(Re)producing d/Discourse as Unobtrusive Control: Identity Enactments of Complicity Among Aerial Acrobats

This study investigates how workers enact occupational identities that reinforce institutional Discourses through mechanisms of unobtrusive occupational control. Through a phronetic iterative analysis of interview and Photovoice data from 27 circus aerial acrobats, we identify three identity enactments through which workers reproduce and sustain occupational norms: complicit masking, complicit risk-taking, and complicit anonymity and exploitation. These findings contribute to our understanding of identification and control processes by demonstrating how discursive and bodily identity enactments—framed as small “d” discourses—function recursively to uphold dominant institutional ideologies. The study expands upon a d/Discourse framework by illustrating the embodied dimensions of identity enactment, highlighting the value of arts-based elicitation methods in accessing lived experiences of body workers. Photovoice images revealed how performers engage identity enactments in the front-facing and backstage work sites, revealing how workers sustain harmful practices, simultaneously acknowledge the dangers of these practices, and refrain from challenging the status quo.