Slow and Fast: An experiential storytelling dialogue about festivals

Speed has a long history of usage in managerial discourse, both as a metric of efficiency and as a point of resistance. In this text we explore its validity as a category for organizing experience, through autoethnographic exploration of participation in experience economy events. We present slow and fast as distinct modes of experiencing the same festivals, and explore the possibility of arriving at a syzygic mode uniting the two oppositions (while preserving their inherent contradictions). Finally, we reflect on the possibility of utilizing ethnographic bursts of experience as a tool for more nuanced management education

France. Un changement de logique

Comment concilier logiques économiques et logiques pédagogiques ? Une telle question renvoie en fait à de nombreuses problématiques, qu’il s’agisse de s’interroger sur les effets économiques de telle ou telle politique pédagogique (et d’abord, de se demander si le système éducatif fournit les acteurs économiques nécessaires) ou de questionner les effets sur le système éducatif des contraintes ou des choix économiques. L’actualité des débats et des évolutions que connaît le système éducatif fr..

Nomadism and movement as epistemologies of the contemporary world

De la misma manera que el movimiento y el nomadismo, en tanto que formas de vida opuestas al sedentarismo, implican no solo el abandono de la idea de un hogar fijo sino también un desafío activo o una evitación furtiva de la autoridad sedentaria del estado, el movimiento y el nomadismo como epistemologías confrontan el orden generalmente fijo de los lenguajes, discursos y perspectivas con los que la ciencia intenta explicar nuestro mundo social. Emergen así nuevos caminos para pensar el movimiento, las subjetividades, lo grupal y lo institucional, en un mundo que no solo es global, sino real y virtual al mismo tiempo. En este número extraordinario, se reúnen aportaciones que experimentan, discuten y reflexionan cuestionando el pensamiento estático.In the same way that movement and nomadism as a lifestyles opposite to sedentism involve not only the abandonment of the idea of a permanent home, but also an active challenge or furtive avoidance of the state's sedentary authority, movement and nomadism as epistemologies confront the generally fixed order of languages, discourses and perspectives with which science tries to explain our social world. New ways of thinking about movement, subjectivities, groups and institutions emerge, in a world that is not only global, but real and virtual at the same time. In this special issue we have gathered the contributions that experiment and questioning static thinking

Creativity out of chaos

Creativity is said to be highly desired in post-modern and post-industrial organizations Creativity and anarchy on the one hand, and managerialism, on the other, can be seen as different forms of knowledge, two opposed ideals. In many organizational as well as societal reforms we currently observe it is the managerialist ideal that wins over the anarchic. In this paper, we wonder if people fear anarchy? We reflect on the possible reasons for the fear, and we also try to explain why we believe that anarchic organizing should not be avoided or feared

Catching a glimpse: Corona‐life and its micro‐politics in academia

The spread of COVID-19 acutely challenges and affects not just economic markets, demographic statistics and healthcare systems, but indeed also the politics of organizing and becoming in a new everyday life of academia emerging in our homes. Through a collage of stories, snapshots, vignettes, photos and other reflections of everyday life, this collective contribution is catching a glimpse of corona-life and its micro-politics of multiple, often contradicting claims on practices as many of us live, work and care at home. It embodies concerns, dreams, anger, hope, numbness, passion and much more emerging amongst academics from across the world in response to the crisis. As such, this piece manifests a shared need to — together, apart — enact and explore constitutive relations of resistance, care and solidarity in these dis/organizing times of contested spaces, identities and agencies as we are living–working–caring at home during lockdowns

More than a method? Organisational ethnography as a way of imagining the social

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The authors–two anthropologists and an organisational theorist, all organisational ethnographers–discuss their understanding and practices of organisational ethnography (OE) as a way of imagining and reflect on how similar this understanding may be for young organisational researchers and students in particular. The discussion leads to the conclusion that OE may be regarded as a methodology but that it has a much greater potential when it is reclaiming its roots: to become a mode of doing social science on the meso-level. The discussion is based on an analysis of both historical material and the contemporary learning experiences of teaching OE as more than a method to our students

Into the Labyrinth: Tales of Organizational Nomadism

Labyrinths and mazes have constituted significant spaces for tales of transformation, from prehistoric designs through the myth of the Minotaur and the pilgrimage design in Chartres cathedral to contemporary novels and pictorial representations. Labyrinths and labyrinthine designs can also commonly be found in present-day organizations. This text, based on an ethnographic study as well as on an analysis of academic discourse, explores their significance as symbol and as physical structure. Drawing upon the notion of transitional space, it presents labyrinths as an indelible part of human experience, an archetype, and a sensemaking tool for understanding and explaining organizational complexity. The unavoidable presence of labyrinthine structures is presented as a counterpoise to the reductionist tendency towards simplification, streamlining and staying on-message, allowing or demanding space for reflection, doubt and uncertainty