The critique of alienation and the integration of the actor's perspective: understanding alienation in biographical identity work processes

This article builds on current debates on the concept of alienation as a vehicle for the immanent critique of social pathologies in the world of work. Despite the renewals of the concept of alienation, the problem of how a theoretical diagnosis of alienation can be linked back to empirical material remains unsolved. Therefore, this paper develops a heuristic approach that makes it possible to identify specific forms of suffering as feelings of alienation. Alienation is understood as, unsuccessful identity work, which is documented in experiences of suffering, unfulfilled expectations, and critiques of conditions in the working world. This paper shows how identity work processes can be examined in narrated life stories. For the analysis of feelings of alienation, two indications are presented: (1) the identification of a gap between previous and current experiences in the working world and (2) the identification of specific experiences of suffering. Experiences of alienation can thus be identified as specific forms of experiences of suffering. Such an analysis also makes it possible to integrate the actors’ voices into an immanent critique of the world of work.