Relations of Meaning and Relations of Membership

Abstract

If various forms of social identity are created through style, then any analysis of stylistic elements will describe some form of group mobilization through the use of particular stylistic elements or groups of elements. Style at this level is embedded in the first two of Stewart Clegg’s (1989) circuits of power: mobilizing relations of meaning and relations of membership. Relations of meaning incorporate a group through shared concepts of identity; relations of membership establish the boundaries of the group and negotiate the processes of inclusion and exclusion.