People Capture

Aspirational Knowledge Workers and Recursive Complicity in Australian Carbon Capture and Storage

Bibliographic Data

ID3667973
AuthorsMonica James (0000-0003-0887-0791, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume68
Issue4
Pages57-75
Publication date2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0155-977X • E-ISSN: 1558-5727
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/sa.2024.680404
OpenAlexW4412160707
LanguageEN
References cited20

Engineers and similar knowledge workers hold high socio-political status in liberal, settler-colonial, and extractivist Australia. Although 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS) has uncertain future relevance for global emissions reduction, newcomers still reach out for desired roles in CCS knowledge work. Drawing on ethnographic study in Eastern Australia, this article centers on expert personhood during the pursuit of professionalism. I argue that two scales of 'entrapment' occur for CCS knowledge workers, recursively combining into 'people capture' by the industry: Mutuality and complicity emerge between corporate projects and aspirational engineers, who are assigned to build forceful representations ("eyewash") for wider audiences. When positions of institutionally affirmed expertise are seen as contingent upon the reproduction of specific narratives, knowledge workers are captured into complicity by their own aspirations for self-making

Business · Political science · Migration and Labor Dynamics

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Open DOIOpen Access