Discourse, resistance, and identity: A postmodern feminist analysis of a human service organization
Abstract
This study examines how discourse creates power structures that have implications for the way in which clients' personal identities are constructed and constrained in a human service organization. More specifically, this study explores the discursive, gendered ironies that operate within the organization's discourse and how those ironies contribute to the production of "truth" and clients' identities. The forms of client resistance, including resisting confessional technologies, resisting bureaucratic practices, bitching and resisting patriarchal constructions of gender are also addressed. Client resistance is shown to be related to transformation of self, organizational practices, and organizational relationships. Finally, suggestions for future postmodern feminist analyses of organizational life are offered.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Putnam, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication|Womens studies
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