Post Author/Ship: Five or More IKEA Customers in Search of an Author

© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016. In this article, imposters’ (or fake authors) aim is to problematize fixed concepts such as author, authoring, and authorship both in qualitative research and in organization studies—especially in relation to organizational communications that ostensibly promote and value diversity of (sexual) identity. In seeking to do so, these imposters engage with an IKEA ad and, in a process of “prospective” writing, inductively explore the absence or void of an author through a series of writing events

Comience aquí, o aquí, no aquí: Introduções para repensar a política e a metodologia educativa em uma era pós-verdad

This special issue takes up urgent questions about how we education scholars might think and do policy and methodology in what has come to be known as the post-truth era. The authors in this special issue grapple with questions about the roles and responsibilities of educational researchers in an era in which research and policy have lost their moorings in T/truth. Collectively they reconceptualize educational research and policy in light of post-truths, anti-science sentiment, and the global rise of right-wing populism. At the same time we editors wonder whether post-truth is given a bad rap. Could post-truth have something productive to offer? What does post-truth open up for educational research and policy? Or, is the real issue of this special issue a collective despair of our own insignificance and obsolescence in the wake of post-truth. Whatever we editors and authors aimed to do, this special issue will not be heard by post-truth adherents and partisans. Perhaps its only contribution is encouragement to stay with the troubles of a post-truth era, even as we despair the consequences of our research and policy creations.Este número especial plantea preguntas urgentes sobre cómo los académicos de la educación pueden pensar y hacer políticas y metodologías en una era posverdad. Los autores se enfrentan a preguntas sobre los roles y responsabilidades de los investigadores educativos en un momento en que la investigación y la política han perdido sus amarres en V/verdad. En conjunto, reconceptualizan la investigación y la política educativa a la luz de las posverdades, el sentimiento anticientífico y el auge mundial del populismo de derecha. Los editores también se preguntan si a la posverdad se le da una mala reputación. ¿Podría la posverdad tener algo productivo que ofrecer? ¿Qué abre la posverdad a la investigación y la política educativa? O bien, ¿es el problema real de este número especial una desesperación colectiva de nuestra propia insignificancia y obsolescencia después de la posverdad? Independientemente de lo que nosotros (los editores y autores) pretendamos hacer, este número especial no será escuchado por los partidarios y partidarios de la posverdad. Quizás su única contribución sea un estímulo para permanecer con los problemas de una era posverdad, incluso cuando nos desesperamos por las consecuencias de nuestras investigaciones y creaciones de políticas.Esta dossiê especial levanta questões urgentes sobre como os estudiosos da educação podem pensar e fazer políticas e metodologias em uma era pós-verdade. Os autores se deparam com questões sobre os papéis e responsabilidades dos pesquisadores educacionais em um momento em que a pesquisa e a política perderam seus laços na verdade. Juntos, eles reconceitualizam a pesquisa e a política educacional à luz das verdades posteriores, do sentimento anti-científico e da ascensão mundial do populismo de direita. Os editores também se perguntam se a verdade posterior recebe uma má reputação. A pós-verdade poderia ter algo produtivo para oferecer? O que abre a verdade depois da pesquisa e da política educacional? Ou o verdadeiro problema desta questão especial é um desespero coletivo de nossa própria insignificância e obsolescência depois da verdade posterior? Independentemente do que nós (editores e autores) pretendemos fazer, esta edição especial não será ouvida pelos apoiadores e apoiadores da verdade posterior. Talvez sua única contribuição seja um incentivo para permanecer com os problemas de uma era pós-verdade, mesmo quando nos desesperamos com as conseqüências de nossa pesquisa e elaboração de políticas

Coming Out, But Into What? Problematizing Discursive Variations of Revealing the Gay Self in the Workplace

There is a substantial mainstream literature on coming out in organizations, which investigates the positive effects for gay people of being out at work, but very few contributions that challenge the discourse of coming out. Taking as its starting point Butler's famous question ‘So we are out of the closet but into what?’, this paper problematizes coming out discourses in the workplace. We report on a study in which ten men were invited to talk about their coming out in the workplace. There were three main ways through which our participants constituted themselves as gay men when they talked about coming out: by defining themselves as, and admitting to, being gay; by introducing themselves as being in a gay relationship; and by adopting legitimate subject positions such as the Other, the different one, or the normal gay. Through our analysis, discussions and conclusions, we show how participants position themselves within different discursive variations, thus revealing the multiplicity of ‘the gay self’ and highlighting how coming out repeats and supports normative systems

Wearing the Label of Mental Illness: Community-Based Participatory Action Research of Mental Illness Stigma

Stigma remains an impediment to seeking and receiving the requisite care for mental illness. To enhance a local National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) affiliate’s understanding of community members’ perceptions of mental illness and its associated stigma, a community-based participatory action research study was conducted. The study addressed the following research question: how do community members understand and experience the stigma associated with mental illness? Twenty-two participant-researchers wore mental illness labeled T-shirts around the local community, recorded their observations and reflections of this experience and recruited twenty-two community members for semi-structured interviews about mental illness stigma. Domain analysis of the interviews revealed community members’ understandings of (1) sources of stigma, (2) impacts of stigma, (3) conceptualizations of stigma and (4) pathways to change stigma. Findings were presented to members of the local NAMI affiliate as well as other community members. Practical implications, specific to the community of interest, are discussed

A Constructivist Study of Graduate Assistants\u27 Healthcare Experiences in a Research University

This constructivist study explores 16 graduate assistants’ (GAs) healthcare experiences and uses grounded theory to create a model of graduate assistants’ experiences with university-provided healthcare in a large research university. The model is composed of four broad components: (a) systems; (b) access, care and coverage; (c) knowledge, quality and cost; and (d) self. Graduate assistants’ needs and expectations constantly negotiate various systems in the model. Expanding upon the limited research regarding graduate student healthcare, this study provides implications for higher education administrators and policy makers. Based on our study findings we argue that it is not sufficient for university administrations to simply provide paid health insurance “options” without robust support systems on campus. Because students are often stressed out, lack time and energy, and find it hard to navigate the complicated systems of profit-driven health care industry, the lack of direct support in graduate students’ day-to-day healthcare needs can cause tremendous loss on their success and productivity. Hence, universities have tremendous opportunities to better understand and address their graduate students’ real needs so as to add value to institutional success and productivity

Conferencing otherwise: a feminist new materialist writing experiment

This paper attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of ‘the academic conference’ and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if (Haraway, 2016) and what else (Manning, 2016). This ‘what if’ and ‘what else’ thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this paper were made possible by the vital materialism (Bennett, 2010) of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow (Taylor, 2016) within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing

Doing time and motion diffractively: Academic life everywhere and all the time

This article offers a diffractive methodological intervention into workplace studies of academic life. In its engagement of a playful, performative research and writing practice the article speaks back to technocratic organisational and sociological workplace ‘time and motion’ studies which centre on the human and rational, and presume a linear teleology of cause and effect. As a counterpoint, we deploy posthumanist new materialist research practices which refuse human-centric approaches and aim to give matter its due. As a means to analyse what comes out of our joint workspaces photo project we produce two ‘passes’ through data – two diffractive experiments which destabilise what normally counts as ‘findings’ and their academic presentation. The article deploys the motif of ‘starting somewhere else’ to signal both our intention to keep data animated, alive and interactive, and to utilise visual and written modes of seriality as enabling constraints which produce a more generative focus on the mundane, emergent, unforeseen, and happenstance in studies of daily working life

Anointed or appointed? Father–daughter succession within the family business

With the focus on events and outcomes shaping most of the existing family business research on intra-family succession, the subtleties of the incumbent-successor relationship and the dynamic nature of succession as a process of becoming is somewhat neglected. In particular, we have limited understanding of how successor identities are constructed as legitimate between incumbent and successor during father-daughter succession. This article addresses this gap in understanding by exploring how the daughter successor engages in identity work with the father incumbent during the process of succession and the role of father-daughter gendered relations in shaping her successor identity. Using a two-stage research design strategy, we draw upon empirical evidence derived from 14 individual and joint semi-structured interviews to present a narrative analysis of five father-daughter dyads. In so doing, we unveil how the daughter’s successor identity was co-constructed as legitimate and how father-daughter gendered relations influenced this process. Although daughters rely on certain father-daughter relations (preparation, endorsement and osmotic credibility) for legitimacy, they also need to develop independently from their father in order to heighten their own visibility and establish credibility

Deleuze-inspired action research in the university: Mobilising Deleuzian concepts to rethink research on the reflective writing practices of student teachers

This article offers an insight into the process and potential of Deleuze-inspired action research. It draws on a classroom action research (CAR) project that critically reconceptualises practices of reflective writing in teacher education, including the widespread use of the ‘professional learning journal’ as a resource to facilitate reflection on practice. Students following a teacher education programme in England took part in an innovative mode of engagement with texts, including their learning journals, drawing on the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of the text as an agent that acts outside of itself. The process was called ‘implicated reading’. An example of a teaching and learning intervention, in the form of a seminar transcript, is offered as an illustration of how Deleuzian theory and philosophy can inspire and shape innovations in practice. The transcript also serves as an opportunity to reimagine the ways in which data and data analysis are conceptualised and practiced in action research (AR) projects. Data is (re)conceptualised as agentic, rather than inert or indifferent. Synthesis is privileged over analysis so that the transcript acts as a provocation to rethink the relation between theory and data, asking what is made possible when these are ‘plugged into’ one another to raise questions that otherwise would have remained unthought. Ultimately, the article offers a worked example of what happens when action researchers take up the challenge of working and thinking within a Deleuzian ontology that seeks to maintain the plurality and potentialities of AR in practice