Could a Subaltern Manage? Identity Work and Habitus in a Colonial Workplace
通过分析一位印度经理在殖民时期跨国公司的职业生涯自传，研究边缘群体如何学习成为专业管理者，以及身份工作与从属关系在组织中的体现。
How did historically marginalized groups learn to become professional managers? This paper studies the identity work of a manager in a colonial work setting, focusing specifically on the aspirational quality of professional identity, and on the forms of subordination enmeshed in organizational work, through a close reading of an autobiography. Beyond Punjab describes the career of Prakash Tandon in the multinational Lever Brothers India. He eventually became its first Indian Chief Executive and a respected public figure. Studies of such colonial work settings can seem indebted to existing research within postcolonial studies in management. But I argue that the dominant attention of postcolonial studies in management has not been on identity work and practices, but the historical enduring force of representations. Therefore this paper offers a complementary engagement, developing Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus for a fuller understanding of how managerial identity was constituted in colonial work settings. Implications for contemporary organizations and professional identity in postcolonial societies such as India are discussed.