Abstract:The article explores the topic of turning a feminist activist ethnographic "fieldwork" into words, that is, of writing an ethnographic account in a feminist way. It builds on the work of Audre Lorde to underline the role of emotions in a feminist writing process producing emancipatory knowledge. First, the article contributes to the topic of emotions in feminist writing, by redefining induction as an emotional rather than a rational process. Second, I show how the contribution of Audre Lorde to rethinking writ… Show more
“…D : I was thinking, maybe we can start with a google docs where we write “found poetry” (see also Prendergast, 2006; Leavy, 2017) based on our reading of a variety of papers that discuss writing differently through each other. N : Yes, I like this. M : I am not familiar with this, what do you mean with found poetry? N : This means that instead of reading and analyzing texts and subsequently writing a theoretical framework in conventional ways, we will read the selected texts “affectively.” Practically, this means that we draw out words and sentences that touch us, move us and change us in that writing, like Rhodes and Carlsen (2018, p. 1297) discuss. By structuring those words in a different way, we hope to open up new possibilities for readers to engage with these texts, through their own resonances.academic research;a practice that takesa not‐yet experiencechopped upintodiscontinuousstaticobjects (James, 1996, p. 236)dissected and stitched upas if it werea lifeless corpse (Thanem & Knights, 2019, p. 113)research methods;the master's tools (Lorde, 1984)we have been handed overto use with reason and rigor desensitized the toolsthat keep us at an arm's length distancefrom touching, from feeling (Dorion, 2021) distanced the toolswe have been trained into clarify, define, frame, explainand judge (Grey & Sinclair, 2006; A. Pullen, 2018) detached are these toolsdis‐manteling, dis‐memberingexperiences,cutting off possibilities forbecoming known?academic research;a practice that takesa not‐yet experienceultimately shaped intoprescribed, premeditated forms that are recognizedthat are forcedthat countas knowledge (Gherardi, 2019; Manning, 2016) forms that ac‐knowledge the knownexclude what cannot fitwithin its order (Manning, 2016, p. 4)there is a dangerof not hearingthe voicesthat lurk beneath the words (Manning, 2016, p. 31)there is a dangerof bearingfalse witness (Anthym, 2018, p. 184)there is a dangerof fallingshort D: I would also really appreciate it if we could all share our thoughts and experiences in the google doc. How do you feel about that? M: I am noticing that I am afraid of looking for things or doing things that are already familiar to me.…”
Section: Writing Differently In Reviewing Literaturementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Conventional writing practices therefore seem better suited to articulate experiences that align with embodied normativities in academia related to gender, race, and class. We have tried to show that writing differently allows space for sensing, analyzing, and voicing experiences of those who occupy the margins (Dorion, 2021). We thus consider writing differently as a political act that can open up possibilities for thinking differently and feeling differently, and thus making the experiences of marginalized laborers such as cleaners more relatable to an academic audience (Gherardi, 2019; Manning, 2016; Rhodes & Carlsen, 2018; Steyaert, 2015).…”
Section: Postlude: Towards An Ethic Of Carementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Poetry in particular has been at the core of Black feminist praxis, as a way of knowing and feeling difference, and a political tool toward change (e.g., Anthym, 2018; Lorde, 1984). As Dorion (2021, p. 2) posits poetry can be part of feminist ethnography that “empowers marginalized voices by stressing their legitimacy to produce knowledge.”…”
Using examples from an ethnographic study of aircraft cleaning, we discuss and illustrate how “writing differently” can be performed throughout the research process—in the literature review, data collection, data analysis, and writing up. We argue that writing differently is an ongoing methodological tool in order to rethink/refeel research practices in ways that generate affective, embodied and caring accounts of empirical organizational contexts, particularly when marginalization is key such as in cleaning work. We turn to poetry to better understand and portray the affective and embodied intensities in different phases in the research project. Furthermore, instead of presenting a sanitized authoritative account of writing so that it becomes recognizable as academic knowledge, we leave in the messiness, struggles, and insecurities in “doing” writing differently.
“…D : I was thinking, maybe we can start with a google docs where we write “found poetry” (see also Prendergast, 2006; Leavy, 2017) based on our reading of a variety of papers that discuss writing differently through each other. N : Yes, I like this. M : I am not familiar with this, what do you mean with found poetry? N : This means that instead of reading and analyzing texts and subsequently writing a theoretical framework in conventional ways, we will read the selected texts “affectively.” Practically, this means that we draw out words and sentences that touch us, move us and change us in that writing, like Rhodes and Carlsen (2018, p. 1297) discuss. By structuring those words in a different way, we hope to open up new possibilities for readers to engage with these texts, through their own resonances.academic research;a practice that takesa not‐yet experiencechopped upintodiscontinuousstaticobjects (James, 1996, p. 236)dissected and stitched upas if it werea lifeless corpse (Thanem & Knights, 2019, p. 113)research methods;the master's tools (Lorde, 1984)we have been handed overto use with reason and rigor desensitized the toolsthat keep us at an arm's length distancefrom touching, from feeling (Dorion, 2021) distanced the toolswe have been trained into clarify, define, frame, explainand judge (Grey & Sinclair, 2006; A. Pullen, 2018) detached are these toolsdis‐manteling, dis‐memberingexperiences,cutting off possibilities forbecoming known?academic research;a practice that takesa not‐yet experienceultimately shaped intoprescribed, premeditated forms that are recognizedthat are forcedthat countas knowledge (Gherardi, 2019; Manning, 2016) forms that ac‐knowledge the knownexclude what cannot fitwithin its order (Manning, 2016, p. 4)there is a dangerof not hearingthe voicesthat lurk beneath the words (Manning, 2016, p. 31)there is a dangerof bearingfalse witness (Anthym, 2018, p. 184)there is a dangerof fallingshort D: I would also really appreciate it if we could all share our thoughts and experiences in the google doc. How do you feel about that? M: I am noticing that I am afraid of looking for things or doing things that are already familiar to me.…”
Section: Writing Differently In Reviewing Literaturementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Conventional writing practices therefore seem better suited to articulate experiences that align with embodied normativities in academia related to gender, race, and class. We have tried to show that writing differently allows space for sensing, analyzing, and voicing experiences of those who occupy the margins (Dorion, 2021). We thus consider writing differently as a political act that can open up possibilities for thinking differently and feeling differently, and thus making the experiences of marginalized laborers such as cleaners more relatable to an academic audience (Gherardi, 2019; Manning, 2016; Rhodes & Carlsen, 2018; Steyaert, 2015).…”
Section: Postlude: Towards An Ethic Of Carementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Poetry in particular has been at the core of Black feminist praxis, as a way of knowing and feeling difference, and a political tool toward change (e.g., Anthym, 2018; Lorde, 1984). As Dorion (2021, p. 2) posits poetry can be part of feminist ethnography that “empowers marginalized voices by stressing their legitimacy to produce knowledge.”…”
Using examples from an ethnographic study of aircraft cleaning, we discuss and illustrate how “writing differently” can be performed throughout the research process—in the literature review, data collection, data analysis, and writing up. We argue that writing differently is an ongoing methodological tool in order to rethink/refeel research practices in ways that generate affective, embodied and caring accounts of empirical organizational contexts, particularly when marginalization is key such as in cleaning work. We turn to poetry to better understand and portray the affective and embodied intensities in different phases in the research project. Furthermore, instead of presenting a sanitized authoritative account of writing so that it becomes recognizable as academic knowledge, we leave in the messiness, struggles, and insecurities in “doing” writing differently.
“…This writing is about writing down memories; it is not a writing about memories. It is writing the body; not just about the body (Dorion, 2021) conveying “the diar[ies] we all carry about with us” (Wilde, 1989, p. 501) and enabling us to realize how much more we know about ourselves and the social systems we live in than we could ever imagine, as Frigga Haug (2000) beautifully reminds us. These “remembered narratives [thus] provide a window into, or a bridge between, the personal and political” offering fertile testimonies that unveil how broader power systems disqualify and render different bodies invisible in the social world (Fraser & Michell, 2015, p. 324).…”
Section: Writing Memory Work Through Artistic Intersectionsmentioning
In the current text, we present archives of our embodied memories from childhood to make sense of how, despite our different backgrounds and life paths, these shape our collective sense‐making processes of who we are and become as well as how we connect and interact with others in the social world. By bringing these together through artistic forms of expression, we discuss the emancipating potential of memory work through art practice to enable a relational sensuous academic language that allows reclaiming an active embodied presence in our feminist journey for social justice. Our account seeks to reinvigorate feminist discussions on memory work also contributing to the burgeoning stream of organizational literature on writing differently.
“…Through relation with Lorde, in an assemblage of text, tattoo, hammock, and her body, Dorion explains how she discovered a freedom that led to a belief she could write her PhD. This emancipation from convention was borne from the "knowledge that was not neutral, rational or disembodied, but rather an act of self-revelation" (Dorion, 2021).…”
The political potential of unconventional and even transgressive forms of writing in management and organization studies has been invigorated in recent years through an explicit connection with feminist theories, ideas, and practices. The results have been a new wave of scholarship that brings together the personal, the political, and the theoretical as a means to intervene in masculine orthodoxy of organizational writing. This intervention seeks to change what and how we understand organizational phenomena, with an ultimate goal of transforming practice toward a more equal and egalitarian future. We introduce five papers that responded to a call to explore the intersections between change and academic writing, as well as an exploration of alternatives to dominant masculine academic writing styles. Such writing, we aver, might facilitate change not just in the academy, but also in organizations and by extension, society.
K E Y W O R D S change, feminism, writingWriting is precisely the very possibility of change, the space that can serve as a springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement of a transformation of social and cultural structures. (Cixous, 1976, p. 879) Taking inspiration from feminist philosophy, practice, and movements, this special section of Gender, Work and Organization seeks to open up a space for inquiring into the intersections between politics, change, and writing from the academy-most especially that enclave of the academy known as the business school. At the heart of this inquiry is an exploration of alternatives to the masculine academic writing styles that not only dominates management and organizational theory, but also haunt those who desire to express themselves through different modes of writing and representation. Writing differently in this way is not neutral, we contend, as if to imagine that linguistic inscription could serve as a benign tool through which the realities of the world can be pinned down on a page. Our starting point is that how we write, as much as what we write, is wrapped up in the possible meanings, affects, and effects that can result when our text intersects with a reader. In play is an ongoing deferral and displacement of meanings as texts fumble through time to be read, cited, debated, or dismissed. Conventionally, if not stereotypically, it is possible to understand a good academic text as one that simply makes its case in the most fidelitous manner possible. Facts are accurate, measures are reliable, and theories support hypotheses that the myth of representation be held on to with white knuckles by people dedicated to science defies imagination. The experience of the cycles of reading and writing demonstrates empirically that a final text never arrives; a reality that, if anything, is already at the heart of the scientific method. For us, however, at least as far as it concerns the social sciences, writing is not just about the incremental development of scientific
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