The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Marxist accounts of capitalism and capitalists as “vampiric” and “cannibalistic” can challenge the exploitation underlying…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Marxist accounts of capitalism and capitalists as “vampiric” and “cannibalistic” can challenge the exploitation underlying “monstrosity” of the diverse “liberal organization”.
Design/methodology/approach
To bear out this argument, it will critically turn to Marx's original description of capitalism as “vampire” like. It will do so by examining a range of theoretical and existing empirical research related themes of contemporary diversity.
Findings
The paper argues that in order to avoid becoming capitalist monsters it is imperative to adopt an explicitly anti-capitalist Marxist perspective centring on themes of a “monstrous” capitalism. Capitalist organizations, not only “suck the blood of workers” but turns them into exploiting vampires, feeding on others for own profit and promotion. Yet it also expands on such readings by emphasizing the liberating possibilities that a more contemporary view of “monsters” stressing radical diversity and difference can make to this Marxist critique.
Originality/value
To this end, it illuminates how a perspective uniting these ideals, termed here as a “revolutionary monstrous humanism”, can effectively challenge the dehumanization of managerial control and market ideologies while also fighting for the right of individuals to express their heterogeneous and always evolving unique cultural identities.
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The purpose of this paper is to problematise the notion of woman-as-monster and draws together a conceptual analysis of the monstrous-feminine and its relation to maternal and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to problematise the notion of woman-as-monster and draws together a conceptual analysis of the monstrous-feminine and its relation to maternal and monstrous bodies including its implications for equality and inclusion in the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
Whilst exploring how female monsters are inextricably tied to their sexual difference, the author draws on social and psychoanalytic perspectives to suggest how such monstrosity is expressed through ambivalence to the maternal. The author analyses two “faces” of the monstrous-feminine in particular: the archaic mother and the monstrous womb (Creed, 1993) and develop this discussion in relation to the potential for a feminist monstrous politics of organisation.
Findings
First, the author exposes the basis on which the monstrous-feminine articulates and disarticulates femininity, that is to say, how a feminist analysis of monsters may enable but also foreclose a positive articulation of disruption, disorder and disorganisation central to the conceptualisation of monsters. This is done through a reading of the maternal-feminine and literature on motherhood in organisation studies. Second, the author locates the monstrous-feminine in the body and explores how maternal bodies are constructed and experienced as monstrous as they disrupt the self/other relationship. This analysis suggests that embodying the monster comes with risks and that different configurations of the monstrous maternal are necessary for equality and inclusion in the workplace.
Originality/value
The paper identifies and contributes to growing research on the ambivalence of monsters and expands a neglected area of the feminine and maternal aspects of these relationships and what this means for workplace relations.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the operation of classification mechanisms in organizational life, and how they construct the skills and knowledge of initially…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the operation of classification mechanisms in organizational life, and how they construct the skills and knowledge of initially marginalized client groups.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on an ethnographically inspired case study of a Swedish labour market procedure, which was designed to validate the skills and knowledge of non-western immigrant job-seekers. Qualitative data were generated through observations, in-depth interviews and document analysis.
Findings
The study found that, contrary to policy-makers’ intentions, the validation procedure ended up dissociating the non-western job-seekers’ heterogeneous experiences, skills and knowledge from the organizing processes of the labour market, displacing them beyond the boundaries of legitimate knowledge, and reproducing their marginalized position on the labour market. As non-western skills and knowledge were found unclassifiable according to the validation procedure, they were deemed too different and monstrous.
Research limitations/implications
The research approach and the specific institutional context of Swedish immigration and labour market policy means that the research results are not readily generalizable to other empirical contexts. Therefore, studies outside of Sweden are needed to generate knowledge about similar policies in other countries.
Practical implications
The classification of skills and knowledge and the organizing of difference does not primarily require new tools and methods, but a whole new perspective, which recognizes the multiplicity and heterogeneity of unusual skills and knowledge as an important part of labour market integration.
Originality/value
The paper examines the monstrous aspects of classification mechanisms within the empirical context of labour market integration efforts, which is hitherto underexplored in the literature on the management of difference and diversity.
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Louise Wallenberg and Torkild Thanem
In this short piece we take issue with the current separatist tendencies that are being expressed in certain parts of the queer community. We illustrate how this compares with…
Abstract
In this short piece we take issue with the current separatist tendencies that are being expressed in certain parts of the queer community. We illustrate how this compares with central ideas in proto-queer thought and queer theory, and how it risks undermining the possibility of a queer dialogue and queer politics.
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The purpose of this paper is to compare public health discourses on the importance of motherhood with organizational attitudes towards childbearing. It shows how pregnancy and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare public health discourses on the importance of motherhood with organizational attitudes towards childbearing. It shows how pregnancy and the nurturing of infant children are valorized within public health discourses, which treat pregnancy and new maternity as a miraculous “project”, encouraging mothers to position maternity as central to their lives. By contrast, the paper shows how employers treat pregnancy and new motherhood as inconvenient and messy: as monstrous, at work.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws upon a database of qualitative netnographic (or internet-based) research. It analyses netnographic interactions between pregnant and newly maternal women. These virtual data are afforded the same validity as face-to-face research.
Findings
The paper demonstrates how maternal responsibilities for nurturing pregnancy and infant children, and the bio-medical properties of the maternal body, are central to public health discourses. By contrast, the maternal body is treated within organizations as alien, or monstrous.
Originality/value
The paper compares and contrasts public health valorizations of motherhood, with organizational tendencies to treat pregnancy/newly maternal bodies as monstrous. It highlights dichotomies faced by employed mothers. A continuing chasm between the social organization of maternity, and the attitudes of employers towards children and maternal bodies, is identified.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the monstrous in organizational diversity by introducing the concept of cultural anthropophagy to the diversity literature. Using…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the monstrous in organizational diversity by introducing the concept of cultural anthropophagy to the diversity literature. Using Kristeva's notion of abjection to better understand cultural anthropophagy, the paper argues that cultural anthropophages cross boundaries, and build identity through desire for and aggression toward valued others.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a conceptual discussion of abjection, along with a historical survey of anthropophagic approaches from Brazilian art and cultural studies.
Findings
Anthropophagic approaches highlight unique features of organizational identity, framing identity formation as a fluid process of expulsion and re-integration of the other. While abjection approaches focus on the exclusion of material aspects of the self and the formation of self-other boundaries, anthropophagy focusses on the re-integration of the other into the self, in a symbolic gesture of re-integration, desire, and reverence for the other.
Originality/value
The idea of anthropophagy is a recent entrant into the organizational literature, and the close relation between anthropophagy and abjection is illuminated in the current paper. Original insights regarding the search for positive identity, the ambivalence of self and other, and the relation of the particular and the universal, are offered with regards to the diversity literature.
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Christian Maravelias, Torkild Thanem and Mikael Holmqvist
In contrast to the largely functionalist and apolitical literature which dominates organisational scholarship on exploitation and exploration after March, this paper seeks to…
Abstract
In contrast to the largely functionalist and apolitical literature which dominates organisational scholarship on exploitation and exploration after March, this paper seeks to complement this view of exploitation and exploration with a Marxist reading which is unwittingly implied by these terms. More specifically, we combine neo-Marxist and paleo-Marxist arguments to more fully understand the conflictual relations that underpin exploitation and exploration in the management of firms. This enables us to address both the objective and subjective dimensions of exploitation and exploration which firms and workers are involved in through the contemporary capitalist labour process. We illustrate this by drawing on a case study of a large Swedish manufacturing firm which sought to improve lean production by systematically helping employees to explore their own lifestyles and possibilities for a healthier and happier life.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce an embodied approach to disability into the field of diversity management research.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce an embodied approach to disability into the field of diversity management research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper critically examines previous diversity management research and it draws on previous disability research in the social sciences to develop an embodied approach to disability for diversity management research.
Findings
The paper argues that an embodied approach is required because previous diversity management research on disability ignores important aspects of disability.
Research limitations/implications
The embodied approach to disability proposed in this paper expands the understanding of disability in diversity management research, and it discusses implications for future research and for organizations.
Originality/value
The paper is unique in proposing an embodied approach to disability in diversity management research.