A Profession of Faith

Mindfulness at work: A critical re-view

“…Critical traditions of thought and practice seek to expose reification and challenge alienation and repression in the constitution of knowledge, self and society (Costas and Fleming, 2009; Spicer et al, 2016). Within critical management studies, individual wisdom in the workplace is identified with a radical freedom and care of the self (Ng, 2016) that challenges unreflective subordination to modern and neo-liberal power-discourses of the ideal self and their associated disciplinary technologies (Cederstrom and Spicer, 2015; Davies, 2015; Zizek, 2001). It includes critical reflection on mindfulness as a problematic form of knowledge within a set of repressive societal regimes and constraints, and equates individual wisdom with a reconstitution of this knowledge and these societal conditions (Purser et al, 2016).…”

“…In order to overcome such restrictions and challenge such outcomes, individual mindfulness is re-defined and extended as a form of ‘critical mindfulness’ (Purser et al, 2016). This incorporates or combines with an ethico-political commitment to social justice (Moore, 2017) in creating what has been variously termed as a radical mindfulness, civic mindfulness or socially engaged mindfulness that is demystified, critical-relational, critical-constructive and response-able (Goto-Jones, 2017; Healey, 2013; Ng, 2016; Purser et al, 2016; Stanley, 2012; 2014; Walsh, 2018).…”

“…Radical critics of mindful leadership and conscious capitalism argue that a more fundamental challenge is required to counter the workings of neo-liberal capitalism and the workings of biopower (Walsh, 2018) and the ‘neuro-industrial complex’ (Davies, 2015). This approach is inspired, in part, by radical social, environmental and political commitments of various forms of ‘socially engaged’ Buddhism (King, 2009), in particular, their critique of materialism and commercialism, and recognition of the central significance of collective interdependence and interbeing (Brazier, 2002; Hahn, 1987; Ng, 2016). The aspirations of conscious capitalism, it is argued, are undermined by the embedded conflicts between the multiple stakeholders involved (Wang, 2013).…”