‘I Write Like a Painter’: Feminine Creation with Arts‐Based Methods in Organizational Research

Abstract

Feminine writing and organizational aesthetics are brought together in this paper to sketch a different form of academic production in organizational research that involves arts‐based methods (‘feminine creation’). Feminine creation relates to écriture féminine (Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva) and also to peinture féminine (Nancy Spero) and modern choreography (Trisha Brown). Feminine creation responds to the feminist and the aesthetic critique of conventional academic writing and has the potential to challenge its masculine stereotypes of rationality, rigorous method and explicit knowledge production. The paper discusses the practices of poetic writing, painting and dance that are used to present academic research. It includes its own series of ‘peinture feminine’, some of which are contributions by the artist and organizational scholar Schrat. They illustrate my argument in a synedochic aesthetic format and encourage a different, aesthetic way of perceiving academic research and of re‐imagining gendered bodies.

Mothers and researchers in the making: Negotiating ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia

“…By ‘personal style’, we refer to feminine and aesthetic styles of writing, which might help us to challenge the masculine stereotypes of academic writing in rational, disembodied, rigorous and rather distant ways (e.g. Biehl-Missal, 2014; Cixous, 1976; Pullen, 2018). At the same time, embodied writing renders us vulnerable – it ‘violates the writer’ in a patriarchal culture (Pullen, 2018: 124).…”

“…Research has long shown that female academics continue to battle gendered beliefs and stereotypes in developing sustainable careers (Armenti, 2004; Fotaki, 2013; Johansson and Śliwa, 2013; King, 2008; Pas et al, 2014; Toffoletti and Starr, 2016). In academia, pregnancy is arguably largely considered unprofessional, and maternal bodies are usually abject (Biehl-Missal, 2014; Gatrell, 2014; Kristeva and Goldhammer, 1985; Mäkelä, 2009; Tyler, 2009). Before having children, both authors feared becoming ‘othered’ in academia owing to motherhood, a common fear among mothers-to-be (Nikunen, 2012; Warren and Brewis, 2004).…”

To include or not to include? A poetics perspective on the Muslim workforce in the West

“…More recently, Chia (2014) points towards organizational scholarship embedded in artistic sensitivities and capabilities. Aesthetic forms such as poetry may unearth insights, creativity and enlightenment, help to make sense of organizational complexity, offer fresh insights through embodied and tacit representation, as well as empower individuals, thus contributing to organization studies and management practices (Armitage, 2015; Biehl-Missal, 2015; Cairns, 2002; Knight, 2015; Xing and Liu, 2015). Poetry has been used as a pedagogical approach with cadets at West Point to understand leadership and ethics in various situations (Buskirk et al, 2015), as a reflective stance with health-care practitioners (Lapum et al, 2015), in entrepreneurship (Smith, 2015), and by business educators to develop emotional intelligence (Morris et al, 2015).…”

Unsanitized writing practices: Attending to affect and embodiment throughout the research process

“…Admittedly, even in writing differently, studying (marginalized) experiences remains bound by textual forms, which will always be limited in representing embodied and affective intensities. Arts‐based scholars have therefore argued for the need to also include methodologies that go beyond text, such as visual art, dance, performance art, and music (e.g., Biehl‐Missal, 2015; Leavy, 2017).…”