Identity, positioning, and platforms: A case study of an older job seeker in a community technology center

Abstract

Requests by education and workforce-related technologies to reveal intimate aspects of adult learners' identities have become a common practice in a platform society, where personal information is monetized for “free” products and services. This article uses a sociomaterial lens to investigate how an older job seeker in a community technology center positioned her identity in and through a variety of literacy practices as she engaged with technology platforms in her job search. Drawing from data gathered over a 5-month period with this job seeker as part of a larger ethnographic case study, this article shows the centrality of identity production in navigating and making sense of technologies, which entails negotiating one's sense of self across both front-end user interfaces and back-end infrastructures. Practical implications include creating space for students' critical agency of platforms, which can lead to meaningful change in policies related to data collection.