“They are the Borg, our existence … is over”: the affordances and constraints of power on identity (re-)creation within multi-agency teams in Children’s Services

This empirical paper examines the identity work undertaken by professionals-practitioners within the multi-agency teams of a Children’s Services department. It develops new insights into the realities of collaborative working within this context, and specifically of how power dynamics operating act to both afford and constrain the identity work achieved. The research takes a qualitative and largely inductive methodological approach, with data generated through photo-elicitation interviews. This approach has offered new insights into these professional-practitioners’ lives that might have been left unrevealed through conventional interview methods. The data presents evidence of clear asymmetries in power relations within these teams. To some extent these mirrored the traditional professional hierarchies, however, other professional-practitioner groups were also being afforded increased power. This was both constraining and affording (re-)creation of these professional-practitioners’ identity. As collaboration becomes increasingly the norm across the sectors so this research typifies the broader challenges facing contemporary organisations across developed economies.