The French feminist contribution: Humanizing organizations through esthetically informed, philosophical modes of representation

Abstract

This collaborative paper explores ways in which a "haptic" mode of representation can challenge restrictive academic logocentric forms of representation, by imagining an "affective wisdom" related, mode of embodied writing. The first author draws on three French feminist scholars to depict this as an affinities based, ethical framework, which reflects the depth of expression that marks our organizational lives. The second author illustrates this philosophically grounded representational esthetic, by advancing a series of craftwork culturalist interpretations, which enhance our appreciation of leadership practice as a relationally embedded phenomenon. K E Y W O R D Saffective wisdom, French feminism, haptic aesthetic | INTRODUCTIONWhat would become of logocentrism, of the great philosophical systems, of world order in general if the rock upon which they founded the Church were to crumble? If it were to come out in a new day that the logocentric project had always been, undeniably, to found (fund) phallocentrism, to insure for masculine order a rationale equal to history itself? Then, all the stories would have to be told differently, the future would be incalculable, the historical forces would, will, change hands/bodies; another thinking as yet not thinkable will transform the functioning of all society (Cixous cited in Marks & de Courtivron, 1981, p. 92-93).Responding to Cixous' reflections, in this paper, the main author (name abbreviation N) briefly outlines the historical context in which similar challenges to restrictive academic modes of representation began in the 1980s, in order to set the scene for an in-depth contemporary feminist interrogation of what a substantive "Haptic" (Withers, 2012) reimagining of an "affective wisdom" writing approach might look like. This entails one of the

Zine infrastructures as forms of organizing within feminist social movements

“…The language of “infrastructure” is helpful for us since it allows the capture of dynamic and affective elements of feminist organizing and worldmaking which intersect with bodies and other materials. Specifically, we draw inspiration from the work of Deborah Withers (they/them), in their 2015 book “Feminism, Digital Culture and the Politics of Transmission.” While Wither's work has been used by feminist organization studies scholars to signal the material and embodied nature of knowledge production and representation (Bissett & Birch, 2021), their more recent exploration of digital means of communication and representation remains underutilized.…”