The Construction of Workers’ Identity in Liminal Spaces

Abstract

In the last decade, advances in technology have transformed the way in which we work, making it more and more fluid. One manifestation of this phenomenon is the fact that the border between work and non-work is disappearing. Many people, indeed, often work even on weekends. Moreover, a large number of workers continue working outside their home or their office environments. For example, it is more and more frequent to see managers or employees engaged in work calls in airports, public transport, cafés, hotels or other ‘liminal spaces’. These spaces have become a part of workers’ daily routines and contribute to building their identities in a changing world. In this article, I consider the concepts of liminality and of identity, as discussed in the literature. Then, I examine the construction of workers’ identity in these ‘places of passage’. I focus, especially, on what happens both in public transport and in other ‘places of passage’, such as cafés, airports and railway stations.