Michael Bamberg is Professor of Psychology at Clark University, USA, and the 2021–22 President of the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (APA Division 5). During 2020 he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. Carolin Demuth is Associate Professor for Cultural and Developmental Psychology and co-director of the Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. She is also the 2021-2024 President of the Association for European Qualitative Researchers in Psychology (EQuiP) and Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychology: Cultural Psychology. Meike Watzlawik is Professor for Development, Education, and Culture at Sigmund Freud University in Berlin, Germany, where she is also the Head of the Psychology Department and leads the clinical master program. She is a Humboldt Fellow and the editor of several books, such as Capturing Identity and Educating Adolescents around the Globe.

'This handbook represents an important milestone in advancing an interdisciplinary understanding of identity. The chapters offer an accessible understanding of how people across cultures form an identity, how identity remains constant or changes over time, and how societal discourses shape subjectivity. This remarkable volume introduces a diverse array of perspectives, articulating the conceptual and methodological challenges facing identity studies.' Sunil Bhatia, Professor of Human Development and Chair of the Human Development Department, Connecticut College, USA

• 1. Identity – with or without you? Perspectives and choices guiding this handbook Meike Watzlawik, Carolin Demuth and Michael Bamberg; Part I. The origin and development of the concept of identity: 2. Decentering histories of identity Michael Bamberg and Martin Dege; 3. Challenges in research on self-identity Sue Widdicombe and Cristina Marinho; 4. The mystery of identity: fundamental questions, elusive answers Mark Freeman; Part II. New perspectives and challenges: 5. A moral perspective: Identity as self-interpretation Svend Brinkmann; 6. Researching identities as affective discursive practices Octavia Calder-Dawe and Maree Martinussen; 7. The negotiation of continuity and change of Mapuche women weavers in Chile and its implication for (non-eurocentric) identity research Ramiro Gonzalez Rial and Danilo Silva Guimarães; 8. Identity and voices – a language dialogical take Marie-Cécile Bertau; 9. Psychoanalytic perspectives on identity: From ego to life narrative Tilmann Habermas and Nina Kemper; 10. Erikson, the identity statuses and beyond Jane Kroger and James E. Marcia; Part III. Methodological approaches: 11. A narrative practice approach to identities: Small stories and positioning analysis in digital contexts Korna Giaxoglou and Alexandra Georgakopoulou; 12. Conversation analysis and ethnomethodology: Identity at stake in a kinship carers' support group Julie Wilkes and Susan A. Speer; 13. Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis Sarah Riley, Martine Robson and Adrienne Evans; 14. A methodology to examine identity: Multimodal (inter)action analysis Sigrid Norris and Tui Matelau-Doherty; 15. Autoethnography Keith Berry; 16. A sociocultural approach to identity through diary studies Tania Zittoun and Alex Gillespie; 17. Positioning microanalysis: A method for the study of dynamics in the dialogical self and identity Tania Zittoun and Alex Gillespie; 18. Synthesized or confused field? A Critical analysis of the state-of-the-art in identity status research methods Oana Negru-Subtirica and Theo Klimstra; 19. Criminals' narrative identity Donna Youngs, David Rowlands and David Cante; 20. Experimentation within the social identity approach: History, highlights, and hurdles Lucas B. Mazur; Part IV.Current domains: 21. Clinical psychology: Autistic identities Alessandra Fasulo; 22. Gerontopsychology: Dementia and identity Lars-Christer Hydén; 23. The study of identity in health psychology Abigail Locke and Jane Montague; 24. Identity scholarship in educational psychology: Towards a complex dynamic systems perspective Avi Kaplan, Hanoch Flum, Ishwar Bridgelal and Joanna K. Garner; 25. Political psychology: Identity development in a traumatic environment David Becker; 26. Organisational psychology: When, why and how is identity work (less) important in organisational life? Stefan Sveningsson, Susann Gjerde and Mats Alvesson; 27. Conceptualizing the multiple levels of identity and intersectionality Leoandra Onnie Rogers and Moin Syed; Part V. Conclusion: 28. Where is identity? Reflections on identity conceptualizations, dimensions, and implications Carolin Demuth and Meike Watzlawik.