Please find attached a recent Human Relations OnlineFirst article that may be of interest to you -- it introduces the content of the forthcoming January 2019 special issue (see below) -- We hope you will enjoy reading this content!
Organizing feminism: Bodies; practices and ethics
Guest Editors: Emma Bell, Susan Meriläinen, Scott Taylor and Janne Tienari
CONTENTS
Time's up! Feminist theory and activism meets organization studies
Emma Bell, Susan Meriläinen, Scott Taylor and Janne Tienari
Human Relations Oct 30, 2018 | OnlineFirst
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726718790067
Abstract
Feminism is a long established, often neglected empirical and theoretical presence in the study of organizations and social relations at work. This special issue provides a space for research that focuses on contemporary feminist practice and theory. We suggest that now is a new time for feminism, noting very recent examples of sexist oppression in social relations to illustrate why this rejuvenation is happening now. We then reflect on the process of knowledge production involved in guest editorial work for an organization studies journal like Human Relations, to address the issue of why feminism is so poorly represented in the journals that our academic community constructs as prestigious. We suggest that feminism provides opportunities for distinctive practices of knowledge production that challenge the patriarchal social formations which characterize academic work. We conclude with speculations about the future of feminism in organization studies.
Keywords: activism, feminism, intersectionality, patriarchy, politics of knowledge production, sexism, theory
Ethics, politics and feminist organizing: Writing feminist infrapolitics and affective solidarity into everyday sexism
Sheena J Vachhani and Alison Pullen
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718780988
Abstract
This paper critically examines a twenty-first century online, social movement, The Everyday Sexism Project (referred to as the ESP), to analyse resistance against sexism that is systemic, entrenched and institutionalised in society, including organizations. Our motivating questions are: what new forms of feminist organizing are developing to resist sexism and what are the implications of thinking ethico-politically about feminist resistance which has the goals of social justice, equality and fairness? Reading the ESP leads to a conceptualisation of how infrapolitical feminist resistance emerges at grassroots level and between individuals in the form of affective solidarity, which become necessary in challenging neoliberal threats to women's opportunity and equality. Our contribution conceptualises affective solidarity as central to this feminist resistance against sexism and involves two modes of feminist organizing, the politics of experience and empathy. By addressing the ethical and political demands of solidarity we can build resurgent, politically vibrant feminist organizing and resistance that mobilises feminist consciousness and builds momentum for change. Our conclusion is that an ethico-politics of feminist resistance moves away from individualising experiences of sexism towards collective resistance and organizes solidarity, experience and empathy that may combat ignorance and violence towards women.
Keywords: affect, ethics, embodiment, everyday sexism, feminism, infrapolitics, solidarity
Re-assembling difference? Rethinking inclusion through/as embodied ethics
Melissa Tyler
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718764264
Abstract
This article considers inclusion through the lens of embodied ethics. It does so by connecting feminist writing on recognition, ethics and embodiment to recent examples of political activism as instances of recognition-based organizing. In making these connections, the article draws on insights from Judith Butler's recent writing on the ethics and politics of assembly in order to rethink how inclusion might be understood and practised. The article has three interrelated aims: (i) to emphasize the importance of a critical reconsideration of the ethics and politics of inclusion given – on the one hand, its positioning as an organizational 'good', and on the other, the conditions attached to it; (ii) to develop a critique of inclusion, drawing on insights from recent feminist thinking on relational ethics; and (iii) to connect this theoretical critique of inclusion, reconsidered here through the lens of embodied ethics, to assembly as a form of feminist activism. Each of these aims underpins the theoretical and empirical discussion developed in the article, specifically its focus on the relationship between embodied ethics, the interplay between theory and practice, and a politics of assembly as the basis for a critical reconsideration of inclusion.
Keywords: assembly, Judith Butler, embodied ethics, inclusion, recognition, relationality
Splitting and blaming: The psychic life of neoliberal executive women
Darren T Baker and Elisabeth K Kelan
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718772010
Abstract
The aim of the article is to explore the psychic life of executive women under neoliberalism using psychosocial approaches. The article shows how, despite enduring unfair treatment and access to opportunities, many executive women remain emotionally invested in upholding the neoliberal ideal that if one perseveres, one shall be successful, regardless of gender. Drawing on psychosocial approaches, we explore how the accounts given by some executive women of repudiation, as denying gender inequality, and individualization, as subjects completely agentic, are underpinned by the unconscious, intertwined processes of splitting and blaming. Women sometimes split off undesirable aspects of the workplace, which repudiates gender inequality, or blame other women, which individualizes failure and responsibility for change. We explain that splitting and blaming enable some executive women to manage the anxiety evoked from threats to the neoliberal ideal of the workplace. This article thereby makes a contribution to existing postfeminist scholarship by integrating psychosocial approaches to the study of the psychic life of neoliberal executive women, by exploring why they appear unable to engage directly with and redress instances of gender discrimination in the workplace.
Keywords: blaming, individualization, neoliberalism, postfeminism, psychic life, psychosocial, repudiation, splitting
Mothers and researchers in the making - negotiating 'new' motherhood amidst 'new' academia
Astrid S Huopalainen and Suvi T Satama
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718764571
Abstract
How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today's highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of 'new' motherhood within the 'new' academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia's neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables – at times – simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.
Keywords: autoethnography, early-career academics, embodied experience, matricentric feminism, motherhood
Temporality and gendered agency: Menopausal subjectivities in women's work
Gavin Jack, Kathleen Riach and Emily Bariola
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718767739
Abstract
This article advances feminist organizational theorizing about embodiment and subjectivity by investigating menopause at work as a temporally constituted phenomenon. We ask how time matters in women's embodied and subjective experiences of menopause at work. Theoretically, we draw on feminist writers McNay and Grosz to explore the relationship between gendered agency and time in a corpus of 48 qualitative interviews conducted with women employed at two Australian universities about their experiences of menopause. Our empirical analysis identifies three temporal modalities – episodic, helical and relational – that show how gendered organizational subjectivities are not simply temporally situated, but created in and through distinct temporal forces. We offer two contributions to feminist organizational theory: first, by illuminating the ontological role played by time in gendered agency; and second, by fleshing out the notion of a 'body politics of surprise' with implications for feminist studies of organizational embodiment, politics and ethics.
Keywords: ageing, agency, body, embodiment, older worker, time
Five movements in an embodied feminism: A memoir
Amanda Sinclair
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718765625
Abstract
How can bodies, embodied experiences and feelings, be recognized as central elements of becoming and being feminist? This article – a mixture of memoir and research reflection – aims to reveal the emergent and embodied nature of feminist paths using myself as case in point. Recounting five personal 'movements' over three decades, I show how my material situations, physically-felt struggles and embodied encounters with others, especially women, wrested – sometimes catapulted – my precarious self-identification as a feminist. Writing this as a memoir, I hope to evoke in the reader memories and experiences that highlight their own embodied feminism. The article identifies some problems feminists commonly face, contesting unhelpful hierarchies of 'good' and 'bad' feminists. I explore some gifts of feminism – encounters with writing and people – which have provided theoretical innovation and personal insight for me, and offer fertile avenues for further research. Avoiding trying to 'trap' feminism as one set of views or experiences, I seek to show how our feminisms are always embodied: opportunistic, emergent, sometimes inconvenient, neither comprehensive nor respectable, but frequently bringing agency, invigoration and surprising pleasures. It gives all who call ourselves feminists, cause for optimism.
Keywords: bodies, embodiment, feminism, feminists, feminist scholars, physicality, materiality, women's writing, memoirs
You can view other Human Relations preview articles here: http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/hum/0/0
Best wishes,
Claire
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Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute
LONDON
Email:
c.castle@tavinstitute.org Website:
www.humanrelationsjournal.orgHuman Relations is one of 50 Journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
2-year impact factor: 3.043 Ranked: 4/98 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 55/209 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.349 Ranked: 1/98 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 49/209 in Management
Source: Journal Citation Reports®, 2018 release, a Clarivate Analytics product
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