Zooming in and out : studying practices by switching theoretical lenses and trailing connections

This paper contributes to re-specifying a number of the phenomena of interest to organisational studies in terms of patterns of socio-material practices and their effects. It does so by outlining a vocabulary and strategy that make up a framework for theorising work and organisational practices. The vocabulary is based on number of sensitising concepts that connote practice as an open-ended, heterogeneous accomplishment which takes place within a specific horizon of sense and a set of concerns which the practice itself brings to bear. The strategy is based on the metaphorical movement of "zooming in" and "zooming out of" practice. The zooming in and out are obtained through switching theoretical lenses and repositioning in the field, so that certain aspects of the practice are fore-grounded while others are bracketed. Building on the results of an extended study of telemedicine, the paper discusses in detail the different elements of the framework and how it enhances our capacity to re-present practice. The paper concludes with some considerations on how the proposed approach can assist us in advancing the research agenda of organizational and work studies

Sifiso Mzobe’s Young Blood: Spaces of getting and becoming in post-apartheid Durban

Sifiso Mzobe’s Young blood (2010) generates much of its energy, this article will argue, through its representation of social and physical mobility and its articulation of space with modes of consumption in post-apartheid South Africa. The novel is set chiefly in the township of Umlazi, the city of Durban and some of its middle- class suburbs. The chief protagonist, a young car thief, moves between township, city and suburb with ease in stolen cars. The open space of the highway separates township and suburb, but also connects them. The novel shows how the spatial arrangements of power and control associated with apartheid are increasingly undermined and reconfigured by new practices of everyday life. Young blood suggests that a certain style of driving can offer new ways of inhabiting the South African city and of bringing its disparate parts together. The ability to move between places in the novel provides opportunities for upward mobility and also enables new forms of symbiosis, trade and consumption. Stealing and driving cars enable Sifiso and his friends to bridge the divide between township and suburb and turn the distance between the two places into a domain of attainment and performance. But the rapid upward social mobility that high-level criminal activity allows is exposed as uncertain and ephemeral by the end of the novel, and the slower route offered by education to self-improvement and class mobility is proffered in its place

Migrant African women: tales of agency and belonging

This paper explores issues of belonging and agency among asylum seekers and refugee women of African origin in the UK. It discusses the ways these women engendered resistance in their everyday life to destitution, lack of cultural recognition, and gender inequality through the foundation of their own non-governmental organization, African Women’s Empowerment Forum, AWEF, a collective ‘home’ space. The focus of this account is on migrant women’s agency and self-determination for the exercise of choice to be active actors in society. It points to what might be an important phenomenon on how local grassroots movements are challenging the invisibility of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives and expanding the notion of politics to embrace a wider notion of community politics with solidarity. AWEF is the embodiment of a social space that resonates the ‘in-between’ experience of migrant life providing stability to the women members regarding political and community identification

Everyday life and locative play: an exploration of Foursquare and playful engagements with space and place

Foursquare is a location-based social network (LBSN) that combines gaming elements with features conventionally associated with social networking sites (SNSs). Following two qualitative studies, this article sets out to explore what impact this overlaying of physical environments with play has on everyday life and experiences of space and place. Drawing on early understandings of play, alongside the flâneur and ‘phoneur’ as respective methods for conceptualizing play in the context of mobility and urbanity, this article examines whether the suggested division between play and ordinary life is challenged by Foursquare, and if so, how this reframing of play is experienced. Second, this article investigates what effect this LBSN has on mobility choices and spatial relationships. Finally, the novel concept of the ‘phoneur’ is posited as a way of understanding how pervasive play through LBSNs acts as a mediating influence on the experience of space and place

Religious revelation, secrecy and the limits of visual representation

This article seeks to contribute to a more adequate understanding of the adoption of modern audiovisual mass media by contemporary religious groups. It does so by examining Pentecostal-charismatic churches as well as the Christian mass culture instigated by its popularity, and so-called traditional religion in Ghana, which develop markedly different attitudes towards audiovisual mass media and assume different positions in the public sphere. Taking into account the complicated entanglement of traditional religion and Pentecostalism, approaching both religions from a perspective of mediation which regards media as intrinsic to religion, and seeking to avoid the pitfall of overestimating the power of modern mass media to determine the world, this article seeks to move beyond an unproductive recurrence to oppositions such as tradition and modernity, or religion and technology. It is argued that instead of taking as a point of departure more or less set ideas about the nexus of vision and modernity, the adoption of new mass media by religious groups needs to be analyzed by a detailed ethnographic investigation of how these new media transform existing practices of religious mediation. Special emphasis is placed on the tension between the possibilities of gaining public presence through new media, and the difficulty in authorizing these media, and the experiences they induce, as authentic. Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications

Somewhere between remembering and forgetting: Working across generations on The Middle

Inspired by Hamlet, The Middle (2013) is a one-man show devised for a theatre foyer - a liminal space between the outside and the inside, the real world and the theatre. Hamlet is a character caught in a limbo between ?To be or not to be? and by casting my father, Tony Pinchbeck, to play the title role, I sought to explore time passing, staging ageing and the relationship between father and son. My father studied Hamlet when he was at school so he is stuck in the middle between the fading memory of reading that play 50 years ago and reading it now. He is trying to remember what it was like to be Hamlet while I continue my struggle to stay in the wings. For this article, I reflect on the complex dramaturgical process of working with my father to revisit his performative memories. The dramaturg?s job is to look for and after something that is not yet found. As Williams tells Turner and Behrndt, ?you don?t really know what is being sought?.1 As such, the dramaturg is in a limbo, or in the middle, between finding and looking, knowing and not knowing. For The Middle (2013), I spent time playing with the material I wanted to use physically: a table, a chair, 40 metres of bubble wrap. I found I could create interesting images with this material that could speak about the themes of liminality, ageing, stasis and mortality and the archiving of memory. The older we get, and the longer the show toured, between 2013 and 2016, the more the notion of father and son resonated. A retired solicitor, my father is 75 this year, and as he grew older and the show toured for three years, his memory of playing Hamlet faded so the text he spoke was always further from events it described. As Matthew Goulish writes, ?Some words speak of events, other words, events make us speak?. These were the words my Dad?s memories made us speak. For this article, I reflect on concepts of memory, time passing and ageing with Professor Mick Mangan, who explores these themes in his publication Staging Ageing (2013). The article weaves together my dramaturgical experience of making the performance with my father, and Mick?s experience of watching it through the lens of his research, and touches upon recent casting choices in order to explore issues of age and ageing and reminiscence theatre

Ghosts of other stories: a synthesis of hauntology, crime and space

Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More recently, there has been a turn toward the spatial in the discipline. This paper sets out an analytical framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space's violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes it. The art installation ‘Die Familie Schneider’ is used as an example of how the incorporation of social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial “crypt”. Cracking open this “crypt” allows us to draw out Derrida's notion of the specter within the context of a “haunted” city space

‘Re-reading Raphael Samuel: Politics, Personality and Performance’

For British historian Raphael Samuel, history and politics were inextricable. Best known as the founder of the history workshop movement, the controversial historian took his stance on the democratisation of history-making, becoming an outspoken advocate for public history. Despite making a significant contribution to contemporary historiography, he remains a neglected, even disparaged, figure. This paper contends that the most significant aspect of Samuel’s historical work was not one or other theory of history or argument about the past but his entire way of being an historian. Samuel embodied as much as expressed his ideas, consciously using his personality as a powerful political tool. It is further argued that conventional approaches to intellectual history, focusing on textual outputs, do not fully recognise the significance of performative modes of thinking. Theoretical approaches to performance as identity offer important insight here but can be too schematic in their view of applied and enacted thought. A biographical approach, by contrast, provides the intimate perspective necessary to fully appreciate the fluidity and complexity of such a personality. The paper first situates Samuel in the context of his earlier life, focusing on how and why he created such a public persona and how he adapted it in response to changing circumstances. It then considers the implications and effectiveness of this persona by assessing how it was perceived and narrated by others, acknowledging, in the process, why different groups engaged with and interpreted it differently