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  • 1.  GDO - CFP: GENDER, WORK AND ORGANISATION

    Posted 09-20-2009 01:44
    Hi all,
    I thought this CFP might interest some of you.
    This also gives me an opportunity to wish our Muslim members Eid Mubarack and our Jewish members Shana Tova.
    Be well,
    Bobbie, GDO list manager

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    GENDER, WORK AND ORGANISATION
    6TH INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE
    UNIVERSITY OF KEELE
    21ST – 23RD JUNE 2010

    CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

    POLITICS AS/AT WORK: (SEXUAL) POLITICS, PRACTICE AND GENDERED POWER

    Stream Convenors

    Nickie Charles, Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University
    of Warwick, UK
    Suzanne Franzway, University of South Australia
    Linda Krefting, Texas Tech University, USA
    Carol Wolkowitz, Sociology Department, University of Warwick, UK

    Work and gender, both separately and together, are enmeshed in
    relations of power - and power is, of course, the stuff of politics.
    The focus on politics in the context of work and political activity as
    itself a form of work will allow the stream to explore the many
    dimensions of politics as it is practised  – whether this be at the
    micro-level of daily workplace interactions or the macro-level debates
    of formal political institutions. The informal sexual politics of
    working life, trade union activity and women's workplace organising,
    for example, all involve politics. Conversely, the focus also allows
    us to conceptualise the doing of politics, whether at a formal or
    informal level, as a form of work, something which has not hitherto
    been given much scholarly attention. Those of us who are involved in
    politics, whether with a capital P or not, are also involved in
    gendered work. This stream will explore the political processes which
    characterise work and organisations and how they are gendered, as well
    as providing the opportunity to conceptualise the doing of politics
    and how, when we do politics, we also do gender and contest gendered
    power.

    A focus on politics as/at work embraces a diverse range of topics, all
    of which are welcome in this stream. A fundamental aspect is sexual
    politics, as it is played out in daily interactions at work and as it
    feeds into the more formal political arenas of trade unions and LGBT
    caucuses and pressure groups. Informal sexual banter and sexual
    harassment reflect and reinforce gendered relations of power, but also
    give rise to forms of resistance that challenge and potentially
    transform these relations. Such resistance also takes organisational
    form and gives rise to the development of workplace policies to
    challenge and marginalise discrimination on the grounds of sexual
    diversity. Sexual politics also refers to the dynamic of power between
    women and men and the cultural association of power with masculinity.
    This not only leads to an association of power and authority with men,
    an association which has long been recognised, but also ensures that
    the political domain is gendered masculine and that women who enter it
    may be obliged to 'do' masculinity in order to be able to 'do'
    politics. Thus the work of politics, as the work of senior managers,
    involves doing gender. Looking at the politics of work and politics at
    work also brings the intersections between sexual politics and other
    systems of power to the fore; papers discussing these interconnections
    will make an important contribution to this stream.

    If the performance of power and resistance permeates everyday life,
    one important example is the politics of desirable dress, appearance
    and bodily performance. Dress codes are gendered, classed and 'raced'
    and the appearance of employees, is often critical to the jobs they
    can access and how they are perceived in them. Who has the power to
    dictate what people should wear at work and how they should look? How
    are these constraints resisted? And what pleasures are involved in
    conforming to these strictures? Can these processes of resistance and
    conformity be conceptualised in terms of power and politics?

    Doing politics, particularly at the formal level of legislative
    assemblies, has not received a great deal of attention from
    sociologists, although more has been paid to the informal politics of
    social movements. At both levels, however, gender has not always been
    at the forefront of analysis. Furthermore, there are new insights to
    be gained from conceptualising the doing pf politics as a form of paid
    or unpaid work. Politicians, for instance, and some pressure group
    workers, receive a salary for the work they do, they work in specific
    institutional settings, such as legislatures, political parties, and
    organisational headquarters and branches, and these institutions are
    characterised by gendered cultures in the same way as any other
    workplace. Conceptualising political activity as a form of work may
    therefore throw light on the way it is gendered and how, even within
    political institutions, work is taking place in the context of
    specific relations of employment and in particular conditions that
    might not be tolerated in any other place of work. Similarly, for many
    people activism in social movements might be seen as a form of
    voluntary work that is gendered and patterned by gendered relations of
    power and authority in the same way as are formal workplaces.

    Although women are now to be found in positions of power, in political
    parties and political institutions, as well as workplaces more
    generally, it is still overwhelmingly men who occupy such positions.
    What is it that reproduces this situation? Why is it that boardrooms
    and high political office continue to be dominated by men? What is it
    about power that genders it masculine? How can women challenge the
    gendering of power and how are they doing so?

    The investigation of new and more subtle forms of governance also
    crosses the usual boundaries between political science and sociology.
    The topic of resistance at work, both formal and informal, has a long
    history of scholarship associated with it. But what is happening to
    resistance today when there are new and more subtle forms of
    governance at play within institutions? How are these forms of
    governance gendered? Do they make it more difficult to practice
    politics at work and are they resulting in a weakening of the
    collective power of workers, whether women or men? These are questions
    that could be addressed by papers in this stream.

    The stream will embrace a wide range of topics all of which relate to
    different aspects of politics as/at work. Thinking of politics as work
    breaches disciplinary boundaries and has the potential to provide a
    different perspective on both work and politics. It is this new, and
    gendered, perspective which we are seeking to encourage in the papers
    which will be included in this stream.

    Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document, single
    spaced, excluding references) are invited by 1st November 2009 with
    decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month.
    All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work
    in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers,
    ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that
    due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author
    will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be emailed to nickie.charles@warwick.ac.uk

    Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name,
    institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State
    the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.

    ---------------------------------------------




    Sumohon Matilal
    Lecturer in Accounting
    Essex Business School
    University of Essex
    Wivenhoe Park
    Colchester CO4 3SQ
    T: +44 (0) 1206 873492
    F: +44 (0) 1206 873429



  • 2.  GDO - CFP: GENDER, WORK AND ORGANISATION

    Posted 10-05-2009 00:48
    Hi all,
    Here is a call for papers for the Interdisciplinary Conference on "Gender, Work And Organisation", that I pulled off another list.
    Be well,
    Bobbie, GDO list manager.
    --------------------

    GENDER, WORK AND ORGANISATION
    6TH INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE
    21ST – 23RD JUNE, 2010

    CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

    THEORISING RESISTANCE: PRACTICING GENDER, CHANGE AND RESISTANCE

    Stream Convenors

    Marieke van den Brink, Nijmegen School of Management, Netherlands
    Elisabeth Kelan, King's College London, UK
    Julia Nentwich, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

    The aim of this stream is to advance contemporary thinking about
    gender and organizational theory by bringing together international
    scholars with an interest in change and resistance towards gender
    equality initiatives in organizational settings.

    Despite decades of equal-opportunities legislation and affirmative
    action initiatives, progress towards gender equality in organizations
    remains painfully slow, regardless of organizational or national
    context. While open forms of resistance and backlash, for instance
    micro-political actions (Van den Brink 2009), have not at all
    disappeared, more subtle forms of resistance have developed lately.
    The (liberal) discourse of seeing (gender) equality as a major
    achievement of modernity provides a strong normative background for
    ignoring and delegitimizing factual inequalities in modern societies.
    In fact, it seems that the arena of gender discrimination itself has
    changed. This change has been described as 'rhetoric
    modernisation' (Wetterer, 2003), 'dethematisation' (Müller, Müller-
    Franke, Pfeil & Wilz, 2007) or 'gender fatigue' (Kelan, 2009), thereby
    identifying a strong ideological dilemma between strong believes in
    equality while ignoring the facticity of inequality. On the one hand,
    gender discrimination is acknowledged as something possible but
    unacceptable within the workplace, but on the other hand it is framed
    as something that has been dealt with in the past and that is no
    longer relevant for day-to-day interactions (Czarniawska & Calás,
    1997). There is a clash between the rhetoric around gender diversity
    and the actual implementation of these initiatives in daily
    situations, which provides an interesting setting for feminist inquiry
    in the context of (multinational) organisations.

    We would like to explore approaches theorizing resistance as social
    practices performed

    in contexts, specific to events, actors and other practices (Prasad
    and Prasad, 2000). This track invites theoretically and/or empirically
    informed papers from different disciplines that deepen our
    understanding of change, resistance, discursive, rhetoric and micro-
    political practices that impede gender equality on an everyday basis.
    We welcome papers that:

    -        develop theoretical approaches to researching power and
    resistance in organizations

    -        provide an analysis of any of the multiple forms of
    resistance or power struggles towards gender equality policies and/or
    practices

    -        explore the micro-politics of resistance

    -        suggest how changes in culture might be facilitated

    -        engage feminist theoretical perspectives on resistance and
    change

    -        explore the role of different forms of masculinities in
    change processes

    -        discuss intersectionality and its importance for
    organizational change

    Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document, single
    spaced, excluding references) are invited by 1st November 2009 with
    decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month.
    All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work
    in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers,
    ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that
    due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author
    will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be emailed to elisabeth.kelan@kcl.ac.uk
       julia.nentwich@unisg.ch   mcl.vandenbrink@fm.ru.nl  Abstracts
    should include FULL contact details, including your name,
    institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State
    the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.

    ----------------------







    Sumohon Matilal
    Lecturer in Accounting
    Essex Business School
    University of Essex
    Wivenhoe Park
    Colchester CO4 3SQ
    T: +44 (0) 1206 873492
    F: +44 (0) 1206 873429