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Identity Struggles: Evidence from workplaces around the world
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop and Stephanie Schnurr
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 69] 2017
► pp. 207–224

Chapter 11
Workplace conflicts as (re)source for analysing identity struggles in stories told in interviews

Workplace conflicts are often realised on the interactional level and occur when two identities intersect. If one of them is regarded as contested, this may lead to identity struggle. By applying Positioning Theory (Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann 2004), this chapter draws upon narratives about such workplace conflicts expressed in interviews, and analyses the locus of different kinds of identity struggles as well as which identities are constructed. The findings show that identity struggles are initiated by clashes of norms and expressed either in the story or in the interview by drawing heavily on dialogue/reported speech. The analysis also shows that identity construction is reflexively linked to the story and the interview so as to reinforce each other.

Keywords: positioning, narratives, workplace conflicts, identities, identity struggle
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Narratives in interviews as resource for identity constructions
  • Data
  • Identity struggles in the workplace
    • Example 1: The struggle with being accepted in the workplace
    • Example 2: The struggle with feeling excluded in the workplace
    • Example 3: The struggle with conforming to the workplace
  • Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.69.11mig
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