Crafting Identities in an Age of Individualism: An Ethnographic Study of Life Coaching

• In Event: 545 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Identity and the Life Course

Abstract

Much has been written on the identity crisis that characterizes contemporary post-industrial society. However, a review of the literature regarding self-identity in late modernity reveals a focus on the conditions that led to the apparent identity crisis, and much less focus on the social institutions that emerged as a response. This paper investigates life coaching as an emerging institution which attempts to resolve the paradoxical tension between the modern ideal of finding an identity that is unique and subjective, and the reality of validating and anchoring any identity in social circles. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted in Israel, the paper tracks the two complimentary processes of life-coaching: on the one hand individualization of identity search, and on the other hand, anchoring the new identity in social interaction, either with the coach or in everyday social circles. The paper demonstrates how a client’s interaction with a coach produces a unique space for choosing and crafting identities away from significant others while still having an “other” that provides important social functions in the process of identity making. This process is then maintained outside of the coaching arena, as clients are encouraged to purposefully shape interaction and anchor their new identity in daily social reality. The self-made individual does not oppose society; instead, she uses it in order to re-create herself.

Author

• Michal Pagis, Bar-Ilan University