The refiguration of identity and work in the global nation of technology: A critical hermeneutic inquiry

The technology industry has represented the greatest possibility for a global nation unbound by state or international border. The 1990's presented the rapidly growing nation of technology workers with limitless futures and opportunities. The first few years of the 21st century however have seen a breakdown in the industry and the futures have evaporated; unrealized as many of the imagined technological solutions. However, the global nation has begun to be settled and explored, and the implications of the economic and social change that the breakdown presents is yet to be understood as issues of identity for both the community of technology workers and the individual.; This study bases itself in critical hermeneutic theory to explore the issues of identity as they relate to both the industry and its projected future, as well as the geographic history of the region and the individual. The study explores two different, but connected, regions of the technology nation, the Bay Area of California and the Thames Valley in the United Kingdom. The complex relationships of personal, cultural, industry and economic history are explored in the context of the threefold nature of identity as presented by Paul Ricoeur.; Breakdown offers work community an opportunity to reclaim the idea of citizenship and their voice. Through discourse in the public sphere, the issues may be brought from the public and into the political sphere to create a common, negotiated future in which all may participate, and in which the threefold identity can figure itself.