The developments in ethnographic studies of organising: Towards objects of ignorance and objects of concern

Abstract

In this introduction to the Special Issue, we review the rich tradition of ethnographic studies in organisation studies and critically examine the place of ethnography in organisation studies as practised in schools of business and management. Drawing on the findings of the articles published here, we reflect on the need for a significant extension of the content and syllabus of our discipline to include what we call objects of concern and objects of ignorance. The articles we publish show that decision makers in organizations are not always humans, and nor can we assume the human and its groups monopolise the capacity for agency in organisation. Where we still labour in organisation theory with dualisms such as structure or agent, or subject and object, these articles trace objects and their relations which point to new forms of non-human co-ordination and agency. The organisational realities to which these objects give rise demand careful methodological enquiry, and we show that recent experiments in a genre we call ‘post-reflexive ethnography’ are likely to prove helpful for developing ethnographic enquiry in contemporary organisation.

Footfalls and heart-prints for Indigenous inclusion

“…Qualitative research lends itself to rich descriptions of processes and practices from the point of view of those involved in inclusion. Ethnography can deepen understandings of emancipatory knowledge, social justice and complex struggles pertaining to oppression, revealing how multiple realities can co-exist, while also circumventing categorical confinement or dualism of local and global (Eccarius-Kelly, 2019; O’Doherty and Neyland, 2019). Thus, ethnography was considered most appropriate for studying inclusion of Adivasis.…”

“…Thus, ethnography was considered most appropriate for studying inclusion of Adivasis. My empirically grounded ethnographic research (Van Maanen, 2011) seeks to ‘enrich and complexify our understanding’ (O’Doherty and Neyland, 2019: 2) of geographies of inclusion. My research process was not linear but cyclical in order to be co-constituted and relational (Baser et al, 2019; Roseneil, 2013).…”

Spirituality, Symbolism and Storytelling in Twentyfirst-Century Organizations: Understanding and addressing the crisis of imagination

“…One urges us to reclaim the discipline’s roots of social imagination, of ‘being amazed by the world’: ‘a task of great importance and urgency in times of interregnum, when new solutions and even institutions are vitally needed’ (Gaggiotti et al, 2017, p. 327). The other is pushing in the direction of the unknown territory of an ethnography of objects and non-humans in order to ‘push at the limits of our current paradigms in management and organisation studies’ (O’Doherty & Neyland, 2019, p. 13). Both have merit.…”

“…Depending on what is investigated, the ‘complex embedding of organisations in society makes an isolated one-site and in-situ focus next to impossible’ (Schubert & Röhl, 2019, p. 177). A ‘post-reflexive ethnography’ is suggested as ‘solution’, in which ‘there is no divide between theory and practice, or representation and reality, which remain the dominant tropes for ethnographers keen to find a method that permits latitude for their own interpretative efforts and reflexivity’ (O’Doherty & Neyland, 2019, p. 12). This does not imply, however, that the traditional in situ and long-term engagement with social actors is no longer needed or relevant.…”

Responding to organizational identity change: ethnographic insights from multinational hotel subsidiaries

“…Specifically, ethnographers capture the “actual conditions of life […] traffick[ing in] stories rather than numbers” (McGranahan, 2018, p. 5). These narrated organizational realities are drawn from events, interactions, documents and persons and demonstrate ways in which organizations incorporate dimensions of power, inequality, paradox, ambiguity, complexities and contradictions (O’Doherty and Neyland, 2019). This awareness facilitates the study of organizations as relational phenomena that emerge through dynamic stakeholder negotiations, rather than as static entities (Watson, 2012).…”