`Being Regimented': Aspiration, Discipline and Identity Work in the British Parachute Regiment

This paper analyses how the preferred self-conceptions of men in an elite military unit — the British Parachute Regiment — were disciplined by the organizationally based discursive resources on which they drew. The research contribution this paper makes is twofold. First, we argue that preferred self-conceptions (i.e. desired identities) are mechanisms for disciplining employees' identity work, and analyse how paratroopers were subject to, and...