Work and Identity Historical and Cultural Contexts

This book provides a fascinating account of theoretical debates around identity and work, recent trends and methodological arguments concerning the role of oral testimony and its interpretation.

John Kirk is Senior Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University, UK. He is author of Class, Culture and Social Change: On the Trail of the Working Class, and The British Working Class in the Twentieth Century: Film, Literature and Television. He is currently completing a book on European identity communities. Christine Wall is Senior Research Fellow at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Westminster and Deputy Director of ProBE (Centre for Research into the Production of the Built Environment). She is currently Principal Investigator on the Leverhulme Trust funded research project 'Constructing Post-War Britain: building workers' stories 1950-70'.

Introduction
Charting Historical Change: Work in the US and UK During the Twentieth Century
Narratives of Labour and Labour Lost: Working Life and its Representations
Identity in Question and the Place of Work
Working at the Chalk-face: Articulating the 'teacherly-self' and Educational Change
Teller, Seller, Union Activist: Class Formation and Changing Bank Worker Identities
Tracking the Place of Work Identity on the Rails
Something to Show For it: The Place of Work Memorabilia in Three Occupations
Narrating Work Identity: Oral Testimony and the Place of Anecdotes
Conclusion
References