Sacrificial Labour: Social Inequality, Identity Work, and the Damaging Pursuit of Elusive Futures

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Creator
  • Monahan, T.
    • Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Fisher, J.A.
    • Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Abstract
  • This article explores the relationship between personal sacrifice and identity work within conditions of profound structural insecurity. We develop the concept of sacrificial labour to describe how individual self-sacrifice aligns workers’ identities to the needs of organizations while gradually foreclosing the actualization of individuals’ desired future selves. Drawing upon qualitative data from a longitudinal study of healthy individuals who enrol in paid clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry, we make two contributions to the identity-work literature. First, we argue that the ongoing project of building stable and secure identities may become damaging when structural and cultural conditions defy even provisional, fragile attainment of this goal. Second, we reflect on how racialization and social marginalization erode identities and constrain possibilities for identity recuperation. Whereas the identity-work literature often focuses on the agential accomplishments of individuals, we provide a troubling account of how persistent social and economic inequalities confound identity realization efforts.
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Resource type
  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
License
  • Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Journal title
  • Work, Employment and Society
Journal volume
  • 34
Journal issue
  • 3
Page start
  • 441
Page end
  • 456
Language
  • English
Version
  • Publisher
Funder
  • National Institutes of Health, NIH: R01GM099952; Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, FNIH; National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIGMS
ISSN
  • 0950-0170
Publisher
  • SAGE Publications Inc.

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