Abstract:

How does encounter with genuine difference transform professional identity? Identity work scholarship has richly theorised transformation through social validation — recognition, narrative acceptance, audience affirmation. This paper proposes a complementary mechanism: that the embodied labour of articulating expertise across epistemic boundaries constitutes Deweyan inquiry that reconstructs not only professional knowledge but the practitioner's sense of who they are — independent of audience response. The paper is the second in a PhD project studying researchers at a national security institute. Drawing on 50 preliminary narrative interviews and planned follow-up interviews targeting the embodied process of articulation, it develops a theoretical framework positioning alterity — the irreducible difference of the Other — as a motor of professional identity transformation that operates alongside but independently of social validation. Four preliminary empirical patterns illustrate the mechanism and identify questions for development prior to the conference.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Identity

Keywords: Identity work;Social Identity Theory / identification / self-categorisation;Occupational / work / professional identity;Qualitative;Narrative methods

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Ms. Kathinka Bratberg