Selling Your Self in the United States

Bibliographic Data

ID2290488
AuthorsIlana Gershon (0000-0003-0447-0694, Indiana University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume37
Issue2
Pages281-295
Publication date2014-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1081-6976 • E-ISSN: 1555-2934
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/plar.12075
OpenAlexW2126430373
LanguageEN
Citations received52
References cited24

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

Advertising · Aesthetics · Business · Ethnography · Metaphor · Personhood · Political science · Public relations · Seekers · Self · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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