Narratives of belonging (and not): Inter-group contact in Israel and the formation of ethno-national identity claims

• Encounters between Jewish and Palestinian citizens shape ethno-national identity claims.
• Life history interviews illustrate maintenance of identity change over time.
• Types of claims differ based on encounter organization and location, and ethno-national group.

Inter-group encounters have been used for decades as a means of ameliorating relationships between Jews and Palestinians in Israel. A central focus of much of the scholarship on such encounter programs has been their potential to shape beliefs and behaviors of participants. Despite the centrality of identity to this and other intractable conflicts, however, relatively little literature has focused on the way that encounters create conditions for identity change or how this change is maintained over time. The present study makes an initial attempt to address these limitations by focusing on identity claims of former participants in two Israeli encounter programs as they are narrated in years and decades following program participation. Using life history interviews and a reconstructive analytic approach, it explores the way that former participants narrate identity claims in relation to dominant ethno-national narratives in Israeli society, and with reference to the encounter programs in which they participated. These identity claims are defined according to four patterns: (1) expansion, or limited openness to the out-group narrative; (2) accentuation, greater identification with the in-group narrative; (3) ambiguity, defined as a difficulty in integrating perspectives that do not align with the collective narrative into personal narratives; and (4) transformation, characterized by an ability to perceive structural injustices systemically and an openness to in-group critique. Findings suggest that ethno-national group, type of encounter, and location of encounter implementation may potentially shape the possibilities for identity change among encounter participants.