant youth identity theories and personality paradigms. Because the particular focus of the study is young people of Yemeni heritage, ideas in and around notions of post-colonialism and intersectionality will also be explored, and these ideas will be linked to some of the traditional identity theories discussed in this chapter. I highlight the limitations of these approaches in relation to providing explanations of subject-independent truths that are tied to practical living and being. By providing an overview and synthesis of some of the main ideas around identity and personality, I explore what these ideas may suggest about the young person’s living and being. I then move on to describe how the conduct of everyday life, specifically the theory of a person [8], is a manifestation of some of these ideas but in a particular form that gives primacy to actions. I show how Dreier’s theory of a person generates a robust articulation of young people’s lived experiences as well as the associated identities and personalities that inform those experiences. It is an approach that I argue examines the relational nexus between subject and the world, through the actions that young people undertake in their everyday lives.

2. Methodology

This chapter presents an integrative review as a distinctive form of research using existing literature to create new knowledge. I use diverse data sources to develop a holistic understanding of lived experiences, by reviewing the growing body of literature that has contributed, in the context of this research, to theory development. The publication sources and search engines utilised to find sources related to young people’s experiences were mainly articles from publications outputs. Examples of such include articles scoped were from the Journal of Applied Youth Studies, Journal of Adolescence, Theory & Psychology, Culture and Psychology, Race & Class, Psychology and the Conduct of Everyday Life, Concrete Human Psychology, Youth & Society and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies to name a few. Although these journals present areas within psychology that are interdisciplinary, the focus for this research was on those linked specifically to understanding young people, their experiences and identities linked to such experiences. For example, work by Meeus [9] focused on identity status models in longitudinal studies, work by Havnes [10] on cultural-historical activity theory and work by Kroeber & Kluckhohn [11] on culture definitions and applications, all of which are related to the research field. The scope was large and ranged from mature as well as recent articles. I also directed my reading on articles that already provided a review of the main theories for understanding youth experiences [12, 13], particularly as it provides a critical review on the existing theories and applications in understanding lived experience and identities. Other sources used were in the form of books that focused on such the use of case studies to build and test theories in social science [14] and those related handbooks on personality, theory and research.

The main produce of the research was the development of a conceptual methodological framework, integrating various paradigms and theoretical research, to understand the experience of young people. I then applied this model to an overlooked and under researched British Yemenis group of young people. The chapter also shows how such model has the potential to contribute to other future research for other ethnic minority groups in the UK because it allows the examining the dynamics and interactions between self and society where human subjectivities are a reflection of, but not determined by, the social and cultural arrangements.

The model emerged from scoping the literature and engaging with the ideas on (1) youth identity, (2) personality paradigms, (3) post-colonialism, (4) intersectionality, (5) literature on researcher’s positionality within the research and from personal experiences and the advantages it brings, (6) pilot study research, (7) photography methods, (7) the conduct of everyday life, (8) longitudinal studies, (9) personhood in practice and (10) narrative portraits. Each of these 10 different approaches was applied, either theoretically or methodologically, to develop a conceptual model, forming links between them. The inclusion criteria for the sources used in such scope needed to firstly relate to be young people and their associated identities and personalities, and secondly to literature on ethnic minorities groups living in the UK. Section 3 in this chapter elaborates further on the sources of intellectual knowledge and resources used that has contributed to developing this model. The overall research is, therefore, theory-led and data-driven, enabling the research questions, literature review, methodology and analysis to be connected in a way that brings about vital information on the participants in question. This model was reviewed by a panel of supervisors from the University of Manchester, who acted as peer reviews of the information gathered, edited and developed.

The model focuses on actions and activities. It provides a robust articulation of lived experiences as well as the associated identities and personalities that inform such experiences, linking personality with social processes that shape people’s conduct of everyday life. Thinking in such way helps researchers explain and understand social life that is continuously challenged by dynamic and evolving problems. The development of conceptual frameworks and theories, such as the one developed here, is required to get a firm understanding of both classical and contemporary theories in the context of the research.

This chapter is derived from the literature review—chapter two—of my PhD thesis¹ [15] and builds off the first chapter of a larger empirical work where I explore the lived experience of six British Yemeni young people, and present data conducted over 19 months. The study of my PhD was guided by three research questions on (1) the types of everyday experiences, (2) the forms of learning and development and (3) what these experiences, learning and development suggest about the evolving social and cultural personhood of British Yemeni young people. The experiences of British Yemeni young people were documented and explored through linking and interconnecting concepts of the conduct of everyday life and personhood in practice.

The concepts in and around identity and personality have been traditionally seen as a standard way of thinking about young people’s agency (self) and structure (society), and understanding what young people do, and why they do what they do. In relation to youth studies, issues of identity have been explored through different traditions that offer both psychological (subjective and behavioural properties of identity) and sociological approaches (membership and social interactions) [16, 17]. I begin this chapter by providing an overview of some of the main approaches for examining youth identity as means of explaining agency. To contextualise these with regard to the focus of my study, I then examine how post-colonial and intersectionality theories provide an additional lens through which to understand British Yemeni young people more fully. I chose these theories in particular because of the historical elements of British colonisation of Yemen, and because of the ideas which intersectionality may bring to the interactivity of social identity structures (race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, age and religion) in fostering life experiences. I show how these theories provide additional articulations of the interconnection of agency and structure that might be more theoretically aligned to explaining the experiences of British Yemeni young people. I then demonstrate how the theories of post-colonialism and intersectionality can be used as analytical tools to understand some of the nuances around British Yemeni young people’s experiences, particularly with respect to their family histories and practices. I then move onto exploring complementary ideas that focus on some of the prominent personality psychology, showing how they have historically been built from ideas within biological, social and clinical domains.

In bringing these traditional ideas of identity, post-colonialism and intersectionality, and personality together, I show that, despite the explanatory importance of these theories, they seem to struggle in providing a justifiable understanding of some of the heterogeneity, as well as some of the homogeneity, in the everyday life experiences of British Yemeni young people. This gap was noted primarily from my undertaking of the initial study, and secondly, from my personal reflections of my own experiences that questioned an essentialised perspective of identity and personality that appears to be dominant in the field. In other words, such findings showed that, in the experiences of British Yemeni young people, there were elements of difference as well as similarities which did not seem to be accounted for in the main, by post-colonial and intersectionally inspired identity and personality theories. To avoid the pitfalls of what I argue to be dualistic (the separation of the subject from the world) and yet at the same time essentialist explanation and accounts of who British Yemeni young people are and what they do, I instead focus on the relational conduct of everyday life, with all the possibilities of both diversity and similarity, and change and reproduction in living and lived experiences. This is because the conduct of everyday life enables the connection between young people’s evolving sense of themselves and the social arrangements of their lives to be explored recognising both habitual activity and the possibilities of change.

Building on such a critique, I broaden the understanding of identity and personality to encompass rationales and discourses associated with the conduct of everyday life in the experiences of daily living, in particular using Dreier’s theory of a person [8]. I argue that Dreier’s theory bridges the gap between psychological theorising on an individual level and a transindividual perspective, prioritising the actions of the person with others in his/her social life as a means of understanding experiences. I show how arriving at the conduct of everyday life enables a more comprehensive, extensive and evolving approach to understanding personality, which, in turn, provides a more concrete reflection of identity that yet contains elements of fluidity. I conclude the chapter by outlining an evolved conceptualisation of the conduct of everyday life in terms of the novelty of its application.

Figure 1 provides a summary of the approaches that I will discuss in the synthesis sections of this chapter.

Figure 1.

Approach to the study of young people’s experiences.

The study of identity and personality reflect two of the major positions and central constructs in the attempts to understand young people’s agency. The major academic traditions in these fields range from the sociological studies of identity and the psychological studies of personality. The former, in the main, focus on the structures and system of people and their relations, and how they impact one another and the individual that help to generate identity and commensurate forms of agency [18, 19, 20], while the latter focuses on self and the individual, and the related cognitive dimensions of living which have both social dimension and aspects of an inherited trait-like perspective [21, 22] that provides accounts of the individualised self. In this section, I provide an overview of some of the main theories of youth identity, including post-colonialism and intersectionality, and then some of the main traditional paradigms of personality. I then synthesise the research position with respect to each of these ideas, highlighting some of its limitations in understanding British Yemeni young people’s agency and structure.

Although I start by exploring these theories individually, clarifying along the way the research position with respect to each of these concepts, I also show, later in the chapter, that there is interconnection and overlap between these theories as they might help explain the lives of British Yemeni young people. Therefore, these theories and approaches should not be seen necessarily as analytically separate and distinct entities, but connected, through the narratives of British Yemeni young people’s experiences.

3. Synthesis—identity

3.1 Identity scholarship

Identity has historically been seen as complex and slippery concept. As the boundaries between disciplines dealing with identity are quite arbitrary, an investigation of identity needs to consider multi-disciplinary approaches. Although the term originates from the Latin root ‘idem’, meaning the same or identical, identity can be defined as a description of who a person is and the qualities of a person that make them different from others.² Hammack provides a definition that I feel in many respects resonates with my research focus because it includes the person’s subjectivity and behavioural patterns, as well as their membership of societal groups [12, 23]—identity is ‘ideology cognized through the individual engagement with discourse, made manifest in a personal narrative constructed and reconstructed across the life course, and scripted in and through social interaction and social practice’ ([24], p. 22). Developing an identity to associate and/or distinguish oneself from others may be crucial in establishing a stable agency and structure [25]. Whether it implies similarity or differences, uniqueness or individuality, fixed psychological traits, social facts or transitory situations [26], identity involves recognising a common cause, storage of experiences and habituated thoughts and memory (in the person), and is represented in behaviours and social activities (in interaction) [27].

Although identity can provide a general understanding of some of the features pertinent to the individual, there is also the sense that identity is likely to evolve and develop during transitional stages of life that have both physiological and emotional dimensions. Literature on young people growth and development has shown that identity can also be examined in relation to individuals going through transitional stages of development. These stages include both physiologically and emotionally. Literature on the anthropology of young people [28, 29] describes adolescence as a universal period of time, experienced by young people as they grow and develop [30, 31]. The participants—being in the age range of 16–19 during the time of this study—may have experienced (and are perhaps continuing to experience) shifts and changes during this growth period, which can be seen as a transitional stage of autonomy seeking, emotional instability and identity exploration [32]. This may involve, perhaps, becoming more independent from parents and further associating with peer groups [33]. Young people may continue to develop and construct their own identity as they move through to adulthood [29]. This delicate, yet gradual, progression continually reflects experiences that may be associated with profound life changes [34].

3.2 Identity studies

Many mainstream or traditional approaches that explore youth identity tend to focus on several areas of study. Some traditions stress the internalisation of social positions and their personal meanings as part of the self-structure [35], while others show the impact of cultural meanings and social situations on identities [36, 37], emphasising how social contexts elicit certain identities that shape meanings and actions. Other traditions centre on collective identity and group-level processes [38, 39]. Of particular importance in delineating ideas of young identity is Côté’s [12] expansive and comprehensive overview of the varying perspective and approaches to youth identity. He develops his overview with ideas from his previous work with Levin [40], to produce a universal taxonomy that attends to the multidimensionality represented by the various approaches in understanding youth identity. Adapted from Côté [12], in Table 1 I summarise some of the main theories and perspectives on youth identity.

Youth identity perspectives/approach	Focus	Description of the perspective/approach
Identity status paradigm	Objective individual focus	Young people experience different stages of commitment and crisis, contributing to identity formation. Four main identity statuses of psychological identity development can be explored here: identity diffusion, identity moratorium, identity foreclosure and identity achievement [41, 42]. With the passage of time, the young person may go through some or all of these stages [43], and not necessarily in an ordered fashion, and these stages of development can relate to education [44], career [45], politics and religion [46], and among other areas.
Critical and cultural approach	Objective individual focus	An approach that functions in the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture [47]. Identity is theorised by an adaptation of conceptualising multilateral relationships between individual identity and sociocultural context, recognising the causal importance of culture in societies and historical context, while at the same time acknowledging individual choice and change [48]. This approach is often used in comparative analysis to study the expectations and difference in culture, for example between individualism and collectivism structures and cultures [49].
Life history and narrative approaches	Subjective individual focus	Young people are viewed in relation to their narratives or stories, whereby temporal and developmental dimensions of human existence are revealed [50]. Experiences are constructed from cognitive interactions and originate from people’s external perceptual senses, internal bodily sensations, and cognitive memories [51]. Human behaviour is conceptualised as significantly communicative and narrative in nature [52]. The approach of storytelling of individual chronological experiences can be used to analyse qualitative data [53].
Symbolic interactionalism; Structural—Objective, social focus; Interpretative—Subjective, social focus		This approach depends on the symbolic meaning and language that people develop and rely upon in the social interaction process [54], and how they help to give meaning to experiences [55]. Society is thought to be socially constructed (through conversations, thoughts and ideas), and bonded through environmental stimulus cognitively interpretation [56]. Symbolic interactionalism can either be structural or interpretative. The former emphasises on role designation and positioning, significant to the definition of the self, specifically hierarchy of prominence (how individuals play their role in a given situation), and hierarchy of salience (addressing individual values and their affect over identity formation) [18, 57]. The latter emphasises that a person must be understood as a social and thinking being [58], and the self becomes the product of society as it tries to incorporate itself into a group by realising and internalising societal expectations, leading to a constructive relationship between the self and society [25, 59]. Society is viewed as having different interrelated parts, designed to meet the social needs of people [60].
Modernism; Post modernism—Subjective, Individual and sociological focus.; Late modernism—Objective, Social focus		Modernism in general follow a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices, used as a critique of structure [20]. Postmodernists see words as having no objective meaning, and that structures are social constructs and so a merely an interpretation of truth. As a result, identity becomes fluid, it’s meaning more ambiguous and unstable [61]. Post-modernist themes strengthen common practices of psychological science, leading to the understanding of concepts such as individual knowledge, the objective world and the language as a carrier of truth [62, 63]. In the sociological variant, identity is located within the interactional realm and is best understood in terms of its emergent and transitory properties, which vary according to the specific context in which interaction takes place. In late modernism, and as an opposition to postmodernism, there is a duality of structure, and people’s freedom comes from existing structures [64]. As a result, identity becomes a task a person seeks to develop [65].

Table 1.

Some of the major identity theories.

These perspectives are among the leading approaches for thinking about identity and associated agency and will therefore act as a focus for exploring their relevance to young people’s living experiences. However, in so doing, I will articulate some of the problematic issues that pertain to much of this thinking and yet also recognising that certain key approaches may provide important basis for my research.

3.3 Synthesis of identity scholarship

This section provides a synthesis and exploration on how studying young people’s agency and structure, through the identity theories, depicted in Table 1, is, in the main, problematic. Although these theories may provide a contribution to understanding certain elements of the social structures and changes that pertain to the formation of a person, studying identity with regard to many of these approaches relies uniformly on methodological approaches that enable a person to generate perception of who they thinks they are based on recalled events (memory) that support such perception, and relatedly on the possible evaluation of the accuracy of feeling-of-knowing experiences [66, 67]. This methodological approach is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, it provides an isolated description of a person, detaching him/her from ongoing social practices. This, in turn, provides an abstracted form of knowledge or an account that is partial. Furthermore, it restricts the examination of the various features of personal functioning and the features of the world in which a person lives. Secondly, studying identity in such a way entails a thinning out of the presence of the world in notions of psychological phenomena and neglects the significance of the world for psychological functioning [68]. Thirdly, the links between the historical structures and influences of the current environment, and how they affect the functioning of a person, are missing. I argue that this is the case for all the youth identity theories discussed in Table 1, albeit with different levels of sophistication.

Let me take the identity status paradigm as an example. Within this approach, there is an assumption that a young person, perhaps during adolescence, will experience a crisis during their development, and at this stage, must make a commitment to reach the identity achievement stage. Identity achievement is, however, relative. It is also measured differently, depending on the context of the research and there are many factors that affect identity achievement. Furthermore, the identity status paradigm suggests that some young people may fluctuate between different development stages and may not pass each stage or reach a certain level of achievement [41], and although this may be the argument in some cases, the pattern or sense of development varies for each individual, and should primarily depend on the person’s evolving situation and linked practice. The dualism of agency and structure suggest that the two are separate and each have causal powers on the other. The argument here is that what young people do is both agency and structure at the same time—they do and undergo, one impacting the other continuously. Development is also influenced by different factors that are specific to the individual and the environment in which they live and participate. As such, identity formation is not static and is continuously evolving and developing with increased lived experiences, and so there is no end point. The identity status paradigm also suggests that a well-developed identity signifies a solid sense of personal uniqueness, awareness of strengths and weaknesses, high self-esteem, increased critical thinking, advanced moral reasoning and low levels of anxiety [42]. Although this may be achieved during adolescence and towards early adulthood, not only does it vary from person to person, but the living and being are constantly changing and evolving, suggesting the possibility of moving from what appears a well-developed and stable identity to one less stable and vice versa. Additionally, the identity status paradigm does not consider the historical, ethnic and cultural dimensions of the growing and evolving person, and thus, may fall short in understanding young people with ethnic heritage.

A critical and cultural approach in understanding young people’s experiences is more applicable when focusing primarily on the importance of culture in society, but as an effect, the approach produces a partial perspective of agency. Such an approach ignores the fact that a person is both a subject and subjected to the society (or culture) they live in, that therefore results in danger of essentialising what it means to have a culture, or in the context of this research a British Yemeni culture.

I now turn to two other identity approaches: postmodernism and symbolic interactionism. In the sociological variant of postmodernism, identity is located within the interactional realm and describes some of the unity in articulating identity [69] that relates to young people’s interactions that are partially dominated by the rise of new media technologies [70, 71] and consumerism in society [72]. From my interactions with young people, and from reflecting on my experiences, I argue that these two realities may directly (or indirectly) influence the construction of young people’s identity today, but this is relative to the individual and environment in which they live. Additionally, using postmodernist understanding of society also provides a simplified view of who a young person is and what they do, based on a generalised postmodern view of lived realities of how these realities influence daily activities.

There are also problems reflected in ideas within symbolic interactionism. The theory is rooted in phenomenological thought in which subjectively defined objects have meaning and so there are possibly multiple, conflicting interpretations of any situation [73]. The issue with this, in the context of this research, is that it gives the young person a mistaken sense of agency over structure, and perhaps some creative capabilities or misguided sense of control over society. This is not only relative and subjective but also leaves the person with the false sense that society, of which a person is a member, is designed to meet his/her social needs, and this is not necessarily true. Sometimes a person must change or adapt to suit the society they live in, and not necessarily the other way round. Furthermore, symbolic interactionism focuses on micro-level interactions [58] and so overlooks macro-social structures (such as norms and cultures), which makes it difficult to understand the interconnected experiences of an individual using this theory. Symbolic interactionists have been criticised in for their predominately qualitative approach to empirical inquiry and for their failure to deal adequately with social structure and power [55, 74].

However, the identity theory that relates to producing life histories and narrative approaches has a greater role in this research, primarily as an active methodological stance. This is because it provides an opportunity to focus subjectively on identity, social-life and culture, and at the same time, enables questions to be asked about some of the structuring components in a young person’s daily life. Hammack’s [24] definition earlier—identity ‘manifest[s] in a personal narrative constructed and reconstructed across the life course’—supports the idea of using life histories and narrative approaches, as a methodology, for studying the subjective phases of social life, as well as the historical and structural aspects of social life [51]. This makes it ideal for exploring the experiences of British Yemeni young people. Documenting participants’ stories using narratives that seek to apprehend, understand and render people’s stories within their personal, social, economic, political and historical contexts [75, 76] is not only salient, but also produces a personal account of the here and now, in the narrator’s own words. It also enables an analysis of the collective contextual influences in which those lives are situated [77].

Perhaps what is also deficient in some of these perspectives on identity highlighted above is the lack of full engagement with issues of ethnic and cultural heritage. To explore this deficiency, I now describe some of the identity theories that relate to British Yemenis being of an ethnic and cultural heritage, and how these theories support in the understanding young people’s agency and structure.

4. Synthesis—ethnic heritage

4.1 Ethnic heritage scholarship

Having examined, and critiqued, some of the mainstream ideas of identity, there seems to be a possibility of under-emphasis in and around some of the historical, cultural, political power issues of British Yemeni young people. This means that an additional set of thinking tools is required to enable a more developed understanding of identity in an extended way. Specifically, I explore how the post-colonial and intersectionality arguments are pertinent to my study of British Yemeni young people. I show their importance, in relation to some of the standard theories of identity (mentioned in Table 1), in developing ideas that explicitly focus on some of the important structural, cultural, historic reasons why British Yemeni young people see their world as they do. Although there are dangers of essentialising here, it is more about orientating theories to issues of post-colonialism. I start by exploring post-colonialism as a theory and discuss its potential use in examining the ethnic and power difference between colonising powers and those that have been colonised, including the impacts on first-, second- and third-generation British Yemeni young people. I feel that this discussion has been (partially) underplayed, or perhaps forgotten in the identity theories explored in Table 1. In using post-colonialism, the structural imbalance, the discrimination and prejudice, and the domineering are no longer overlooked. I then explore how intersectionality aims to move towards a deeper understanding of the social identity structures which, together, may serve as an influence on the experiences of British Yemeni young people. However, I later discuss how I make more pertinent the analysis of experiences using the conduct of everyday life more sensitised to post-colonial and intersectional arguments.

4.2 Post-colonialism

Post-colonialism considers ways in which identity is constructed through the discourses of colonialism, emphasising the importance of the cultural, economic, political and military dominance of the past [78]. In the context of this research, it refers to the way British Yemenis’ identity may be constructed as a direct (or indirect) effect because of the colonisation of Yemen by Britain in 1839. Presented as the extension of civilization to justify the racial and cultural superiority of Western world over others [79], colonialism has caused changes in people’s cultural identity, social places and economic roles within the colonised country as well as among those migrating to the Western country [80]. This relationship of control tends to extend to social, pedagogical, economic, political and broadly cultural exchanges. This section explores some of the prominent works of scholars in the field of post-colonial studies and shows how their work is related to the diaspora and identities of Yemenis settling in Britain.

I begin by exploring the work of three main scholars in post-colonial studies: Said [81, 82], Spivak [83] and Bhabha [84, 85, 86]. I chose these scholars in particular because of their major contributions in documenting and providing an insight into the impacts of colonialism. Most of the literature that I have examined in, and around post-colonialism, uses certain definitions, descriptions and elements from their work, perhaps as a foundation for understanding the influences of post-colonial theory on the lived lives of those affected by it. Furthermore, each of these scholars presents different, yet connecting, ideas of how to understand and represent the colonised forces in a way that may lead to further conversations and explorations. Additionally, and in the context of this research, I explore how Said, Spivak and Bhabha’s ideas, separately and collectively, provide some explanation as to the possible changes in identities and, as an effect, the experiences of British Yemeni young people.

I begin by focusing on Said’s work on the representation of knowledge of the colonised. Said uses ‘Orientalism’ to describe a style of thought based upon distinctions made between the Occident (of the West) and Orient (or other)—a style of dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient [81, 82]. Said argues that magical realism, referred to the adaptation of Western realist methods of literature, is presented inaccurately and is misleading, and stereotypical of the cultural representation of the east (as exotic, enigmatic and curious) [82]. This representation may hinder a representational reality of the orient in representational ways of understanding of Middle Eastern and Asian culture [80]. He suggests that these methods of representation are used as tools, by colonisers, to dominate the colonised, at an individual and community level [82]. This view is also shared by other scholars [87, 88].

Historical writing on the British empire in Yemen is also dominated by post-colonial traditions and theories [89]. Using Said’s idea of Orientalism, it is possible to identify historiographical precedents for applying certain orientalist ideas to diplomatic source material to study British rule over Yemen [90]. Writings on such colonisation offer evidence of intelligence being interpreted in a way which underestimated the strength of local agents and amplified the influence of external manipulation [91]. This is what Said refers to as a misinterpretation of truth within a colonised culture [81].

Spivak [83] addresses the problem of misrepresentation by centring attention on giving the ‘Subaltern’—a colonised group of lower economic and cultural status—a voice. According to Spivak, such voices were prevented by the colonised. She highlights the difficulty for an outside colonised person to represent what is truly happening in the colonised communities. Spivak is an advocate for subaltern voice, and the impact (of offering them a chance to speak) is the reduction of inherently restricted or misleading logocentric assumptions of the colonised people [92]. In this way, Spivak adopts a stance against a specifically intellectual form of oppression and marginalisation [93].

Within the context of this research, discussion around the ‘other’ and allowing the ‘subaltern voice’ resonate with the intentions of this research. By default, the British Yemeni community is a minority ethnic group and so can be considered as the ‘other’. By providing a platform for their voices to be heard, through this research, assumptions or misleading statements on their living and being may be better understood. Although this research does not consider British Yemeni young people as being ‘subalterns’ as such, the reality is that there has been limited literature on their experiences, which may suggest a lack of attention given to their opinions and voices. Even though the occupation of Yemen by Britain of 128 years ended in 1967, the long period of colonialism has (directly or indirectly) presented some areas of misrepresentation and perhaps oppression, that may have produced a ripple effect on the lives of British Yemenis today. This research provides an opportunity for British Yemeni young people to represent their living and being through their own words, enabling a clear understanding of their lived worlds. It is about privileging the participants as knowers of their knowledge or at least having their problems heard equally as other more dominant groups.

Bhabha [84] develops post-colonial theory on a different level and one that I feel most resonates with the British Yemeni context today. He engages with the idea that diversity is brought about by various cultural encounters and that individuals from post-colonial cultures can only be described as having ‘cultural hybridity’—the mixture of cultural influences that allows the mixing of both the colonised country and pre-existing traditional customs [84]. Bhabha focuses on ‘mimicry’ as a means by which the colonised adapt the culture (language, clothing, food, education, etc.) of the coloniser [85, 94, 95]. A study by Hutnik and Street [96] reveals how British Indians’ self-categorised differently in specific cultural contexts, while another study by Modood et al. [97] discloses the complex ways in which young British people of Caribbean and Asian origin manage to retain the aspects of older cultural practices, yet at the same time modify some to allow modification. Literature from these prominent post-colonial scholars, as well as others [79, 80, 98, 99], shows how colonisation has led to cultural, linguistic and religious differences among populations and also the possible emergence of historically constructed groups [48, 100].

Ethnicity is, thus, not simply a historical legacy of migration or conquest, rather it is constantly undergoing redefinition and reconstruction [100]. These are examples of how people from colonised countries balance between desires to root themselves in their communities of origin, while at the same time making use of the opportunities available in British culture. As a result, hybrid identity is formed with significant overlaps and mixtures of cultural practices [101, 102]. Although I do not use the term mimicry as such to explore the mixture of ethnic and national cultures of British Yemenis in my study, I understand the relevance of mimicry in the context of the desire for Yemenis, as an ethnic minority group in Britain, to produce unique cultural hybridity from a mixture of their Yemeni culture as well as their national British culture.

As a result of the British colonisation of Yemen, many Yemenis migrated to various cities in Britain [103, 104]. Dahya [105] documents the migration of some Yemenis to Sheffield and South Shields in the period of 1945–1950, and describes the history of several married men, who despite having left their wives and children behind in Yemen, continued to retain their ties with their families and villages by sending money home regularly [105]. His paper shows how the settlers carried out practices linked to their homeland. Some of the practices included using their Arabic language in their everyday conversation, dressing traditionally on special occasions, buying mutton from Yemeni butchers and making it into a stew and serving it in a huge dish according to Yemeni custom. They extend their hospitality to visitors in the same way as they would have done in Yemen [105], continuing their customs and traditions.

Yemenis also represent the first significant Muslim community to settle in Britain [106]. They projected their religious connections to Islam during the weekends, public holidays and the annual summer holidays by attending mosques that also served as a centre of social and recreational activities [107]. Most settlers continue to carry out their prescribed duties faithfully, such as prayers and fasts. This has been a continued practice throughout the generations.

Other literature on early Yemeni settlers focuses on the working and family status of Yemenis in Britain. When they first settled in Britain, Yemenis often formed a distinct isolated community [108] and so were disconnected from British culture [109]. Reasons alluded to, in these articles, included the fear of a loss of culture and identity, and so like other Muslim ethnic minorities, the early Yemeni settlers may have attempted to perhaps establish an identity of difference [110]. However, such disconnections may have resulted in ethnic isolation and the congregation of Yemeni communities in specific areas in Britain [111]. The only reported efforts to marginally ameliorate Yemeni isolation was in South Shields, where prominent Yemeni community figures contributed by providing a mosque, religious education for men and women and an Arabic newspaper reporting British-related news, as well as news from Yemen [108].

Other research also shows that the integration between the Yemeni community and the British public was minimal [112], in part because the British chose to see Yemenis as different, and in part because the Yemenis chose to isolate themselves. Working in semi-skilled positions, Yemenis clustered together, lived in overcrowded houses and got by with a smattering of English [113]. To the British, the Yemenis were common labourers and not truly part of British society, and the Yemenis saw themselves as villagers whose primary focus was their homeland [112]. In effect, the Yemenis claimed to be temporary migrants, putting down only those roots, such as home ownership, that would enable them to accomplish their mission of saving for their return. The relative lack of support networks and institutions, apart from workers’ unions, is indicative of Yemenis’ strong belief in their eventual and inevitable return home [114]. Key political institutions in Britain were formulated by the Yemeni immigrants, that instead of being interested in workers’ conditions in Britain, targeted socio-economic and political developments in Yemen [115]. Furthermore, Yemeni migration, over 30 years before the waves of post-World War II immigrants from other parts of the empire, enabled them, as a small group, to avoid notice [116]. This may provide an explanation for the minimal literature on Yemenis in Britain currently.

Living in Britain for generations now, and with the current voluntary (or enforced) migration of Yemenis from their native homeland due to its current political instability [117], the integration of Yemeni and British culture was and continues to be inevitable. The effect of this integration is the possible formation of a merging of ethnic and national cultures, or as Bhabha [84] puts it, cultural hybridity. Such cultural changes have continued to lead to a gradual shift from pre-existing roots and traditional customs to national influences of mainstream culture [118]. Within the generational changes (and with the passing of time and possibly more integration into the country of residence), findings may show the extent as to which a culture is mainstream or subculture. I also argue that cultural identity is better understood as a combination of both ethnic identity (or subculture—rooted in historical origins) and national identity (or mainstream culture—coming from the country of upbringing). The contact between two or more different cultures results in acculturation—a new, composite culture that consists of existing cultural features combined with newly generated features [119, 120].

As I have discussed in this section, post-colonial theory is one of the ways in which the agency of young people, with Yemeni heritage living in the country of the coloniser, can be explored. It may explain some elements of practices that young people experience and are experiencing, perhaps developed from their family histories and practices. I now move onto another way of exploring the interrelationship of agency and structure in the lives of young people, by considering the cross-cutting historical, ethnic and cultural dimensions, of living that has been termed intersectionality [121].

4.3 Intersectionality theory

The concept of intersectionality refers to the interactivity of social identity structures or markers (race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, age and religion) in fostering life experiences [121]. British Yemeni young people are not only young (age), British (nationality) and Yemeni (ethnicity), but they are also of a different skin colour to others in Britain (race), have different socio-economic and class backgrounds (class), are mostly Muslims (religion) and have many other interconnecting social identity markers. The focus of intersectionality is on the interaction of multiple identities markers and how these may suggest possible experiences of exclusion and subordination [122], privilege and oppression [121], and in possibly addressing the fundamental and pervasive concern of difference and diversity [123]. I am not suggesting that British Yemenis are either privileged or oppressed, rather this wide spectrum entails some exploration of their experiences in relation to possible power structures that may have produced certain inequalities in their lives, both as individuals and as communities. British Yemenis are different from other groups in Britain, but also to each other, and this diversity may manifest in some specific, even subtle, forms of intersecting inequalities. Instead of the idea that inequalities result simply from the accumulation of independent risk factors, intersectionality enables an understanding of the multi-dimensional relationships, modalities of social relations and subject formations [124]. It is in the interaction of those inequalities that the distinctive dynamics at their multidimensional interface can be captured [125, 126].

There are different ways in which intersectionality has been used in research. Many studies have used it as a theory to explore social practices, institutional arrangements and cultural ideologies, and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power [122]. Other studies focus on its use in self-identification, social networks, religious affiliation, language, positive attitudes, endogamy and varied cultural traditions and practices [126]. For example, studies on different ethnic minorities in the United States showed that political attitudes are important in measuring Black identity, language is salient in Mexican-American culture, relational aspects of social identity in British studies [127] and cultural attitudes play a major role in Asian-American identity [128].

Intersectionality also addresses the dynamics within both dominant and oppressed groups, showing how each person is uniquely advantaged and disadvantaged within this matrix [129] and that the cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but also bound by interlocking social locations [123]. In this way, intersectionality can be used to explore how categories of different social structures within British Yemeni identity are intertwined and mutually constitutive [122, 126]. Although there is no consensus on how an intersectional analysis should be conducted [130, 131], there is flexibility and an open-ended methodology within this approach. This can include focus group discussions, narrative interviews, action research and observations—all with the central role of giving voice, elicited through such approaches.

4.4 Synthesis of ethnic heritage-related theories

Post-colonial theory and intersectionality enhance the understanding of how British Yemeni young people’s agency is influenced by their history and social identity structure. In comparison with the other more wide-ranging theories of identity highlighted in Table 1, their application may be more pertinent in exploring experiences of young people with an ethnic culture. However, this importance is in the context of their purpose as analytical tools, rather than a theoretical framework. This is because both post-colonialism and intersectionality, as theories, assume and give, perhaps, an imprecise perception of a fixed, static, essentialist view of who British Yemeni young people are and what they do, based on historical implication or social identity structures. In this doctoral research, I move away from the stagnant conceptualization of British Yemeni identity and argue that what needs unravelling goes beyond factors related to post-colonial theory, and social identity structures of age, race, ethnicity, etc.—it is more about their lived experiences, their living and becoming as they interact with the world around them. However, what post-colonialism and intersectionality might allow is the better appreciation of the nature of the conduct of everyday life.

Furthermore, post-colonial theory specifically relates to the effect of colonialism on British Yemeni young people because of the historical background and struggles of older generations. Although there has been some documentation of this [104, 105, 107, 132, 133] it cannot be assumed that all generations of Yemeni ethnic settlers experience cultural differences or injustice, for example. Moreover, the participants in this study are from first, second and third generations and so may not be as influenced by the historical implications of their parents and grandparents, as early settlers.

Similarly, consideration of various social identity structures, that are intertwined and mutually constitutive, may be highlighted when discussing British Yemeni young people’s family histories and practices. However, these social identity structures, even as intersection elements, cannot be fully used as a label or representation of what it means to be a British Yemeni young person. Linking to Said’s work [81] on the true representation of the ‘other’, intersectionality has also been shown to contain post-colonial theoretical perspectives [134]. In this research, I use the interactions implied by post-colonialism and intersectionality to further understand some of the reasons and implications of British Yemeni young people’s experiences, moving away from theorising British Yemeni young people’s identity and the feeling-of-knowing experiences. In doing this, I provide a representation of their experiences in their living and being, and as Spivak suggests [83], through their own words.

Having explored these identity theories that relate to understanding young people’s agency and structure, and those with ethnic heritage, and finding limitations in using these, a shift in thinking towards a different approach was needed—one that does not dwell on the abstracted realities of identity. One such approach is the exploration of personality. I now move to explore some of the traditional personality paradigms, as a different, yet related, approach to the study of young people’s agency, and suggest how these ideas may indicate ways of articulating young people’s experiences of everyday life.

5. Synthesis—personality

5.1 Personality scholarship

A prominent way of thinking about personality is to see it as a collection of complex and sophisticated entities one that refers to the dynamic integration of the totality of a person’s subjective experience and behaviour patterns [135]. From such a perspective personality includes conscious, concrete and habitual behaviour patterns, experiences of self and of the surrounding word, and unconscious behaviour patterns, experiences and views (including perception, cognition, memory) [21, 135]. The outcome is the coordination of multiple dispositions that are built upon habitual desires and fears, behaviour patterns and intentional states. Therefore, personality derives from the person’s capacity to experience subjective states that reflect the internal condition of the body as well as the perception of the external environment within which the body functions [136]. In other words, personality is a multi-level system that is perceived as an individual’s unique difference in people, expressed as a emerging pattern of dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations and self-defining life narratives, complexly and differentially located in culture and social context [137]. In this way, a person continues to shape and adapt to a changing internal and external environment [136].

Although definitions of personality vary in accordance with the theoretical perspective from which it is viewed, it can be generally defined by the type of person you are, shown by the way you behave, think, and feel³. Much mainstream psychological understandings see the person as surrounded by numerous inputs, which enter and are processed internally via the brain, releasing outputs in the form of behaviour, thoughts and emotions [138]—hence behave, think and feel in the definition. Furthermore, personality is historically based upon several different widely encompassing paradigms, rooted in different sources [139]. The interplay of the behaviour settings, behavioural rules or personality traits, and the individual pursuits are essential in understanding person-environment transactions. Furthermore, the distinctive behavioural personality signature of a person may happen at different settings and situations.

I focus on personality psychology as a means of understanding young people’s agency. Personality psychology has been systematically studied since the 1930s [140, 141, 142, 143], and can be traced back in its ancestry to the ancient Greeks and Roman physicians and philosophers [144]. Historically, personality appears as a specified term with the aim of achieving a scientific understanding of individuality [145]. Many theories have been verbalised to enable the understanding of the complexity of personality—some suggest that it is biological and conceived to have genetic as well as environmental origins, others include a social dimension, and the impact of social forces on the growing person, while others view it as related to clinical aspects of personality studies, examining people who have suffered adaptive and adjustive failures. These different viewpoints are provided in Table 2, focusing on the different encompassing paradigms in this field.

Personality paradigms	Key studies on the paradigm
Biochemical theory	Temperaments are regarded as inborn biologically based, psychological tendencies that underlie individual differences in personality with intrinsic paths of development [146]. Personality development corresponds to four temperaments associated with variations: blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholic), yellow bile (choleric) and phlegm (phlegmatic) [144]. This theory has survived, and its application is valid, in some form, for more than 2500 years [147].
Psychoanalytic approach	Focus is on the unconscious mind, and involves empirical research [148] and Freud’s psychoanalytic models of cognition in terms of behaviour and consciousness [149].
Personality Trait	Describes personality traits [150]—numerically—as orthogonal phenomena [151], and as universal individual behaviour within the person-situation debate [152]. Personality traits focuses on the effect of the situation against the effect of the person on behaviour [153]. This has led to the arrival of the ‘big five’ personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience (or culture) [154]. There is also a chaotic plethora of personality constructs with different labels that have similar meaning to this and an example of such is the study on factors (including a combination of introversion, extraversion, emotional stability and self-determinism) which may determine personality traits [155].
Biological approach	Focuses on the nervous system’s association with personality traits. Examples include linking the amygdala to aggression and certain types of emotionality [156], the hormone testosterone in to sociability and positive affectivity as well as aggressiveness and sexuality [157] and the neurotransmitter serotonin to regulation[158]. In addition, the influence of behavioural genetics on personality in twin studies has been documented [159, 160] the influence of family in children personality related outcomes and understanding the distal rather than proximal causes of behaviour [161].
Evolutionary psychology	Focuses on the possibility that behavioural patterns are human nature in itself, considering the evolutionary history environment and adaptation [162]. This paradigm faces criticism from sexuality studies [163], and behavioural phenomena [164].
Behaviourist approach	Views behaviour exclusively as a function of environmentally imposed reinforcement contingencies, removing unobserved mediators such as memories, perceptions and thoughts. This provides many restrictions in the study of social learning [165], and social cognition [166], as well as the cognitive-affective personality system [167].
Social-cognitive approach	Derived from behaviourist paradigm, this focuses on cognitive processes (perception and memory). Literature includes work on self-comparison [168], relational schemas [169], cognitive-affective processing system [170] and a person’s fundamental worldview (incremental versus entity), goal orientation (learning versus performance) and behavioural pattern in response to failure (proficiency versus helplessness) [171].
Humanistic approach	Holds scientific values, and looks at the human being phenomenologically, through the understanding experience of reality [172], and so is useful when examining people of different cultures [173].

Table 2.

Some of the traditional personality paradigms.

These paradigms—in Table 2—are some of the important concepts in understanding personality, which provide some suggestions and insights into young people’s agency. I now evaluate some of these personality paradigms within the context of the lived lives of British Yemeni young people.

5.2 Synthesis of personality scholarship

Understanding British Yemeni young people’s evolving personality is, I would argue, imperative in the exploration of lived daily experiences. This is because it allows researchers to get a sense of how people’s characteristics develop, change and impact their lived realities. I argue that studying personality in paradigms, such as those discussed in Table 2, looks at individualised outcome, rather than the process of understanding experiences in their totality, and so only partially provides direction in the study of young people’s agency and lived experiences. This is because such ideas focus on individualised narrated accounts about the self, which I feel is inadequate for the focus of the research, as such, ideas underemphasise the person in their concrete relational actions in systems of activity. Human personality also matures and evolves through lived experiences [174] and so understanding the person as a unique, whole individual requires bringing together different and distinct approaches that focus on a non-essentialisation of that person, and with the passage of time.

For example, personality traits are useful in reflecting the tendency for a person to respond in certain ways under certain point in time, but it does fully consider the social context or arrangements in which these circumstances occur or how they might change, and so cannot truly account for the overall and evolving personality of a person. Other personality paradigms rely on memory of past histories and perception, and although this is not necessarily an issue, the past that is written in the present or informed by the present and the near future may be interpreted in a way that may not give a representation intended by the narrator. It also depends on the assumption that people may relate stories that are expected of them or try and ‘fill in the gaps’ in their stories by answering questions that relate to the paradigms discussed. Other paradigms consider a person as an agent with the ability to make and choose appropriate plans that allow them to live their daily lives with values and virtues (mental, emotional and behavioural) significant to them and others around them. Although this may be true, it does not consider the societal pressure, the cultural expectations or the heterogeneity of people in their social environments; one’s values and valued capabilities are not inherently in-built, rather they are learned through relational and cultural activity.

In framing this research, I am therefore opposed to using the personality paradigms mentioned in Table 2 in articulating experiences and so direct my attention in a different path, one that focuses on personality as an evolving phenomenon that can be understood in the context of everyday living and being. This is where the concept of the conduct of everyday life becomes a useful tool.

Having discussed the limitations of articulating experiences through certain identity approaches and traditional personality paradigm—and the notion that they all too easily provide a rather fixed, static, essentialist view of who British Yemeni young people are, and what they do—I now move on to discussing how best to explore the actions and activities of people through the concept of the conduct of everyday life. I discuss why the conduct of everyday life has been chosen as a theoretical framework and why it provides a more concrete way of understanding personality and articulating lived experiences of British Yemeni young people.

6. Human experience scholarship

6.1 The conduct of everyday life

The conduct of everyday life explores the primacy of researching human actions in the contradictory and intersubjective context of everyday life [68, 175]. The concept opposes testing subjects against abstract a priori theories that fail to grasp the centrality of life as lived and living. Agency is seen as inseparable from the plurality of life contexts and one’s individual conduct is in constant functional ordination with others [68]. This is one of the main reasons for using the conduct of everyday life in this doctoral research. As explained in the introduction section of this chapter, the focus is on understanding British Yemeni young people’s experiences that privilege the relational nexus between the subject and the world.

Human experience and activity have been studied extensively, but the question of how and why one might conduct one’s life has only recently started to receive attention [176]. Studying the conduct of everyday life is multi-disciplinary and the concept can be used in various areas including child development across different institutional settings in learning and education [177, 178], therapy [179, 180], family conduct [181], in studying crisis, conflict and contradictory situations [182, 183, 184, 185, 186], homelessness [187] and different fields in sociology [188, 189], people. These different areas of study show the diversity in using the conduct of everyday life to examine how people live as active subjects within the contexts of their daily lives, recognising the dilemmas and contradictions people face in contemporary society [190].

The conceptual relevance of exploring everyday activities of individuals enables the organisation, integration and sense-making of the multiplicity of social relations and contradictory demands in and across engagements in different contexts [191, 192]. The concept considers how people collaboratively produce and reproduce their life through daily activities, habits, routines and personal arrangements of things and social relations. It directs attention to the social conditions in and with which people act, participate, and live their everyday life and incorporates the question of how people are subjected to socio-material dispositions of power, knowledge and discourse.

The focus in the study of everyday life is in activities, situated in and across a multiplicity of spaces and context [193]. These activities are the sum total of relations, which together build up an articulation of the human experience [194]. Human activity is systematically centred around the lived experiences, agency and efforts of living and being. In studying the conduct of everyday life, I turn towards exploring how psychological phenomena and problems are given content that relates to the holistic exploration of lived experiences. In this way, I show how the concept of the conduct of everyday life opens avenues to overcome the abstract individualism of psychology that encloses subjects in isolated psychological special functions. The concept also contributes to ‘a psychological epistemology, grasping the richness, complexity and connectedness of psychological phenomena as well as the interrelations between human subjects and the world’ ([191], p. 3). An individual cannot be studied in isolation, as there is a constant relationship between the individual and the society, and so is ‘co-created through the fabric of the societal world’ [191].

The choice to study the conduct of everyday life in this research is supported by the current changes in society in terms of patterns of social living, migration, globalisation, financial situations, international conflict and increasing individualism [192]. There is a greater social and cultural heterogeneity and complexity in today’s times and so a variety of problems are continuously emerging. A current example is the struggles and difficulties in the recent Covid pandemic of 2019–2021. Recent literature on living in a world with Covid [195, 196, 197, 198] shows some of the challenges people have encountered in organising and conducting their daily lives and how the period brought changes for society, significantly disrupting everyday life, albeit at different levels in different regions of the world. Such changes invite psychological studies to understand how people confront and experience local changes, in the conduct of their everyday living and being. Furthermore, looking at the conduct of everyday lives enables researchers to explore how people go through different trajectories and shifts, in relation to the social systems [199], while at the same time taking the historical, cultural, local and global conditions of living and being [200]. The conduct of everyday life also offers possibilities for collective work on the resolution of social conflicts [8, 68, 190, 201] and enables researchers to develop models or frameworks catered towards the nature and context of specific research.

There are many approaches to studying the practical applications of the conduct of everyday life. One such example is the Day Reconstruction Method [202]. This method assesses how people experience the various activities and settings of their lives, by systematically reconstructing their activities and experiences of the preceding day, studying the person-behaviour-situation in a time sequence. Kahneman et al.’s work [202] focused on the activities and circumstances of working mothers over a full day. The participants were asked to construct a diary consisting of a sequence of episodes, revived from memories of the previous day. This was then grouped by activity or by interaction with others. They were then asked to describe each episode by answering questions about the situation and about the feelings that they experienced. This method allows the capturing of the impact of a situation on a person, and its location in the sequence of situations and activities across the day. Diaries were used to record daily experiences. The Day Reconstruction Method, however, poses some challenges. Firstly, it does not consider the impact that social arrangements may have on how people live their daily lives [8]. Secondly, it does not consider changes with time, the development of habits (perhaps through repeated actions) and the effects of other possible incidents. Thirdly, it reduced situations to behaviour, discounting how events and interpersonal relations were affected by the settings and the interplay between personality, situational and behavioural factors [203]. As a result, the understanding of the relation between behaviour, situation and person is limited and to some extent misrepresented [8].

Other methods have also been used to translate the concept of everyday life from theory into practice. Examples include Ingold’s work on the maze and the labyrinth as alternative models of education [177], Hojholt’s work on the ethnographic methodology on children’s problems in school and their situated behaviour to understand conflictual social interplay between persons in social practice [204] and Hodgetts and colleagues’ work on the ordinary as well as the extraordinary in the lives and struggles of homeless people [187]. Such studies provide an extensive description of studying the conduct of everyday life by giving primacy to actions. Although these approaches and methodologies are prodigious and provide a broad approach for the study of the conduct of everyday life, I looked for an approach that works with the participants in my research, I explored the literature on personality and identity, one that uses the concept of the day life, thereby avoiding essentialisation and one that is also manageable within the time frame of the study. Such an approach is Dreier’s [8] theory of a person. I argue that this theory explores human psychological functioning, as conceptualised in relation to the overall structural nexus of social practice, and it considers the characterisation of individuals in terms of their stable and distinctive qualities, as well as the processes that cause these rationalities.

6.1.1 Dreier’s theory of a person

Dreier’s theory of a person [8] provides a comprehensive person-situation-activity approach to understanding personality and/or personhood. I use these terms interchangeable to mean the status of being a person that experiences life and is continuously changing and evolving with time. The theory emphasis is on actions and activities of a person across a day, throughout different settings and at different times. In this way, it examines the relationship between lived activity in those different social contexts, and the person’s configuration of those strands of activity, which knot-together and give a sense of the person. As a person moves and engages with different social contexts in their daily life, they also act in specific ways as they experience day to day events and living. Such understanding enables a critique of both psychologised trait-based notions and constructivist notions of personality. Using the theory of a person, I examine how people express themselves through their activities and actions, emphasising how these diverse processes evolve and become integrated to give each person a distinctive evolving personality or personhood.

Activities are affected by their social arrangements and practices, within different social contexts of which the person is a part. Dreier’s theory of a person examines how a person is studied as existing in movement across time and contexts, and in several situations, as part of the social contexts and practices that take place [8]. Persons associate different concerns, purposes and histories with such different activities, relations, practices and contexts. The meaning and course of events and situations are also affected by the context and arrangements in which they occur. In this way, a person goes through life contributing to re-producing their social conditions. They also develop by expanding the degree to which they take part in having these conditions at their commands [199]. Therefore, a person is viewed as a participant involved in personal trajectories in relation to structural arrangements of social practices [199]. He/she is also theorised from the standpoint of the subject in his/her immediate life situation vis-à-vis an overall social structure [205].

Dreier’s theory of a person focuses on three main areas: (1) order and arrangement; (2) situated participation and movement, (3) and—when coordinated, conducted and accomplished, considering the complexity of everyday life, offers insight into the conduct of everyday life. Each of these areas is interlinked, further elaborated and collectively constitute the theory of a person. Figure 2 shows my interpretation of the theory of a person in relation to each of these strands.

Figure 2.

Dreier’s theory of a person.

6.1.2 Applying Drier’s theory of a person

I now elaborate my understanding of each of these strands, relating it to the context of my research of British Yemeni young people’s experiences. Having extensively read and re-read Dreier’s paper on personality and the conduct of everyday life [8], I extracted some further key elements (shown here in italics) from these three main strands (bolded and italicised). These key elements became the advanced codes for analysis and thus the application of the theory of a person to the narratives of my participants.

6.1.2.1 Order and arrangement

A person is viewed as being part of a society with a certain order and arrangement of social practices; these are the diverse social contexts, or places, that make up the spatial dimensions of their everyday life. These are separate from each other, yet also linked to other social contexts in particular ways which channel how social practices may be pursued across them.

To participate in social practices within those social contexts, there are particular concerns, demands and responsibilities for a person. The activities of persons and the relations between persons are part of these social practices. Social practices may manifest in activities that hold purpose and meaning for the individual and can be derived from family histories and practices, as well as a person’s other practices, such as work or studies. Family histories and practices can also highlight the extent to which theories such as post-colonialism and intersectionality contribute to the social practices of British Yemeni young people. Social practices take place in particular social contexts and are affected by their social arrangements.

The arrangement of social context defines who counts as a legitimate participant, the particular social positions in which a person takes part, and the arrangements for when a person may shift to another position in that context or participate in other parts of its social practices. This arrangement of the day in time (and over time) and in establishing some sort of order as to when a person may or must participate in a particular social context. As a person moves across social contexts, they prioritise their time and order their efforts, activities and commitments, learning to cope with living a complex everyday life. The order and time in which a person arranges their social practices, in social context, and with different relations establishes a structure in a person’s daily life. This may introduce rhythms or activities and certain shifts, breaks and inner tensions during everyday activities.

6.1.2.2 Situated participation and movement

People carry out a sequence of activities that become habits of activities. The activities and experiences are part of their relations with others which depend on and hang together in social practices. A person’s agency is also deeply entrenched in the social practices they engage in, and so a person is seen as participating in different situations and movements. In these situations, a person associates particular concerns with particular social contexts and has particular things at stake in them. They also pay attention to particular things, gather particular experiences, are in and nurture particular states of mind, and reflect on their lives in particular ways [8]. As soon as they move into other social contexts, they encounter other arrangements, positions, relations and co-participants, where they have other concerns and other things at stake, and so their participation takes on other meanings. Activities are also situated in a location from where their perspectives of experience and their activities reach out into the world. They also change as a person encounters other changes in situation and because of reflections.

6.1.2.3 The conduct of everyday life

A person conducts their own life through the structure they have in place—their order and arrangements as well as their situated participation and movement. The conduct of everyday life here is a characteristic individual way of living, an accomplishment of effectively managing and coordinating the diverse activities and commitment in many social contexts and relations. It is a ‘deeply personal endeavour… a personal arrangement in relation to the social arrangement of everyday life’ ([8], p. 12). Coordination is in routines and habits that introduce a degree of ordinariness. However, changes to routines are also manifested in individual differences in the ways in which persons prefer to conduct their everyday lives. The hope is that one will reach a personally necessary and desired balance of activities and commitments across contexts and days. By establishing a conduct of everyday life, a person’s life becomes marked by their commitments to others [206]. A person also develops their personal conduct of everyday life by learning new skills and understanding that helps the person get through transitions in relation to shifts and breaks in their everyday activities, relations, situations and social contexts. Some of these shifts may be particularly intense and complicated when persons are affected by sudden, disruptive events and these change the perspective of experiences as well as the habits formed.

As shown in Figure 3, the conduct of everyday life expresses a synthesis of the areas within order and arrangement, and participation and movement. It emphasises the sociality of human subjectivity, showing a person being the social subject in their psychological processes. From this perspective, the individual has a first-person perspective of their real-life situation as well as its mediation through all-embracing social structures that are very much interconnected and intertwined and that permeate in the context of the conduct of the everyday life and living.

Figure 3.

Developed approach in the study of young people’s experiences.

In summary, the theory of person addresses phenomena that pose questions regarding what it means to be a person, producing a theoretical proposal that examines how the order of everyday lives affects the functioning of a person [8]. Although the theory was developed based on Dreier’s theoretically motivated studies of psychological interventions in relation to psychotherapy [179] and learning [207], it can be applied to other fields of research. Arguing in favour of a more ecologically valid approach to theorising personality, and by enabling the study of the subjective dimensions of person-situation-activity, Dreier’s theory offers a way of linking research on personality with research on the social processes whereby persons conduct their everyday lives. The theory presents how the conduct of everyday life—a mediating category between individual subjects and societal structures [8]—plays a central role in understanding lived experiences.

Dreier’s theory of a person focuses on studying human behaviour in the context of the conduct of everyday life and in this doctoral research I employ a deductive-inductive approach to data analysis using Dreier’s theory as the basis of my conceptual model. This approach is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4.

A deductive-inductive approach to understanding the experiences of British Yemeni young people.

I argue that such approach allows a more inclusive exploration of British Yemeni young people’s agency and structure.

6.2 Personhood in practice

Personhood in practice [208] as a concept relates to building and changes in habits. The building and configuring of habits relates to both incremental learning processes (habit development and adaptation) and development shifts (habit reconfiguration), as the individual actively engages across and within different social and cultural contexts. Learning processes and development shifts (adaptive habits or habits reflexively configured) are understood in this context as meaning—operationalised through actions associated with challenges of everyday living. Studying habits within the context of learning and development in people’s evolving actions and activities is paramount to understanding the experiences of the young people in this research. It is in the continuity of experiencing that learning and development is bought about. Roth’s understanding of development involves the idea that experience is not only cumulative-quantitative changes in habits but can also be transformative qualitative changes in behaviour [208]. This is explored elsewhere in my writing.

7. Linking theoretical ideas

Having explored some of the prominent work of identity and personality as a means of understanding young people’s agency, as well as settling on the conduct of everyday life in the theory of a person as a conceptual framework for such understanding, I now connect these overlapping yet distinct constructs, positioning post-colonialism and intersectionality within such synthesis. The link between identity and personality is an extensive and ongoing discussion [209] and covers different fields of research. In my review of the literature in and around identity and personality, there appear, at first sight, to be little in terms of an overlap between the thinking and major traditions of these concepts. Through a focus on the activities and daily actions of people, in the context of the conduct of everyday life, I show how, in using life histories and narratives, a link can be established. This enables a focused understanding of personality, which in turn reflects identity in a way that provides a comprehensive way of understanding lived experiences of British Yemeni young people.

In other words, to understand British Yemeni young people’s experiences, one must begin with the young person’s narrative, his/her story, but in a way that does not ask about the essentialising ways of and thinking about young people—as either individualised singular products of traits, or part of a pre-determined set of interactions with society. Instead, the focus should be in asking about the activities and actions of the young person, and how this is configured through an evolving set of experiences in the conduct of everyday life. In this way, both aspects of the homogeneity and heterogeneity of being a British Yemeni young person—that relate to the way the person conducts his/her life—are presented.

This change in thinking and questioning was very much inspired and provoked by a pilot study (on five British Yemeni young people), from my own reflections of my personal experiences and through conversations and discussions with my supervisors and other academics. It became apparent that an overemphasis on particular mainstream view of identity and personality did not seem to reconcile themselves too readily with regard to what people do, and how and why they do what they do. There is also an extra dimension that is potentially underemphasised in examining social identity structures, the heritage of young people that relates to their cultural, historic positioning, the issues of colonialism and the use of power, and defining how they are connected in terms of the identity of nations, but also the young people and their family’s position in the context of dominant culture. Using a life stories and narrative approach [210] allows the connections between these ideas to develop. The proposal here is to let the story speak for the young person, and so present an evolving sense of their personality and identity over time developed with others in particular social fields of experience that relate to elements of the culture and social contexts.

Life histories and narratives approaches were explored earlier in this chapter as a theory for understanding identity, and I appreciate its relevance here. However, I use this as a methodological approach as it serves a more functional practical role in application for an insight into experiences [77]. In contrast to the other theories explored in Tables 1 and 2, narratives, or stories of experiences, emphasise an individual life lived [211], giving information on identity and personality in terms of the complex and contextual ways in which identity development, symbols, traits and characteristic adaptations (and so forth) manifest. Because identity is a much more specific aspect of the self, and involves conscious awareness, change or situational variability, it is in the narrative of the young people’s experiences in the conduct of everyday life that integrates personality, development, agency and structure [212], and in which identity can be truly understood. Stories also allow for a feeling of coherence across time and place, providing a sense of purpose and meaning. Such stories change and evolve as lived experiences occur [210], and this also encourages using a longitudinal approach in this research.

This approach of starting with the narrative or story of activities and actions is what I adopt in this research and is depicted in Figure 3.

As shown in Figure 3, through using life history and narrative approaches to explore actions of British Yemeni young people, the conduct of everyday life (using Dreier’s theory of a person) provides a representation of the young person’s personality, which in turn reflects their identity. This does not mean that I completely disregard the ideas of the identity theories, but only explore them if there is a reference to them in the young persons’ narrative. In other words, in analysing the young people’s narratives of their activities, the implications of traditional identity theories and personality paradigms may be discussed, but only in relation to such activities.

This shift in thinking resulted in devising a set of possible questions that can be countered in the analysis of the narrative. Examples of such questions include the following: What do the narratives say about personality traits, characteristic adaptation and other traditional personality paradigms? Does the narrative produce a comparison between cultures? What does the narrative say about the effect of technology and/or consumerism? In the narratives, are there any symbols or language that developed in social interactions with which the young people associate and interact? These questions can only be applied in the analysis stage of the research once all data was compiled. Furthermore, questions on how the narrative represents the young person in relation to direct (or indirect) influences of post-colonialism or whether they reveal any forms of inequalities due to different social identity structures can be further studied. It is through these narratives that these questions can be explored within the context of identity and personality but only within the narrative of the young people. This is an alternative way of exploring lived experiences of British Yemeni Young people which perhaps connects more present theories within identity, post-colonialism and intersectionality, and personality.

Specific daily narrative experiences are not only contextualised in time and context, but they also reveal life story constructs that the young person uses to make meaning of their past experiences. It also provides a feeling of personal continuity that gives a sense of their life story [210]. The focus is on how individuals make an integrative meaning of their lives, and these may provide meaning that exhibit different mentalities in accordance with their contexts. In using case studies as a methodology, I offer a rich, contextualised detail of the cultural representation of young people. I focus on how young people make sense of their lives through emphasis on narratives that integrate past and present experiences, with some attention to the future. Although this is best done in an autobiographical way (as done in [213, 214, 215]), longitudinal case studies of stories of some daily activities can also provide substantial amounts of information on the lived lives of my participants, as well as how young people make sense of small slices of their lives. Through such a narrative, I capture life as lived, showing how people continue to build their personality through the actions and thought processes that happen and are shown through their everyday conduct and experiences as they live it, day by day. In this way, personality is studied through situated, daily actions of the person.

8. Case study of British Yemeni young people

The experiences of six British Yemeni young people—in the actions they do in their daily lives—have been explored using the research approach and design, illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5.

A summary of the research approach and design.

Case studies [216] are used to explore the conduct of everyday life in real-life settings, focusing particularly on the experiences of six British Yemeni young people, as six different cases. Firstly, I examine each case on its own, used content directed approach for analysis of each case and then explore the main themes found in the six cases using thematic analysis. I then used narrative approaches to report the research findings. By focusing on the developed conceptual framework, I refrain from essentializing what British Yemeni young people are and do and avoid generalising their experiences as much as possible. However, in engaging with some of the nuance of their lived experiences, the cultural and social arrangements of experiences, inevitably, reflect a broad picture of British Yemeni subcultures and groups. I show in my findings how this illustrates some of the evolved identities and personality, and how these trajectories are suggestive of British Yemenis young people’s biographies, in their both homogeneity and heterogeneity.

The empirical study is presented more fully in subsequent chapters of my thesis¹. However, I will summarise here the empirical findings of my research.

8.1 Finding 1

The conduct of everyday life incorporates the theoretical ideas into practical application by studying the psychological processes of experiences, focusing on activities and action, within the social and material contexts of their everyday living [176]. Going beyond psychological theory and research, the young people’s collective participation in everyday practice and their efforts to handle the conditions, relations, concerns and struggles in life are explored in a manner that articulates their subjective experience and participations in and across different social contexts in the fabric of everyday life. This makes it ideal in studying the types of everyday experiences British Yemeni young people have.

8.2 Findings 2

The conduct of everyday life also considers how people make and live their everyday life in the patterns of daily activities, routines and personal arrangements of things and social relations. This makes it useful in exploring the different forms of learning and development British Yemeni young people experience over time. With additional ideas from Roth in personhood in practice [217], changes to everyday living explore learning in ways that inform cumulative-quantitative shifts in how a young person sees their doing, as well as through transformative-qualitative changes in personhood.

8.3 Findings 3

Considering the ethnic, historical and cultural dimensions of my participants, the conduct of everyday life, with supporting ideas from intersectionality and post-colonialism, also directs attention to the social conditions in which people participate and live their everyday life and includes the question of how people are subjected to socio-material dispositions of power, knowledge and discourse. This enables an understanding of the evolving social and cultural personhood of British Yemeni young people.

8.4 Findings 4

The conduct of everyday life is a key concept for understanding British Yemeni young people’s active efforts in conducting and organising their day-to-day activities, that is also suggestive of their overall evolving biography. Research on the conduct of life provides details on how British Yemeni young people, both as individuals and as a collective community, are involved and subjected to the powers, forces and complexities of their daily experiences. Based on such analysis and thinking, my cumulative understanding of my research findings suggests that British Yemeni young people are young people first, and yet their lives are infused by cultural hybridity as second. Although there are emerging themes of body image, language, home, food and religion [15] that display the cultural hybridity of the young people, their age implies that they are young people first. The evidence and theorisation of the cases here suggest that it is in that (interconnected) order that one can understand and articulate the young people’s experiences.

9. Conclusion

This chapter presents a conceptual and methodological approach for understanding British Yemeni young people’s agency and associated and interconnected sets of structure and cultures. This framework is distinctive for two main reasons. Firstly, the framework consists of a multi-dimensional focus, whereby it considers various paradigms of personal and social identity, agency, reflexivity, personality, personhood and the conduct of everyday life. Previous literature has focused on articulating experiences through developing an understanding of identity formation [31, 32, 41], including Côté’s ideas of youth identity [12, 40], Crenshaw and Mccall’s positioning on intersectionality and the interactivity of social structures [125, 218], and Bhabha’s exploration on influences of post-colonial theory in the location of culture [84]. Although these are valuable, I have developed a conceptual framework that integrates these theories, focusing primarily on personality, personhood and the conduct of everyday life. Particularly, I use Dreier’s theory of a person [8]—in what British Yemeni young people do what they do and why they do it—and Roth’s understanding of personhood in practice [208]—in the learning and development within the context of continuity of experience—to assemble a framework that enables the interlinking between agency and structure, which is suggestive of a person’s evolving personality, and reflects their practiced identity. This is important because it avoids essentialising people based on their social identity structures and instead declares that it is the conduct of their everyday life that enunciates what it means to be a British Yemeni young person.

Secondly, the approach developed focuses on activity and action, consolidating other studies of the conduct of everyday life [68], but with a focus on an ethnic minority group in Britain. This opens up the study of the conduct of life to additional critical analyses of embodiment. Such work compliments and extends studies, in this epistemic field by examining the dynamics and interactions between self and society where human subjectivities are a reflection of, but not determined by, the social and cultural arrangements. In fact, the subjectivities of young people in this study recognise how individuals relate to and potentially change the social arrangements of society through a hybridity of evolving actions, habits, reconfigurations and forms of reflexivity.

I show how, in applying combinations of these theories and ideas to British Yemeni young people, a deeper sense of understanding their cultural, historical and social-embedded experiences is possible. This gives us a sense of who they are, taking together their views and perspectives of a person and their environment in the context of their lived lives.

Additional information

Parts of this chapter were previously published as a doctoral thesis by the same author: “The experiences of British Yemeni young people in the context of the conduct of everyday life” Ahmed, H. (Author). 1 Aug 2023 Student thesis: Phd”.