Abstract
In this chapter I explore how a discursive approach can shed light on the construction of individual identities through a series of studies of a 1999 Australian parliamentary inquiry into the challenges facing unemployed workers over 45 years of age. Public inquiries produce many useful texts, authored by different actors at different points in time. The studies show how identities are constructed through micro-interactions among actors and audiences, which in this case comprised situated identity work by older workers during the inquiry, identity regulation by committee members, and the intersection of the discourse of age with the discourse of enterprise. These interactions produced a masculinized version of the older worker, required older workers to tell a certain kind of story, and resulted in older workers being discouraged from using small business ownership as a way out of unemployment.
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