Abstract

This article proposes to examine the self-concept of members of an occupational category referred to as the “solo self-employed”—women and men who work alone and do not employ other workers. Our findings reveal that although the solo self-employed themselves do not make clear phenomenological use of the solo-self-employed category, they do speak similarly about their occupational independence, albeit without group awareness. The self-concept of the solo self-employed is mainly based on boundary work in relation to two well-known cultural-occupational categories: “employed workers” and “businesspeople.” Solo-employed workers prefer to distance themselves from these two categories and define themselves through negative comparisons between themselves and the two preceding categories. The Discussion section proposes perceiving solo self-employment as a social category that constructs an alternative self in relation to the selves associated with popular cultural-occupational scenarios.

摘要

本文建议研究称为“个体经营者”的职业类别中的成员的自我概念，即独自工作而不雇用其他工人的男女。我们的研究结果表明，尽管个体经营者自己并没有在现象学上明确使用个体经营者类别，但是尽管没有群体意识，他们的职业独立性也类似。个体经营者的自我概念主要基于与两个著名的文化职业类别相关的边界工作：“雇佣工人”和“商人”。个体经营者更喜欢与这两个类别保持距离，并通过与前两个类别之间的否定比较来定义自己。