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.