ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 examines the construction of identity within social movement texts, specifically as a collective phenomenon. Movement texts encourage individuals to align their own sense of identity with that of a larger political collective. In turn, this collective identity provides a shared vocabulary of values and discourse upon which movement participants can draw. Civil rights autobiographies, labor songs, and the various texts of the Occupy Wall Street movement each provide different understandings of how collective identity is built and maintained.
