‘I am not a professional indexer, I am a professional who indexes’: periodical indexing as a borderland profession

In response to Andrew Abbott’s (1988 , 1995 ) work on professionalization and Gil Eyal’s (2013) work on the sociology of expertise, and employing grounded theory as a method, we propose that some forms of expert labor in knowledge organization (periodical indexing and related activities) are not fully captured by established professions. Rather, these activities permanently exist in a borderland between professions. Two types of borderland are discussed: structural and identity/consciousness. We draw upon borderland theory, which has its origins in Chicano studies and anthropology, to explicate this.