ABSTRACT
In this chapter I aim to explore some of the ways in which identities emerge in the context of relationships at work. In using the term ‘identity’ I am referring both to an individual’s sense of self (a social object to oneself) and at the same time to a social object arising in the perceptual field of others. While the assumption of identity is therefore what enables us to become known to ourselves it is also what enables us to recognize and be recognized by each other as more than physical objects in our perception. Identity is social and relational in character. It is identity and the specific characteristics that this assumes for each of us in relation to one another which gives rise to our sense of individuality. An argument of this chapter is therefore that identity is a social process which entails an ongoing dialectical relationship between the I and the me together constituting the reflexive, social self of human experience. Identity,
I argue, is formed by and forming, at the same time, the social relations in which we are all at all times engaged throughout our life process.
