Foucault and the politics of critical management studies

This paper explores the different ways in which we read Foucault in management and organisation studies but, more particularly, some of the features of his project that we seem often to exclude. In the context of a growing interest in more ‘engaged’ forms of scholarly practice among management academics, we argue that further consideration of Foucault might have something more to offer. Setting the main arguments in context, we suggest an outline of the dominant ways in which we read Foucault: the identities we assign to him. Hence we know Foucault primarily as a social theorist, genealogist, neo‐Weberian, and postmodernist. We then consider some of the engaged aspects of his project, focusing on his emergence as an activist intellectual in the 1970s. Possible implications for critical management scholars are then considered.     

The godmother of gendered organizations: In celebration of the work of Joan Acker

Joan Acker can be considered the godmother of gendered organizations. In this paper, we reflect on the impact that Joan Acker's work has on our thinking and our careers as gender scholars in management and organization studies in Europe. First, we tell our personal stories of close encounters with Joan Acker. Second, we highlight what we consider to be two key contributions of Joan Acker. The first are the interrelated gendered processes regarding structure, culture, interaction and identity from her work in the early 1990s, the second the notion of inequality regimes from her later work on the intersections of gender, class and race. We then discuss how Acker's work has been influential in our research on gendered organizations, and in our teaching when we use it in our explanations of the functioning of gender in organizations to students, and in our work as advisors and consultants for organizations interested in equality, diversity and inclusion. Finally, we elaborate on new directions building on Acker's work, especially in current theorizing on gender and diversity in organizational change.     

Some Reflections of an Existential Approach to Education in Social Work

To look at social work education implies that we look first at the young people to whom we offer it and in doing so I feel we must ask—who are they; what are the values motivating them and what are some of the issues that have earned for them the name “new generation”? Unless we have some understanding of these motivating factors, I don't think we are in any position to presume to educate them.     

Infant Eye-tracking in the Context of Goal-Directed Actions

This paper presents two methods that we applied to our research to record infant gaze in the context of goal-oriented actions using different eye-tracking devices: head-mounted and remote eye-tracking. For each type of eye-tracking system, we discuss their advantages and disadvantages, we describe the particular experimental setups we used to study infant looking and reaching, explain how we were able to use and synchronize these systems with other sources of data collection (video recordings and motion capture) in order to analyze gaze and movements directed toward 3D objects within a common time frame. Finally, for each method, we briefly present some results from our studies to illustrate the different levels of analyses that may be carried out using these different types of eye-tracking devices. These examples aim to highlight some of the novel questions that may be addressed using eye-tracking in the context of goal-directed actions.     

Reflections on the concept of interculturality in the current educational debate in Argentina

In this paper, we analyze the relevance of intercultural education within contemporary educational debates in Argentina. First, we will review Argentinean legislation. Then, we will discuss the core characteristics of the Argentine educational system in order to study the historical incorporation of indigenous people into the school system. Later, we will explore concrete legislation regarding intercultural education, emphasizing the potential of such legislation as well the limitations. Finally, we will present how our findings connect to the main discussions in the field of anthropology and education.     

A (Pragmatic) Defense of (Some) Science

In this commentary, a response to MacKendrick (2017), I examine the dilemma that recent science activism poses for sociologists of science. How can we maintain their critical integrity while condemning the anti‐science actions of the Trump administration? I propose that sociologists of science engage in two exercises to marshal a qualified defense of science. First, we should unpack what we might mean by the “science” we wish to defend. Then, we should begin to articulate grounds for defending that science commensurate with the urgency of the moment. I draw inspiration from American pragmatist philosophy to develop one such defense.     

Developing people in a network of relational practices: reflections on the role of social work education

The mission of social work education in Flanders is threefold: to deliver education, to conduct research and to provide services to society. In our opinion social work education has a critical and liberating function towards society and it must stimulate and develop a critical attitude amongst students. In this article we first focus on the educational dimension of social work education as we practise this in one institute. Next we describe how we realise our objectives as a social work education institute in relation to the professional field. The central concept of our vision is social work as a relational practice.     

Virus interruptus: An Arendtian exploration of political world‐building in pandemic times

Building upon a series of blog posts and conversations, two feminist scholars explore how political community, trust, responsibility and solidarity are affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. We explore the ways in which we can engage in political world‐building during pandemic times through the work of Hannah Arendt. Following Arendt’s notion of the world as the space for human togetherness, we ask: how can we respond to COVID‐19’s interruptions to the familiarity of daily life and our relationship to public space? By extending relational accounts of public health and organizational ethics, we critique a narrow view of solidarity that focuses on individual compliance with public health directives. Instead, we argue that solidarity involves addressing structural inequities, both within public health and our wider community. Finally, we suggest possibilities for political world‐building by considering how new forms of human togetherness might emerge as we forge a collective ‘new normal’.     

Freedom of choice

Inspired by the discussion of different functions of freedom of choice (instrumental versus intrinsic value) by Sen and others and an axiomatic characterization of an intrinsic aspect by Pattanaik and Xu, we compare unique axiomatic characterizations of three classes of rankings of opportunity sets in terms of freedom of choice: First, we investigate the simple cardinality-based ranking proposed by Pattanaik and Xu and a generalization of this. Secondly, we propose a new criterion that is based on the comparison of the ranges of sets of options. Thirdly, we solve possibly occuring conflicts between these two criteria.I am indebted to Wulf Gaertner, Yongsheng Xu, Walter Bossert, the participants of the Economic Theory Workshop of the University of Rochester, and anonymous referees for helpful discussions and comments. Financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is gratefully acknowledged.     

Beyond the depleting model of parenting: narratives of childrearing and change

A great deal of scholarship investigates the effects of parenting on adults who parent. While existing literature has identified the ways in which parenting affects parents adversely, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to how having children may enhance parents’ lives. Thus, we draw upon twenty-four in-depth interviews with young parents in order to investigate this process. First, we identify five ways in which parents say caregiving has changed their worldviews, relationships, and expectations, leading them to 1) erect barriers, 2) aspire for more, 3) view parenthood as a second chance, 4) hew a new path, and 5) make connections. Second, we uncover two central metaphors that parents rely on to explain the effect that having responsibility for children has had on their lives: the child as witness and the child as tether. We also point to future areas of investigation, arguing that only with an adequate understanding of what parenting does to parents can we understand what changing trends in families and inequality hold for ourselves and our futures.     

The Gendered Face of Terrorism

What does sociology have to contribute to our understanding of terrorism? As scholars of gender and the Far Right, we believe that we have much to offer the current debates. In this article, we focus both on contemporary cases of terrorism, the attacks of September 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, and terrorist movements as gendered: as enactments of masculinity. In particular, we focus on the contemporary white supremacist movement, the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat faced by the USA. We suggest that the ideology and organization of many terrorist groups are saturated with gendered meanings, both as the analytic prism through which they view their situation, and also as a means of political mobilization.     

新形势下高校就业工作模式的探索与实践——以湖北三峡职业技术学院为例

新形势下,认真探索高职院校就业工作新模式,是促进大学生顺利就业、建立和谐社会的需要,也关系到高校持续、协调发展。湖北三峡职业技术学院在就业工作方面积极探索与实践:一是抓关键,落实"一把手"工程;二是抓基础,建立"院校两级"就业工作机构;三是抓重点,推出"三级联动"就业统计核查制;四是抓调研,坚持"四项调查"制度;五是抓落实,实施"五化"工程。     

Change is an Ongoing Ethical Event: Levinas,Bakhtin and the Dialogical Dynamics of Becoming

In this article, we use the intersubjective ethics of Bakhtin and Levinas and a case illustration to explore change in therapy as an ethical phenomenon. We follow Lakoff and Johnson in their emphasis on the way our conceptions of change seem permeated by metaphors. Bakhtin and Levinas both suggest through a language in which metaphors play a crucial role, that human existence—the consciousness and the subject—emerge within the dialogue of the encounter. They both describe the dynamics of human existence as ethical in their origin. Following this, we argue that change may be seen as an ongoing ethical event and that the dynamics of change are found in the ways we constantly become in this event. We investigate the ethical dynamics of this ongoing event through three themes illuminating the contributions of both Bakhtin and Levinas: (1) we become as responsible, (2) we become in speaking, (3) we become in answering the unknown. We explore these themes through a case illustration. Finally, we briefly point out some possible implications for mental health practice.     

The Architecture of Complexity

In this paper we reflect on organizational space and its implications for organization and management. In contrast to dominant discourse in management and organization theory we address the ways in which corporate buildings, as social objects, provide a materiality to organization. Developing the concept of the architecture of complexity, we focus on space as the precondition of processes of organizing. The productive power of space lies in its potential to create and trigger complexity, as it pre-structures movement and flows of communication. Reflecting on two concrete spatial organizations (the fold and heterotopia) we suggest that the interplay of order and disorder and inside/outside relation, which these spaces provide, are spatial preconditions of organizational change and creativity.     

A Comparative Study of the Pragmatic Functions of English and Chinese Euphemisms

euphemism is an important phenomenon in our life. Through some research, we can learn the functions of euphemism and the differences between English and Chinese euphemisms, thus we can achieve a successful communication.     

Persistence of close personal ties over a 12-year period

Using data on 60 intentional communities from the Urban Communes Data Set, we examine factors related to the persistence of ties 12 years later, when nearly all members had left the groups. We find strong evidence of triadic effects—people are more likely to remain in contact with others when they share patterns of contact with third parties. Such triadic effects retain importance even when we use alternative measures of contact, and when we control for individual-, dyadic-, and group-level effects including geographic separation. When we examine friendship as opposed to contact, we find that the triadic effects can be decomposed into some effects pertaining to hierarchy and other effects pertaining to reciprocation, giving us a sense of how networks structure themselves over time.     

The voices people read: Orthography and the representation of non-standard speech

Combining features of matched guise tests with sociolinguistic interviewing and oral performance, this study investigates the social meanings carried by non-standard orthographies. Participant evaluations of the personas represented by non-standard orthographies showed that people connected orthography to social identities. Specifically, we found that people uncritically and spontaneously read non-standard orthographies as indices of low socioeconomic status. When we asked participants to read texts out loud, we found marked shifts in their reading performances of texts in standard versus non-standard orthographies. Through a case study analysis of participants' readings and attitudes, we identify two kinds of stances taken by participants towards stigmatized identities indexed by non-standard orthographies. Finally, we use these case studies to argue for the necessity of contextually rich qualitative research methods for the study of language attitudes.     

The Assertion of Identity in Rural Sociology

Abstract Rural sociology has been closely tied to the research and policy agendas of America's land grant colleges and universities. Because of this, the contributions of rural sociologists have been more applied and focused than those of the discipline as a whole. The Rural Sociological Society serves as an important venue that unifies the discipline. Phenomenologically speaking, we are who we are because of where we are.     

Institutions and the shaping of different forms of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a broad concept encompassing a wide range of activities, from the Schumpertian ideal associated with innovation to simply creating a job for oneself. Because we ask about national differences in entrepreneurship, we consider national differences for entrepreneurship, the institutions, and if these relate to the emergence of different types of enterprise. We propose that national patent grants represent innovation and that national self-employment rates represent job replacement. Interestingly, we found that institutional factors that determine self-employment and innovation may act in opposite directions: what encourages self-employment might discourage innovation and vice-versa.     

Refusing to make sense: mapping the in-coherences of 'trans'

This article moves from the premise that 'lesbian' is a gendered embodiment marked and put in flux by century-long sexual politics and semiotics and asks how do we begin to map not only its own terrain but the incoherence generated by its intersections with transsexuality/transgender? The author suggests that it is precisely the power of Trans to not make sense that provides it with its most provocative power to disrupt and displace epistemological regimes and asks that we shift our attention from what we teach in Lesbian-Trans Studies to how we teach these studies. The article concludes by suggesting that it is in surprising our students with the failure to 'know' that we can reveal how knowledge is really a regime of received ideas, ideologies, prejudices and opinions, a way of not knowing that one does not know.