Identities at Work

A working inquiry into how identities are formed, practiced, and changed.

Working collection · evolving in public

Forms of Identity

Being | Belonging | Becoming | Begetting

WHAT:

“at Work” means WHERE (the work place), but also WHICH are the underlying processes, WHEN, i.e. under which circumstances, and HOW they operate.

We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. - Herminia Ibarra, professor of organizational behavior, London Business School

Identity at Work has some, er, hypotheses at work:

First & foremost: Identity requires investment. If we work for, on, and with our identity, it'll work for us. And the inverse is true: ignored, our identities work on us.
Most of us, most of the time, choose ready-made identities over bespoke ones:
- Ready made used to be limited to what we inherited. That included not only ethnicity, religion, etc. but even occupation for the overwhelming majority, until very recently.
- Now we have so many possibilities, but it's more the illusion of choice.
  - e.g. we enter a profession, rather than make one.
ID is increasingly off-the-shelf: we're fast becoming consumers of identity. And we choose—and wear—labels, which requires no/few (action) verbs. Instead we rely on vague and weak verbs like:
- "identify as " (at times tautological)
- "believe/feel that…", lacking external criteria
These come without the effort, investment, and sacrifice (at both communal and individual levels) that the belief systems (e.g. religions, cultures) of previous eras contained and expected.
Crutches: labels can support us and help get us where we want to go, but they can outlive their usefulness. The temporary becomes ongoing, and even permanent. We develop dependence on them.