Sabotage or Performed Compliance: Rhetorics of Resistance in Temp Worker Discourse

Abstract

This essay analyzes contemporary temporary employment texts and the competing rhetorical definitions that shape the meanings of employment and identity in the contingent economy. Arguing against resistant labor rhetoric that is ill-suited to present conditions of temp work, the author locates and advocates a rhetoric of "performativity" that enables temps to carve out their own definitional territory and seek advantage within an oppressive management culture. Ultimately, rhetorical tactics of performativity enable resistant practices that are better suited to contingent situations, and show promise for new conceptions of identity for these and other disenfranchised members of the U.S. workforce.

Keywords:

• Temporary Employment
• Rhetoric
• Performativity
• Identity
• Resistance