Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Whistleblowing as Truth‐Telling in the Workplace

Mansbach, Abraham

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00547.x

Cited by 35 publications

(52 citation statements)

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“…Academics have framed whistleblowers through the lens of Michel Foucault's 'parrhesiast' (Foucault, 2001). Foucault's (2001) concept of parrhesia has been helpful in understanding whistleblowers as speech actors (Kenny, 2017;Mansbach, 2009Mansbach, , 2011Munro, 2016;Rothschild, 2013;Vandekerckhove & Langenberg, 2012;Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016). Foucault's parrhesiast-drawn from ancient Greek practice-was an ethical subject of lower social legitimacy who spoke truth to power (Foucault, 2001).…”

Section: Changing Landscapes: the #Metoo Movement As An Example Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reframing the whistleblower in research: Truth‐tellers as whistleblowers in changing cultural contexts

Bushnell

2020

Sociology Compass

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Whistleblowing is fraught with conceptual dilemmas, including those who may be considered whistleblowers and fundamental concepts associated with the term. Whistleblowing is a dynamic concept, set within and deeply related to culture, yet scholarship has focused primarily on whistleblowing and its ramifications within management and organizational settings, as opposed to engaging with the wrong‐doing disclosed and conceptualizing how we assign meaning to whistleblowers/ing in changing landscapes of societal values and cultural institutions. To grasp the cultural sociological understanding of what constitutes whistleblowing, these themes and how they are shaped need to be drawn out in scholarship. Thus, the purpose of this review is to determine through which disciplines, lenses and discourse whistleblowing has been developed in academia and to identify gaps in disciplines and methods, highlighting how these affect our broader understanding of whistleblowing. This review article offers preliminary insight into how people engage in meaning‐making connected with terms such as whistleblowing, abuse and corruption through the lens of the #MeToo movement. The article encourages further research in disciplines such as sociology, political theory, human rights, socio‐legal studies and particularly, within cultural sociology.

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Section: Changing Landscapes: the #Metoo Movement As An Example Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reframing the whistleblower in research: Truth‐tellers as whistleblowers in changing cultural contexts

Bushnell

2020

Sociology Compass

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“…Similarly drawing on Foucault, and building on Alford’s ideas, recent organizational scholarship views the whistleblower subject as constituted through a process of parrhesiastic truth-telling (Andrade, 2015; Contu, 2014; Jack, 2004; Mansbach, 2009; Rothschild, 2013; Vandekerckhove, 2006; Vandekerckhove & Langenberg, 2012; Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016). This involves articulating the plain truth as one sees it because of a specific ‘relation to truth through frankness’ and ‘moral law through freedom and duty’, which one holds (Foucault, 2001, p. 19; 2005, see also Jones, Parker, & ten Bos, 2005; Mansbach, 2009; Rothschild, 2013). The whistleblower is positioned as a subject morally obliged to act, by for example speaking out against organizational wrongdoing (Jack, 2004, p. 130; Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016, p. 1625).…”

Section: Whistleblowing Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The whistleblower is positioned as a subject morally obliged to act, by for example speaking out against organizational wrongdoing (Jack, 2004, p. 130; Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016, p. 1625). This positioning as parrhesiastes enables one to reject ‘the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken’; instead the whistleblower forges a relation to himself as a truth-teller through a ‘pact… with himself’ (Foucault, 2010, in Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016, p. 1625; see also Mansbach, 2009). Constructing oneself in this way is part of the ‘ethico-political practice that opens up possibilities of new ways of relating to the self and others (the ethical dimension) and new ways of organizing relations to others (the political dimension)’ that whistleblowing-as-parrhesia involves (Weiskopf & Tobias-Miersch, 2016, p. 1624).…”

Section: Whistleblowing Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whistleblower Subjectivities: Organization and Passionate Attachment

Kenny

Fotaki

Vandekerckhove

2018

Organization Studies

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What is the nature of whistleblower subjectivity? In this article, we depart from current scholarly depictions of this figure as a fearless truth-teller who is fully independent of the organization. We argue for a new framing that sees the self-construction of the whistleblower as infused with passionate attachments to organizational and professional norms, even after one experiences severe reprisals. We base our claims on recently gathered empirical data and draw on Judith Butler to theorize how, contrary to existing understandings, passionate attachments to one’s organization and profession shape whistleblower subjectivity, rather than conscious risk-taking, or autonomous self-reinvention. Our second contribution is to highlight the importance of practical and material supports for this vital figure in society; until now the whistleblower has been idealized as an extraordinary hero rather than a real human in need of assistance. Overall, we propose a new theorization of the whistleblower involving passionate investments in the organization or profession that has cast one out.

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“…That is why Cynic truth-telling is seen as 'inextricable from ethics'; it provides an outsider position (Barber 2004, 56). Consequently, instead of regarding cynicism as devotional apathy, 'producing a toxic form of antipolitical paralysis and rendering critique impotent' (Stanley 2012, 4), cynic truth-telling has been studied in cases where groups or individuals are actually seeking to turn around a situation to reach another world, life and self (Valverde 2004; Karfakis and Kokkinidis 2011; Munro 2014); which has also been studied in feminism (Valverde 2004), social movements (Munro 2014), whistleblowing (Perry 1998;Weiskopf and Willmott 2013), and radical democracy (Mansbach 2009). This means that the cynics lived out their truth to follow the principle: 'alter your currency' (Foucault 1984(Foucault /2011.…”

Section: Ethics Of Truth-tellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

From climate skeptic to climate cynic

Skoglund

Stripple

2018

Critical Policy Studies

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Whilst we know quite a bit about organized forms of climate skepticism, very few studies focus on how disorganized climate skeptics seek an underdog position to speak truth to power. Hence, we investigate frank speech as updated ancient forms of truth-telling 'parrhesia', in two Swedish empirical sources that strongly question the climate change consensus. The first is a digital space for free speech, and the second a focus group of climate skeptics. Tracing 'epistemic skepticism' and 'response skepticism', we inquire into the attempts to counter scientific expertise and the different ways to refuse to act in accordance with officially sanctioned advice. We analyze the details of climate cynic truth-telling in relation to truthtelling as provocation, as ethical practice and as exhibition of a specific aim. We explore how the climate skeptic turns into a climate cynic, and discuss how alternative truth construction forms an anticlimate ethical selfhood. We end by problematizing how parrhesia is linked to ethical relativism, and argue that the recognition of climate cynicism facilitates our understanding of how conflicting political realities about climate change are produced.

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Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Whistleblowing as Truth‐Telling in the Workplace

Cited by 35 publications

References 0 publications

Reframing the whistleblower in research: Truth‐tellers as whistleblowers in changing cultural contexts

Reframing the whistleblower in research: Truth‐tellers as whistleblowers in changing cultural contexts

Whistleblower Subjectivities: Organization and Passionate Attachment

From climate skeptic to climate cynic

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