Who we become depends on the company we keep and on what we do and say together

In this commentary, I focus on the construction of identity and the important role of discoursing in this process. Rather than being ‘influenced’ by external institutions, I argue, we form our identities by participating in the practices and discourses of many institutions and communities, appropriating their norms and values and, at the same time, transforming them in the light of those that we have appropriated from other communities. Identity construction can thus be seen as ongoing and as occurring preeminently in the situated actions and discourses in which we engage with particular others; these events mediate the mutually constitutive relationship between individual and society.