Identity Struggles

Evidence from workplaces around the world

Editors

Dorien Van De Mieroop

| KU Leuven

Stephanie Schnurr

| University of Warwick

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027206602 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027265883 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

This collection provides a kaleidoscopic view of a range of identity struggles in the workplace context. It features twenty-two case studies that present an eclectic mix of workplaces in different socio-cultural contexts. They include, among others, household workers in Peru and Hong Kong, female professionals in India and the UK, social workers in Botswana and on Canadian reserves, tourist guides in Europe and construction workers in New Zealand. The volume addresses important questions on professional competence, group membership, (sometimes competing) expectations, and identity boundaries. The chapters establish that identity struggles are a reflection of issues of knowledge, competing norms and attempts for social change.

[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 69] 2017. xi, 457 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.69

Table of Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements	xi
Chapter 1. Introduction: A kaleidoscopic view of identity struggles at work Stephanie Schnurr and Dorien Van De Mieroop	1–18
Part I. Struggling to construct professional competence	22–123
Chapter 2. Coping with uncertainty: Gender and leadership identities in UK corporate life Judith Baxter	21–38
Chapter 3. Constructing a “competent” meeting chair: A study of the discourse of meeting chairing in a Hong Kong workplace Angela Chan	39–56
Chapter 4. Juggling “I”s and “we”s with “he”s and “she”s: Negotiating novice professional identities in stories of teamwork told in New Zealand job interviews Sophie Reissner-Roubicek	57–78
Chapter 5. Epistemic “Struggles”: When nurses’ expert identity is challenged by “knowledgeable” clients Olga Zayts-Spence and Stephanie Schnurr	79–94
Chapter 6. Who’s the expert?: Negotiating competence and authority in guided tours Elwys De Stefani and Lorenza Mondada	95–124
Part II. Struggling to (de-)construct in-group membership	128–240
Chapter 7. You’re a proper tradesman mate: Identity struggles and workplace transitions in New Zealand Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra	127–146
Chapter 8. Indian women at work: Struggling between visibility and invisibility Abha Chatterjee and Dorien Van De Mieroop	147–164
Chapter 9. The dynamics of identity struggle in interdisciplinary meetings in higher education Seongsook Choi and Keith Richards	165–184
Chapter 10. Laughables as a resource for foregrounding shared knowledge and shared identities in intercultural interactions in Scandinavia Louise Tranekjær	185–206
Chapter 11. Workplace conflicts as (re)source for analysing identity struggles in stories told in interviews Marlene Miglbauer	207–224
Chapter 12. Identities on a learning curve: Female migrant narratives and the construction of identities of (non)participation in Communities of Practice Jonathan Clifton and Dorien Van De Mieroop	225–240
Part III. Struggling to combine (sometimes competing) expectations	244–352
Chapter 13. Managing patients’ expectations in telephone complaints in Scotland Bethan Benwell and May McCreaddie	243–262
Chapter 14. Identity work in nurse-client interactions in selected community hospitals in Kenya Benson Oduor Ojwang	263–280
Chapter 15. ‘Even if there were procedures, we will be acting at our own discretion…’: General practitioners’ struggle about identity Agnieszka Sowińska	281–298
Chapter 16. A kind of work: Narratives from Canadian indigenous women Maria I. Medved and Jens Brockmeier	299–316
Chapter 17. Adapting self for private and public audiences: The enactment of leadership identity by New Zealand rugby coaches in huddles and interviews Kieran A. File and Nick Wilson	317–334
Chapter 18. “I speak French=eh”: Multilingualism and professional identity struggles in Luxembourg Anne Franziskus	335–352
Part IV. Struggling to define identity boundaries	356–454
Chapter 19. The discursive accomplishment of identity during veterinary medical consultations in the UK Robin Burrow	355–370
Chapter 20. Embracing a new professional identity: The case of social work in Botswana Unity Nkateng and Sue Wharton	371–386
Chapter 21. Identity and space: Discourse perspectives Gerlinde Mautner	387–406
Chapter 22. Household workers’ use of directives to negotiate their professional identity in Lima, Peru Susana de los Heros	407–426
Chapter 23. ‘We’re only here to help’: Identity struggles in foreign domestic helper narratives Hans J. Ladegaard	427–444
Chapter 24. Epilogue: Identity struggles as a reflection of knowledge, competing norms, and attempts for social change Dorien Van De Mieroop and Stephanie Schnurr	445–454
Index	455

“ Identity Struggles offers a refined view of how interactants negotiate their roles in the workplace. Generally following a constructivist approach to identity construction, it draws on a rich set of methodological and theoretical approaches and offers insights derived from the study of an impressive range of cultural and linguistic contexts. It is a must-read for scholars of workplace interaction and analysts interested in the intricate interplay of language and action resulting in interpersonal effects.”

Miriam A. Locher, University of Basel

“The reader should be assured that the investment required in terms of time will pay dividends in terms of knowledge gained. The volume is one to which the reader will continually return as there is much to be gleaned from the individual chapters. The book is delivered in such a way that it does not presuppose detailed knowledge of identity research. Therefore, both novice as well as seasoned researchers will find this volume beneficial. In closing, the editors and contributors alike should be congratulated for enriching the field of identity research with such a rich mine of inspirational ideas, methods, and analytical tools.”

Jamie McKeown, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in Pragmatics and Society 9:1 (2018)

Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

No author info given

2016. Not so ‘innocent’ after all? Exploring corporate identity construction online. Discourse & Communication 10:3 ► pp. 291 ff.

No author info given

2017. Publications Received. Language in Society 46:4 ► pp. 619 ff.

No author info given

2020. In Discursive Navigation of Employable Identities in the Narratives of Former Refugees [Studies in Narrative, 27],

Clifton, Jonathan, Dorien Van De Mieroop, Prachee Sehgal & Aneet

2018. The multimodal enactment of deontic and epistemic authority in Indian meetings. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 28:3 ► pp. 333 ff.

Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Marlene Miglbauer & Abha Chatterjee

2017. Mobilizing master narratives through categorical narratives and categorical statements when default identities are at stake. Discourse & Communication 11:2 ► pp. 179 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 04 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Communication Studies

Linguistics

Pragmatics

Discourse studies

BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

BISAC Subject: LAN009030 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics

U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2016058152 | Marc record