Discursive strategies that individualize: CVs and appraisal interviews

Professionals in education must increasingly speak of themselves through an individualizing discourse that commits them to a lifelong and life‐encompassing learning and working project. By means of techniques like CVs and appraisal interviews, post‐signifying regimes conjure up discursive spaces that thrive on the language of commitment, love and enthusiasm. This urges professionals to speak of their role and personality in accordance with the vision of their organization. Such discursive technology may encourage commitment, be turned into manipulative power instruments, or be reduced to shallow rituals. Beyond doubt, however, post‐signifying strategies raise the stakes in organizational communication. The purpose of this article is epistemological, i.e. it intends to explore positions and strategies made available through the language provided by a certain discursive technology. It does not claim to say how this technology is actually employed empirically in particular contexts. The article draws on ideas and concepts from Deleuze & Guattari and Foucault.