Reflexive Self-Identity and Work: Working Women, Biographical Disruption and Agency

Diane Trusson, Clive Trusson and Catherine Casey
Additional contact information
Diane Trusson: University of Nottingham, UK
Clive Trusson: Loughborough University, UK
Catherine Casey: Loughborough University, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2021, vol. 35, issue 1, 116-136

Abstract: The article examines how women workers reflexively shape their self-identities and work identities following a significant biographical disruption incurred by breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Based on interviews with 22 women navigating their post-diagnosis life course, the article addresses participants’ challenges in their relationships with paid employment, their responses and self-identity narratives. It finds that women strive to revise and innovate their self-identity and work identity in the midst of personal and social constraints in working life. They craft their cancer disruptive experiences into new developments of who they are, and want to be, as persons and as workers. Multiple intersectional features of participants’ work-related self-identity are identified, including reassessment of priorities, capabilities and workplace relations.

Keywords: biographical disruption; breast cancer; self-identity; sick role; work relationships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017020926441 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:1:p:116-136

DOI: 10.1177/0950017020926441

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().