Identity, emotion and resistance

Identity, emotion and resistance

1. Work as a source of identity

   • Three domains of identity: self-identity, social identity, persona (how we project ourselves to the world)
   • Five aspects of social identity:
     • Social category: race, gender, nationality, ethincity
     • Formal role: doctor, cleaner, teacher
     • Local or oganisational: King's student, geordie
     • Local personal/situational: life and soul of office party
     • Cultural stereotypical: 'boring' accountant, 'mad' professor
   • Identity work: efforts to shape a coherent and distinctive personal/social identity. People form, manage and repair identities through identity work. Identity work done in dialogue with others: 'making' ourselves'. Can resist/reject social identities other apply to us
     • Narrative also constructs identities and sense of self
       • Stories also play a central role in forming expectations of gender roles, individuals seek to portray themselves positively
       • Narrative 'levels'
         • Level 1: culture and society - national, global discourses, social identities (myths)
         • Level 2: organisations, families, groups - local discourses and identities (organisational legends, family sagas)
         • Level 3: self - identity work (life stories)

2. Theories of identity

   • Social identity theory
     • Person's sense of who they are based on their group memberships. Tajfe (1979) proposed that the groups (eg, social class, family) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem.
       • Stereotyping and distortion, categorisation to help handle complex info
         • Critiques: does not examine cultural variations, ignores inequality and power, does not account for shifting identities
   • Foucauldian perspectives
     • The self is defined a continuing discourse in a shifting communication of oneself to others
       • Techniques of the self: ways individuals act upon themselves to produce particular modes of identity and sexuality
         • These 'technologies' include methods of self-contemplation, self-disclosure and self-discipline. The way in which individuals work their way into discourse
           • Critiques: overemphasis on vulnerability, neglect of capitalist context
   • Symbolic interactionism
     • The view of social behaviour that emphasises linguistic or gestural communication and its subjective understanding, especially the role of language in the formation of the child as a social being.
       • sense of self constructed through interaction with others
         • internalisation of identity arising from internalised understandings and expectations of others

3. Emotional and aesthetic labour

   • Emotions at work
     • Weber: in bureaucracies 'there is place for love, hatred and all purely personal, irrational and emotional elements which escape calculation'
       • Ambiguity of modern and workplace linked with precarious identity and anxiety, challenge to individual's security system and self-identity. Anxiety of managerial work
   • Emotional labour
     • An element of work activity in which the worker is required to display certain emotions in order to complete work tasks in the way required by an employer
       • Hochschild's emotional management : 4 forms of emotional management
         • Presentational: emotions are handled according to general social rules
         • Philanthropic: emotional management is given as a gift
         • Perspective: emotional management occurs according to rules of conduct
         • Pecuniary: emotional management is done for commercial gain
       • Bourdieu's Habitus: extending emotional labour
         • Embodied history of memories and knowledge predispose people to think, feel and act in a certain way
           • An individual is a product of their history and moment in time.

4. Misbehaviour at work

   • Organisational misbehaviour
     • Anything you consciously are, do and think at work that you are not supposed to be, do and think.

5. Workplace Humour

   • A way of making work more fun, deflecting conflict, defence of the self, coping strategy, maintenance of culture and structure, undermine managerial control, reinforcement of group identity
     • Ambiguities and complexities of humour - dark side

6. Bullying and harassment

   • Sexual harassment
     • Unwanted and offensive expressions of sexual interest in a person or persons through words, gesture of touch
       • Primarily directed at women
         • Often dismissed as a joke
           • victim blaming
             • reinforces traditional gender hierarchies/ power asymmetries
               • associates with significant psychological, health and job related consequences
   • Bullying
     • Repeated actions towards people at work which have the effect of humiliating and mentally distressing them
       • interpretations vary between organisations and culture
         • Linked to power relations = low-trust, commitment
   • Cheating, fiddling, breaking
     • Theft from the employer, illegal gains part of implicit contract, workplace fiddles benefit individuals and groups
     • Destructive behaviour: withholding info, revealing info to competitors, speaking negatively about org/product, falsifying data