• Selling Your Self in the United States

    Author(s):
    Ilana Gershon (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Group(s):
    Anthropology, Labor Studies
    Subject(s):
    Casual labor, Digital media
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    personal branding, corporate personhood, employment, hiring, Contingent labor
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6HJ7Z
    Abstract:
    In the contemporary U.S. workplace, corporate personhood is increasingly becoming the metaphor structuring how job seekers are supposed to present themselves as employable. If one takes oneself to be a business, one should also take oneself to be an entity that requires a brand. Some ethnographic questions arise when job seekers try to embody corporate personhood. How does one transform oneself into a brand? What are the obstacles that a person encounters adopting a form of corporate personhood? How does one foster relationships or networks that will lead to a job, not just a circulation of one’s brand identity? Based on research in Indiana and northern California, this article explores the conundrums of marketing oneself as a desirable employee on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, and so on. I address the reasons why the increased use of social media contributes to popularizing a notion of self-branding. I also discuss the quandaries people face when using social media to create this self-brand. In sum, this article investigates the obstacles people face when they try to embody a form of corporate personhood across media, a form of self putatively based on the individual, but one that has been transformed into a corporate form that people can not easily inhabit.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.1111/plar.12075
    Publisher:
    Wiley-Blackwell
    Pub. Date:
    2015-1-30
    Journal:
    PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
    Volume:
    37
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    281 - 295
    ISSN:
    1081-6976
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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