“Who am I?”- 14
PIN jc19265
As Mandelbaum (in press) notes, “Metanarratives,” “Grand Narratives” or “grand
recits” are used in society to explain “how things are and how they should be” and can be
thought of in terms of Bruner’s (1990) folk psychology. For Gergen and Gergen (1997), macro-
narratives are important to consider because they provide consistency and stability among
narratives, as they are the foundation by which other narratives are understood or “nested” (p.
171). Considering the interplay between micro and macro-narratives on the development of self,
we are not only able to relate events temporally (past-present-future) to understand ourselves as
relatively stable, but we are also available, fluid and open to the possibilities of change. We can
understand ourselves not through relation to an achieved condition of mind, but rather through
our ability to communicate our “states” with others (Gergen & Gergen, 1997).
Self and Identity at Work
The amount of time individuals are engaged in work or work-related activities has
increased dramatically in recent years. The average American worker now spends the equivalent
of six extra 40-hour weeks per year on the job (Schor, 1991). Because of the amount of time we
are engaged in work or work-related activities, the conditions, nature of, and social organization
of work are logical sites to consider the complexity of self and identity. In order to support the
claim that work and organizations function as sites for identity construction, I will first introduce
scholarship that grapples with historical relationships among work, self and society. Because of
page length constraints, this review will be selective rather than exhaustive.
Work, Self and Society
Work and identity have long been interconnected concepts, both theoretically and
pragmatically. Weber (1930/1998) traces the roots of capitalism back to the Protestant
Reformation, where work was defined through a spiritual calling and one’s relationship with
Convention