Abstract:In the flesh: a poetic inquiry into how fat female employees manage weight-related stigma Noortje van Amsterdam & Dide van Eck To cite this article: Noortje van Amsterdam & Dide van Eck (2019) In the flesh: a poetic inquiry into how fat female employees manage weight-related stigma, Culture and Organization, 25:4, 300-316,
“…Our story contributes to feminist discussions in the field of organizations, namely those recognizing the importance of integrating in our academic texts poetic inquiry, art and genre‐blurring forms of writing (e.g., Clarke, Corlett, & Gilmore, 2020; Prasad, 2016; van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019). We also contribute to the burgeoning stream of organizational literature on writing differently (e.g., Gilmore, Harding, Helin, & Pullen, 2019; Grey & Sinclair, 2006; Pullen et al, 2020).…”
Section: Contextualizing …mentioning
confidence: 96%
“…It was their shared belief that even though the writing itself would only start after this month of multiple online chats and artistic exchanges, the final text should not only expose the final deductions or conclusions of this process, but also the very artistic and virtual (dis)embodied encounters through which these conclusions and this art‐based writing became possible. Capturing these elements involved engaging in a writing understood ‘not as‐production, but in production’ (Clarke et al, 2020, p. 52), which by combining provocative political art performance, poetry and creative prose, in the context of virtual connections, allowed them to develop an amalgam of experiences of vulnerability and diversity, whose voice has a social and political bearing (Li & Prasad, 2018; van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019), which aspires to also speak of other bodies urgently seeking expression in a neoliberal world of pandemic. It also enabled them to use their personal experiences to converse with other voices, who had found their own creative (virtual) ways of connecting through writing, in an isolated world of pandemic (e.g., Boncori, 2020; Gao & Sai, 2020; Plotnikof et al, 2020).…”
The current account recounts the authors’ artistic virtual interactions during the COVID‐19 period of quarantine to discuss how connections between art, writing, humans’ embodied struggles and technologies can enable forms of feminist writing, as a cyborg practice, which have the political potential to meaningfully voice embodied experiences of inter‐sectionality and vulnerability that remain increasingly under‐expressed, in a neoliberal world of pandemic. Presented in a creative prose, whereby theory interweaves with artistic performances, poetry and extracts of the authors’ virtual exchanges, this account reflects how hybrid, non‐conventional, cyborg writing explorations can connect different bodies in an academic text even when these bodies are physically kept apart. By invoking hybridity that counters the masculine conventions of academic writing, this text aspires to produce academic knowledge that writes and speaks of embodied experiences of othering that urgently seek expression under the COVID‐19 pandemic. The current account builds on the burgeoning stream of organizational literature on writing differently and especially feminist forms of writing integrating genre‐blurring prose, poetry and art‐based research.
“…Our story contributes to feminist discussions in the field of organizations, namely those recognizing the importance of integrating in our academic texts poetic inquiry, art and genre‐blurring forms of writing (e.g., Clarke, Corlett, & Gilmore, 2020; Prasad, 2016; van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019). We also contribute to the burgeoning stream of organizational literature on writing differently (e.g., Gilmore, Harding, Helin, & Pullen, 2019; Grey & Sinclair, 2006; Pullen et al, 2020).…”
Section: Contextualizing …mentioning
confidence: 96%
“…It was their shared belief that even though the writing itself would only start after this month of multiple online chats and artistic exchanges, the final text should not only expose the final deductions or conclusions of this process, but also the very artistic and virtual (dis)embodied encounters through which these conclusions and this art‐based writing became possible. Capturing these elements involved engaging in a writing understood ‘not as‐production, but in production’ (Clarke et al, 2020, p. 52), which by combining provocative political art performance, poetry and creative prose, in the context of virtual connections, allowed them to develop an amalgam of experiences of vulnerability and diversity, whose voice has a social and political bearing (Li & Prasad, 2018; van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019), which aspires to also speak of other bodies urgently seeking expression in a neoliberal world of pandemic. It also enabled them to use their personal experiences to converse with other voices, who had found their own creative (virtual) ways of connecting through writing, in an isolated world of pandemic (e.g., Boncori, 2020; Gao & Sai, 2020; Plotnikof et al, 2020).…”
The current account recounts the authors’ artistic virtual interactions during the COVID‐19 period of quarantine to discuss how connections between art, writing, humans’ embodied struggles and technologies can enable forms of feminist writing, as a cyborg practice, which have the political potential to meaningfully voice embodied experiences of inter‐sectionality and vulnerability that remain increasingly under‐expressed, in a neoliberal world of pandemic. Presented in a creative prose, whereby theory interweaves with artistic performances, poetry and extracts of the authors’ virtual exchanges, this account reflects how hybrid, non‐conventional, cyborg writing explorations can connect different bodies in an academic text even when these bodies are physically kept apart. By invoking hybridity that counters the masculine conventions of academic writing, this text aspires to produce academic knowledge that writes and speaks of embodied experiences of othering that urgently seek expression under the COVID‐19 pandemic. The current account builds on the burgeoning stream of organizational literature on writing differently and especially feminist forms of writing integrating genre‐blurring prose, poetry and art‐based research.
“…Poetic inquiry, as a form of writing differently, allows us to focus on what touched, moved or changed us in the data or the literature, as well as on what our participants are moved or touched by (e.g., van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019). Playing with the rhythm of the text poetry enables us to better approach the chaotic and not‐yet‐known experiences related to marginalization that we tried to capture.…”
Section: Writing Differently In Collecting and Analyzing (Ethnographic) Datamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…We, therefore, end with a call to scholars to foster an ethic of care by filling the silences present in academic knowledge production with other kinds of words.academic writing is full ofsilences (Armitage, 2014)silences induced by fearof not knowingnot understandingnot‐yet (Manning, 2016)how do we relate?do justice topainfulmarginalizedembodiedexperiences (Thanem & Knights, 2019, p. 34)how do we flesh out/our lived realities? (van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019)becoming faithful witnesses (Gunaratnam, 2008)to the subjective realitiesof our research participants (Anthym, 2018, p. 204)does it sufficeto just be t/hereor do we need to be with and in‐between ? (Gherardi, 2019, p. 745)?it is a scaryenterpriseto challenge thisstatus quobutif we wait in silencefor that final luxuryof fearlessnesshow do we preventthe silencefrom choking (Lorde, 1984, p. 44)or shattering (Ahmed, 2017)an “us” that is morethan the disembodied,un‐affected/in‐effectiveresearcher‐participant;author‐subjecten‐counter?we might needcounter‐narratives (Delgado, 1989)art (Manning, 2016)and affective pedagogies (Gherardi, 2019, p. 752)based in and on humility (Anthym, 2018, p. 199)to be able torespond toengage withthese experiencesdo we have the courageto see/write/read poetryas a practice of resistanceand reclamation?…”
Section: Postlude: Towards An Ethic Of Carementioning
confidence: 99%
“…out/our lived realities? (van Amsterdam & van Eck, 2019)…”
Section: Postlude: Towards An Ethic Of Carementioning
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.
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