‘Spirits,dancing in the flesh’: choreography and organisation

ABSTRACT

The body in organisations has received considerable scholarly attention, whilst the moving body and the ‘flesh’ has largely been overlooked. ‘Flesh’ for Merleau-Ponty connects the body and the world and supposes not an immobile, but moving body. We explore flesh as a movement-related, kinaesthetic phenomenon through a movement/dance-based method and interviews with professionals from a hospitality/service organisation. We apply the notion of ‘choreography’ from dance studies, composed of the elements of ‘writing’ (graphós) and ‘movement’ (chorós). Our findings show that fleshly movement interaction creates invisible structures, or choreographies, that are inscribed into bodies and tacitly confine organisational interaction (‘writing’). Bodies learn to relate to each other through perceptual interpenetration and kinaesthetic empathy and co-create the choreography (‘moving’). Fleshly movement interaction is a submission to choreographies fulfilling the organisational need to reproduce bodies capable of carrying out certain movement imperatives, which however provides momentary openings through the use of kinaesthetic empathy.     

Representations of vulnerability,innocence and evil in the murder of a disabled person

Abstract

This article uses the murder of a young man with learning disabilities as a case study to comment on the representations used in the reporting of crime against disabled people. It uses social representations theory as a theoretical lens to assist us to see that portrayals of both victim and perpetrators by the media and others serves to distance them from each other, and from mainstream society. It highlights how this process of ‘othering’ serves to disadvantage disabled people and places a disproportionate emphasis on individual characteristics.     

Introduction: Chinese cultural studies in the utilitarianism-oriented age

ABSTRACT

This brief essay, introducing the collection of essays on cultural studies in mainland China and the Chinese-speaking societies, relates the emergence and development of Chinese cultural studies to changes in society. It documents the twin pulls in cultural studies between analyzing what is happening and intervening into society with idealistic possibilities for the future. It lays out how ‘the Chinese modern legacy’ and the Chinese Revolution provide resources for cultural studies and offers some analysis of the social changes that currently confront cultural studies.     

Death and the Penguin: modularity,alienation and organising

ABSTRACT

The originality of this paper lies in the ways in which it explores how the depiction of organised crime within Andrey Kurkov’s novel Death and the Penguin can inform our understanding of organisational modularity. This non-orthodox approach might open up new avenues of thought in the study of organisational modularity while further illustrating how novelistic worlds can inform accounts of organisational realities. Two main research questions underlie the paper. How can Andrey Kurkov’s novel further our understanding of the complexity of organisational worlds and realities by focusing our attention on different landscapes of organising? How does Kurkov’s novel help us grasp the concept of modularity by drawing attention to new forms of modular organisation? Drawing from our reading of Kurkov’s novel, we primarily explore organisational modularity through Kurkov’s depiction of organised crime and consider the themes of alienation and isolation in the context of modular organising.     

‘ … half-sick of shadows’: figure and ground in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s imagination of the subaltern

ABSTRACT

This essay moves the category of the subaltern out of the exclusive domain of colonial historiography and resituates it in the context of contemporaneity. Taking my cue from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s insistence on the dream of postcoloniality in the realm of the global, I examine two ‘empirical anomalies’ that redefine subaltern insurgency, cultivate democratic reflexes, and defeat the expectations of their moment and milieu. Vivek Chibber’s Postcolonial theory and the specter of capital serves as a framing device to elicit the still-persuasive dimensions of Spivak’s landmark essay for our historical moment. While I remain unpersuaded by both his premises and his conclusions, his argument does throw Spivak’s interventions in the project of Subaltern Studies into relief. My method throughout, in the manner of Spivak and Paul de Man, is one of interruption and undoing; my aim is to delineate what Spivak describes as ‘the resistance fitting our time’.     

(Auto)Ethnography and cycling

This article discusses the formation, salience and reformation of everyday bodily routines and resources in relation to cycling; it also examines how we can study them ethnographically in different places. I discuss forms of embodied, sensuous and mobile ethnography that can illuminate how routines, habits and affective capacities of cycling are cultivated and performed. The article argues that autoethnography is particularly apt at illuminating the embodied qualities of movement, and it sits within established ethnographies of ‘excising’ and ‘mobile bodies’. In the second part of the article, I draw upon ongoing autoethnographies of cycling in a familiar place (my hometown, Copenhagen) and by learning to cycle ‘out-of-place’ (in London) and ‘in-a-new–way’ (when commuting long distance on a racer bike). The study challenges static notions of the body by analysing how cyclists’ (and researchers’) affective capacities develop as they practice cycling.     

A Fit Person to Run a Home: Registered Homes Tribunal Interpretations of the ‘Fit Person’ Concept in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The abuse of people living in residential care in the UK is well documented. A further wealth of information is available in the form of anecdotal accounts of those who have been employed in this sector but who, in a climate which is still somewhat hostile to ‘whistle blowers,’ are not prepared to formally report their concerns. A small but significant amount of hard evidence of abuse exists in the reports of the Registered Homes Tribunal decisions. This body has the jurisdiction to hear appeals concerning the running of registered and nursing homes in the UK. The circumstances portrayed range from issues of ‘bad practice’ to abuse which may be physical, psychological, or sexual, perpetrated by staff, home owners, residents, or visitors. Many of the cases which concern the tribunal focus on whether a given individual is a ‘fit person’ to run a home. It is the aim of this article to consider and reflect on the tribunals’ interpretation of that term, in relation to the operation and decisions of the tribunal.     

When I hear the word culture …

ABSTRACT

This afterword summarizes the principal contributions of the articles in this collection, noting both common themes and points of difference. All six articles highlight serious problems and unintended consequences that result when the recognition of rights grounded in cultural difference, or expressions of respect for cultural particularity, take place without engaging the deep structural inequalities that accompany cultural plurality. They also raise key differences, some contextual others conceptual, as to people’s experiences in effectively using openings of cultural recognition towards more expansive ends. Consequential differences also arise as to the best practical and theoretical means to contest racism. Especially in these dangerous times, my argument (and theirs) is not against cultural rights and recognition, but rather, in favour of approaches that critically appraise both the possibilities and limitations of such struggles – that is, to finish the sentence, ‘when I hear the word culture?…?’ taking seriously its cautionary message.     

Applying critical race theory in social work education in Britain: pedagogical reflections

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on personal experiences of teaching white British and Black African students on a social work Master’s course in England. In this paper, I critically discuss the fire at Grenfell Tower in London (14 June 2017) and how it served as a pedagogical tool to open up critical discussions among students about racial in/justice, intersectionality and neoliberal racism. I also explore how Black students were enabled to share their experiences of immigration, racism, and racial inequality in Britain as part of these discussions. Inviting personal experiences of race in the classroom can be highly emotive; but, as this paper shows, these voices can also highlight institutionalized racism and provide a way for Black and ethnic minorities’ histories to be told and learned. These histories matter and can develop student consciousness about racial inequality for pursuing a social agenda. They also challenge claims that Britain is now a ‘post-racial’ society. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided a way to counter such claims and critique my ‘whiteness’ and socio-economic class in my teaching, as well as challenge the neoliberal ideologies and structures that reproduce and mask ‘white privilege’ and racial injustice in Britain today.     

From bodies as ‘meat’ to bodies as ‘flesh’: the expression of performance management as ‘sacrificial acts’ within professional rugby

ABSTRACT

In this article, we argue that to extend the research on performance management we need to examine further how organisational members interweave the technology of such management into their work. Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, we question the notion that technology acts on bodies in a linear manner as ‘meat’ to be manipulated. His reversible ontology suggests that these materials can be woven into the flesh of organising in a multitude of ways. Specifically, we refer to professional rugby, and the manner in which its players utilise the technology of performance management, to forge a localised expression of sacrifice. We suggest that this expression provides a means for players to define and evaluate themselves against ‘good rugby’. As forms of evaluation may vary in organisations, we recommend that researchers do not solely associate performance management with metrics but also look to other, more localised, expressions to inform their work.     

Bodies of work: skilling at the bottom of the global nursing care chain

ABSTRACT

In the midst of a growing global market for migrant care work, there is a need to investigate not only how such labour is consumed but how ‘ideal’ care workers are also produced. This paper investigates how schools within migrant-sending countries produce nurse labour through body work or the testing and honing of hospital procedures on patients’ bodies. Focusing on the case of the Philippines, this paper shows how the education of nurses for export creates a paradoxical impact on care work within local healthcare institutions. Aspiring nurse migrants provide much-needed manpower to understaffed public hospitals yet, treat poor patients as docile bodies to enhance their skills for future foreign employers. This practice creates an inherent inequality in the actual skilling of aspiring nurse migrants, where the poorest bodies allow nurse migrants to provide better care to more privileged bodies in wealthier nations.     

Comparing child protection decision-making in England and Finland: supervised or supported judgement?

ABSTRACT

Systems for the protection of children have evolved differently across nation states. Studies have identified contrasting system ‘orientations’, related to how child protection problems are framed and how organisations respond in different contexts. In this study, the influence of national and organisational factors on practice-level decision reasoning by social workers has been compared. Interviews were conducted with 30 child protection social workers in sites across England and Finland, structured around two hypothetical case vignettes. While similarities were observed in how the social workers responded to the vignettes, there were differences in the nature and extent of managerial involvement described, with the English social workers appearing to rely on managerial input for decision-making to a greater extent than the Finnish social workers. These findings suggest evidence for two distinct organisational approaches to decision-making: ‘supervised’ and ‘supported’ judgement. Here, supervised judgement describes a hierarchical, ‘top-down’ form of decision-making, while supported judgement describes a more horizontal and shared decision-making approach. The lens of comparative methodology has revealed how these organisational factors come into play in different child protection systems. The practice implications of supervised, manager-led approaches to decision-making, as contrasted with supported, team-led approaches, are discussed.     

Mother Died Today or Maybe Yesterday: Reflections of L'etranger on Team‐Based Forms of Work Organization

One of the most enduring images of late twentieth‐century popular culture was the individualist and iconoclastic portrayal of the ‘grumpy old man’ Victor Meldrew in the BBC television series One Foot in the Grave. Richard Wilson's portrayal of the recently retired security worker is the antithesis of everything that contemporary organizations require from the idealized vision of employee as ‘team‐player’. As one who revels in the way that the epitaph ‘Victor’ is thrown at me at regular intervals both by my partner and children, at times when I think I am behaving normally, I thought it would be interesting for me to reflect, in public, on my relationship to contemporary workplace relations. It is my contention that Meldrew's characterization is not wholly based around the age dimension but is equally based upon his portrayal as an individual ill at ease with the mores of gregariousness. The essay therefore is a self‐reflective piece in which the author places himself in a particular milieu—that of L'etranger and uses this ‘placing’ in order to discuss the relationship between what he defines as ‘the outsider’ and the issue of age discrimination in contemporary blue‐collar environments. It is suggested that whilst the outsider or L'etranger is accepted under certain conditions within the managerial labour process this same level of organizational tolerance is not afforded to older workers within blue‐collar areas. It moves from a reflective, even autodidactic exploration of the relationship between the author and cultural articulations of L'etranger and uses this to inform an analysis of the acceptance of L'etranger within some aspects of the managerial labour within team based manufacturing units. In exploring these issues the essay then attempts to develop a third narrative in terms of now L'etranger, approaching the age of retirement fits in to the new academic labour process.     

Involving People with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities in Social Work Education: Building Inclusive Practice

Abstract

Service user and carer engagement is a foundational requirement of social work education. Despite this, questions remain about how diverse experiences are represented and who might be excluded from involvement. This paper focusses on one group of people who it is suggested are excluded from involvement, people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Evidence is presented which demonstrates the extent to which this group have been marginalised and excluded from processes of involvement. The paper then provides a case study of one universities’ experience of developing work in this area, when a man with profound and multiple learning disabilities was commissioned to design and deliver specialist teaching for a group of qualifying social work students. We argue that the main barrier to inclusive involvement for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities is the attitudes and assumption of others about what they are capable of. We demonstrate how involvement in social work education helps to address these barriers by challenging the assumptions of students, the academy and society more broadly.     

Contested Concepts in Violence Against Women: ‘Intimate’, ‘Domestic’ or ‘Torture’?

Abstract

Ritualistic, overwhelmingly violent bikie gang or cult-inflicted abuse of women, entrenched by co-opting third party cult or gang members, has been referred to as ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate violence’ or ‘intimate partner violence’. The present article questions the aptitude of these terms to convey the realities of this violence, in light of the experiences of women attending a South Australian domestic violence service, all of whom were escaping violent partners who were members or associates of bikie gangs and cults. The paper asks, ‘is torture an appropriate term for such violence?’ and discusses the impact of social, legal, organisational and human rights parallel states that collaborate to make it almost impossible for these women to escape this violence and make it difficult for social workers to work effectively with them. The paper concludes that the State needs to adopt a human rights rather than legal focus when addressing the issue of violence against women.     

Education after Abu Ghraib

Drawing upon Theodor Adorno's famous essay, ‘Education After Auschwitz, ‘this article examines the question of how education should be engaged in light of the abuse and torture by American soldiers and personnel that took place at Abu Ghraib prison. The essay attempts to understand not only how the photographs of abuse and torture signalled a particular form of public pedagogy, but also how pedagogy itself becomes central to understanding the changing political, ideological, and economic conditions that made the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib possible and what the latter implies for how we understand both cultural politics and the growing authoritarian nature of American society.     

Hierarchical multiplicity in the international monetary system: from the slave trade to the Franc CFA in West Africa

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the relationship between international currency hierarchies and ‘societal multiplicity’. I provide an historical sketch of how West African societies and the rest of the world have engaged in trading money for slaves and raw commodities for centuries. I concur that societal multiplicity can indeed be seen as lying at the root of the global monetary system with its multiple currencies. However, my analysis offers three criticisms: First, the multiplicity project fails to give adequate attention to hierarchies in general and to those that come with monetary relations in particular. Second, Because of the existence of the world market, there is always a global and hierarchical sphere that is non-identical to societies and transcends their interaction. Third, money as both global and multiple relation points at the need for a more dynamic understanding of ‘society’ as political and economic borders do not necessarily map unto each other.     

Body Talk: Some Thoughts On Anorexia

In this paper, I will attempt to address questions about the dynamics of anorexia within family relationships, the ways in which anorexic thinking encapsulates itself in the mind, and how it can leave both the therapist and the family feeling ‘starved out’. I will also address some organisational issues, in the ways the therapeutic agency can come to mirror the anorexic dilemma. How does the metaphor of ‘growing’ and ‘growing up’ join with the anorexic crisis? I will discuss the cases of both a boy and a girl with anorexia, in order to think about the dynamic differences in the ‘becoming of a man’ and the ‘becoming of a woman’.