Gender, the body and organization studies: que(e)rying empirical research

Even in organization studies scholarship that treats gender as performative and fluid, a certain ‘crystallization’ of gender identities as somehow unproblematic and stable may occur because of our methodological decision-making, and especially our categorization of participants. Mobilizing queer theory — and Judith Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and performativity in particular — as a conceptual lens, we examine this crystallization, suggesting it is based on two implicit assumptions: that gender is a cultural mark over a passive biological body, or is a base identity ‘layered over’ by other identities (class, race, age etc.). Following Butler, we argue that in order to foreground the fluidity and uncertainty of gender categories in our scholarship, it is necessary to understand gender identity as a process of doing and undoing gender that is located very precisely in time and space. Given this perspective on gender identities as complex processes of identification, non-identification and performativity, we offer some pointers on how the methodological decision-making underpinning empirical research on gender, work and organization could and should begin from this premise

Queering queer theory in management and organization studies: notes toward queering heterosexuality

This article suggests new possibilities for queer theory in management and organization studies (MOS). MOS has tended to use queer theory as a conceptual resource for studying the workplace experience of ‘minorities’ such as gay men, lesbians and those identifying as bisexual or transgender (LGBT), often focusing on how heteronormativity shapes the discursive constitution of sexualities and genders coded as LGBT. But this deployment is crucial and apposite but it can limit the analytical reach of queer theory, ignoring other objects of analysis such as heterosexuality. Potentially, MOS queer theory scholarship could be vulnerable to criticism about ignoring queer theory as a productive site for acknowledging heterosexuality’s coercive aspects but also its non-normative forms. As such, the principal contribution of this article is twofold. First, it proposes a queering of queer theory in MOS, whereby scholars are alert to and question the potential normativities that MOS queer theory research can produce, opening up a space for exploring how heterosexuality can be queered. Second, we show how queering heterosexuality can be another site where queer theory and politics can come together in the MOS field through a shared attempt to rupture sexual and gender binaries, and challenge normative social relations. This article concludes by outlining the political implications of queering heterosexuality for generating modes of organizing in which heterosexuality can be experienced as non-normative and how it might rupture and dismantle heteronormativity

Rosabeth Moss Kanter:Revolutionary roots and liberal spores

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a figure who looms large in organisation studies. Since her first major projects in the 1970s, Kanter’s ideas on leadership, change, and power generated important shifts in thinking within the field at the time of their writing, and – perhaps most importantly – propagated many developments of management and organisation research today. Her work is as expansive as it is rich in its theoretical and empirical contributions, ranging from communes to infrastructure; leadership to strategy. In this chapter we consider her contributions in two areas: by engaging with Men and Women of the Corporation (first published in 1977) and Change Masters: Innovations for Productivity in the American Corporation (first published in 1983), we show how Kanter’s early discussions on power, politics and exclusion represented important steps toward current discussions around inequalities at work, and to understanding employees’ empowerment for sustaining innovative organisations. Approaching Kanter’s work through “zoom in, zoom out” (Kanter, 2011), we synthesise and situate her ideas in relation to recent debates, arguing that they represented revolutionary shifts in thinking at the time of writing. Equally, we suggest that the works we examine feed into what might now be considered the liberal mainstream, and that scholars have, once more, seen the need for a critical shift in approaches to innovation and inequality

The World of UCL

From its foundation in 1826, UCL embraced a progressive and pioneering spirit. It was the first university in England to admit students regardless of religion and made higher education affordable and accessible to a much broader section of society. It was also effectively the first university to welcome women on equal terms with men. From the outset UCL showed a commitment to innovative ideas and new methods of teaching and research. This book charts the history of UCL from 1826 through to the present day, highlighting its many contributions to society in Britain and around the world. It covers the expansion of the university through the growth in student numbers and institutional mergers. It documents shifts in governance throughout the years and the changing social and economic context in which UCL operated, including challenging periods of reconstruction after two World Wars. Today UCL is one of the powerhouses of research and teaching, and a truly global university. It is currently seventh in the QS World University Rankings. This completely revised and updated edition features a new chapter based on interviews with key individuals at UCL. It comes at a time of ambitious development for UCL with the establishment of an entirely new campus in East London, UCL East, and Provost Michael Arthur’s ‘UCL 2034’ strategy which aims to secure the university’s long-term future and commits UCL to delivering global impact

Humanitarianism in the Modern World: The Moral Economy of Famine Relief

This is an innovative new history of famine relief and humanitarianism. The authors apply a moral economy approach to shed new light on the forces and ideas that motivated and shaped humanitarian aid during the Great Irish Famine, the famine of 1921-1922 in Soviet Russia and the Ukraine, and the 1980s Ethiopian famine. They place these episodes within a distinctive periodisation of humanitarianism which emphasises the correlations with politico-economic regimes: the time of elitist laissez-faire liberalism in the nineteenth century as one of ad hoc humanitarianism; that of Taylorism and mass society from c.1900-1970 as one of organised humanitarianism; and the blend of individualised post-material lifestyles and neoliberal public management since 1970 as one of expressive humanitarianism. The book as a whole shifts the focus of the history of humanitarianism from the imperatives of crisis management to the pragmatic mechanisms of fundraising, relief efforts on the ground, and finance

Subjects of diversity : relations of power/knowledge in the constructions of diversity practitioners

The concept of ‘diversity’ has become a common feature in UK organisations over the last twenty or so years. It offers arguments about what the world is like, who people are, how they relate to one another, and how the world should be. It has been used to bring about a host of different actors, objects and practices. Yet, we know relatively little about one of the central elements of this field – diversity practitioners. They play an important role in defining what diversity means in local contexts, they are the experts of the field. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of power/knowledge and the ‘subject’, along with the notion of bricolage, the research examines the different forms of knowledge that diversity practitioners use to construct themselves as expert subjects, and in turn how they seek to construct a particular subject of others, the ‘diversity trainee’, as the subject who is the outcome of diversity training. The findings show how the subjects of the diversity practitioner and the diversity trainee are shaped by dominant societal discourses of the expert and the neoliberal subject, as well as by the history of equality work and the organisational challenges that diversity practitioners face. But they also show that diversity practitioners are actively involved in forming themselves as subjects by producing subject positions and rationalities, which construct skills, values, and knowledge. Diversity training is shown to mobilise a form of power known as ‘modern government’ in seeking to constitute the diversity trainee as a selfregulating subject, which adds complexity to previous discussions of the ethics of this form of power. Diversity practitioners are central elements of their field, so recognising the relations of power/knowledge in their practices is fundamental to considering any future development of their practices, as well as better understanding the concept of diversity itself

Optical Design for Li Beam Zeeman Polarimetry Measurements on Diii-D

Measurements of the magnetic field pitch angle are obtained from the polarization characteristics of the {sigma} component of the Zeeman triplet of Li emission at 670.8 nm. A four element optical system images a horizontal Li beam on an array of 3 x 32, 1 mm diam. optical fibers, providing 32 spatial channels with 5 mm radial resolution in the plasma. Low Verdet constant glass is used for all optical elements near the DIII-D vessel to minimize the effects of Faraday rotation caused by stray magnetic fields. Before entering the fiber optics, the light passes through two crossed (45 degrees) photoelastic modulators (PEM) and a linear polarizer, which convert the various polarization states into an intensity modulated signal at the fundamental and 2nd harmonic of the PEM frequencies. For each spatial channel, light from a three fiber bundle is collimated and passes through a temperature tuned etalon (free spectral range, FSR = 0.3 nm; finesse, F = 5.7) in order to select only one {sigma} line of the triplet. The FSR is large enough to adequately cover the expected Zeeman triplet and small enough to achieve a low bandwidth (0.06 nm) at reasonably low F. A 1.0 nm wide interference filter is used to block all but 4-5 peaks of the etalon. The light is then focused on GaAs photo multiplier detectors. Details of the design and performance are presented

Activation of the glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol-anchored membrane dipeptidase upon release from pig kidney membranes by phospholipase C

Incubation of pig kidney microvillar membranes with Bacillus thuringiensis or Staphylococcus aureus phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) resulted in the release of a number of glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored hydrolases, including alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1), amino-peptidase P (EC 3.4.11.9), membrane dipeptidase (EC 3.4.13.19), 5'-nucleotidase (EC 3.1.3.5) and trehalase (EC 3.2.1.28). Of these five ectoenzymes only for membrane dipeptidase was there a significant (approx. 100%) increase in enzymic activity upon release from the membrane. Maximal activation occurred at a PI-PLC concentration 10-fold less than that required for maximal release. In contrast solubilization of the membranes with n-octyl beta-D-glucopyranoside had no effect on the enzymic activity of membrane dipeptidase. A competitive e.l.i.s.a. with a polyclonal antiserum to membrane dipeptidase indicated that the increase in enzymic activity was not due to an increase in the amount of membrane dipeptidase protein. Although PI-PLC cleaved the GPI anchor of the affinity-purified amphipathic form of pig membrane dipeptidase there was no concurrent increase in enzymic activity. In the absence of PI-PLC, membrane dipeptidase in the microvillar membranes hydrolysed Gly-D-Phe with a Km of 0.77 mM and a Vmax. of 602 nmol/min per mg of protein. However, in the presence of a concentration of PI-PLC which caused maximal release from the membrane and maximal activation of membrane dipeptidase the Km was decreased to 0.07 mM while the Vmax. remained essentially unchanged at 624 nmol/min per mg of protein. Overall these results suggest that cleavage by PI-PLC of the GPI anchor on membrane dipeptidase may relax conformational constraints on the active site of the enzyme which exist when it is anchored in the lipid bilayer, thus resulting in an increase in the affinity of the active site for substrate