Marco Conceptual

Even veterans of parliament speak of initial entry to the parliamentary workplace as a key moment in their career biographies. Previous identities are left behind, altered considerably or made relevant in new ways, when one ‘becomes’ a parliamentarian and enters into the organisational culture. As workers, parliamentarians learn to perform their identities according to organisational conventions. One of these conventions is to

be authentic in the performance of occupational identity. Parliamentarians account for the transformative experience of becoming the parliamentarian as one in which their work identity comes to take priority over other aspects of the ‘self’.

Parliamentarians come to the workplace from a variety of situations and previous experiences, yet all account for the start of their parliamentary careers as a significant moment, and one in which there is a sense of entering the unknown. The uncertain nature of the election process, the anticipation that accompanies first time election to parliament, and the inability to adequately prepare oneself for all of the changes that take place, contribute to the dramatic quality of parliamentarians’ accounts of their entry to parliament. This ‘life changing’ event necessitates thinking of themselves in new and different ways.

Well, I wasn’t expecting to win was I? And I wasn’t high enough on the list to have been an automatic ride into parliament at all. But I won the seat. Well, hell, the world changed that night for me. My life was suddenly thrown into absolute chaos. By Monday we were at parliament. [I had] a sharp realisation that there was no way I could [continue with my other commitments] and be in parliament (Parliamentarian B).

For me, mine was quite an achievement – it was just a runaway win for me. It was pretty euphoric … all quite exciting and new… (Parliamentarian F).

Participants’ accounts of becoming a parliamentarian can be understood through Goffman’s conceptualisation of the changes to self that take place within the context of institutions (Goffman, 1961). As described in Chapter Three, Goffman’s study of the total institution focused on institutional culture and the consequences of location for the sense of self (Goffman, 1961, p. 11). In his exemplar of the psychiatric hospital, the person who enters the institution is compelled to become one of many others ‘like’ themselves (Goffman, 1961, p. 6). They become understood, first by others and then by themselves, through their membership to this particular category of persons. Likewise, parliament places institutional demands on those who enter to ‘be’ a particular ‘kind’ of person. Parliamentarians are thereafter compelled to understand themselves through their membership of a category known to those both in and outside the institution as ‘the parliamentarian’. There are general characteristics that those within the parliamentarian category are expected to possess and, like the inmate to the psychiatric hospital, those characteristics are expected to be found in all members of this category.

The parliamentary institution has similarities with the ‘total institution’ identified by Goffman as one “established the better to pursue some work-like task and justifying themselves on these instrumental grounds” (Goffman, 1961, p. 15). Like other large- scale institutions, parliament has a sizeable and varied population and parliamentarians are but one of a number of groups found in this setting. Parliament also has a hierarchical organisation, although in this case, parliamentarians as a group have higher status than do the members of other groups that are a part of the workplace. In addition, there is a hierarchy within the parliamentarian population. As an institution, the purpose of parliament sets it apart from other large-scale organisations.

Although parliament is not a total institution, it is a workplace that has commonalities with such institutions. For those who find themselves working there as parliamentarians, parliament is a workplace that captures their ‘time and interests’ to a degree that is described as ‘encompassing’. Goffman argues that

every institution captures something of the time and interests of its members and provides something of a world for them ... every institution has encompassing tendencies ... Their encompassing or total character is symbolized by the barrier to social intercourse with the outside and to departure (Goffman, 1961, p. 15). Total institutions such as prisons, the army or boarding schools place physical restrictions on the movement of institutional ‘inmates’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 5). Parliament, on the other hand, neither physically nor definitively controls all of the parliamentarians’ activities. Nevertheless, the time demands that such participation entails, do place less complete constraints upon parliamentarians’ movements and participation in outside activities.

Parliament is understood best as an institution with totalising tendencies. In the total institution, the activities of eating, working, sleeping, leisure pastimes and other daily performances all occur within the institution and in the company of a stable group of similar others (Goffman, 1961, p. 6). The actor is denied access to other potential identities through physical containment. In the total institution, staff controls daily activities. Thus, parliament is different from total institutions.

Parliamentarians are not expected to spend their sleeping hours at work and there is no physical barrier to departure. The totalising tendencies of parliament result from the level of commitment to the job that is expected and the way the parliamentarian’s

occupational identity remains relevant in different places and situations. Whereas the member of a total institution finds identity restricted by an inability to physically depart the scene, the parliamentarian finds their public profile means identity is restricted because they cannot avoid being understood through their occupational identity even outside of the work setting. The expectation of the parliamentarian’s attendance at a variety of events outside normal working hours, the provision of leisure resources within the institution, such as the parliamentary swimming pool and gymnasium, and the on-site restaurant, all contribute to the totalising tendencies of the institution. Within the institution with totalising tendencies, therefore, the demands and expectations that accompany the work act as a constraining force.

The newcomer to an institution holds a prior notion of whom and what they ‘are’ developed in the ongoing social relationships they have previously been a part of (Goffman, 1997, p. 55). The changes created through an actor’s location in the new institution bring change to the social relationships that lend them a sense of self. Given the importance of context, institutional membership calls for the development of new understandings of self in ways that incorporate the actor’s change in social categorisation and status. Once a change in identity occurs, aspects of the prior self become understood retrospectively through their relationship to the actor’s current status. There is a temporal change whereby institutional membership creates the means for a recasting of the past in relation to the present. One parliamentarian, reflecting on their past, noted:

I’ve always been very interested in politics, from the time I was a very small child. I had had a keen interest, not just in history but in politics as well … I’ve always had a very keen interest in politics. I can’t exactly say why but from the time I could read I was reading the international pages in the paper and the political pages. I’ve always been fascinated by politics (Parliamentarian G). Like those inmates whose past becomes understood through their status as a member of the psychiatric institution the parliamentarian’s past does not carry any certainty of future consequence, but comes to be understood in this way retrospectively. Indeed, it is only once entry to the institution has taken place that such an understanding can be constructed (Goffman, 1997, p. 128).

Goffman (1961) argues that the transformation of identity that occurs within institutions can be understood as a ‘moral career’. Moral in this sense refers to the ways in which a new ‘self’ is produced within the particularities of the institutional context. The

production of this self is not random but is constrained by the expectations that accompany the actor’s institutional membership categorisation. Goffman argues that social actors are understood to carry a moral obligation to live up to their categorisations (Goffman, 1997, p. 21). Goffman’s use of the term career alerts us to the ways in which the transition of self occurs over time, with each stage contributing to the consolidating of the transformed self. The moral career involves the four transformative stages of admission, mortification, adaptation and release (Lee & Newby, 1983, pp. 334-336).