SCOS Update: September
Three items for September:
1) 7th international interdisciplinary conference, 27th- 29th June, 2012, Keele University, UK: Queering gender, work and organization
2) GWO Biennial Conference, 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK: Gendered Ageing at Work: Beyond the ‘Double Jeopardy
3) 7th international interdisciplinary conference 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK: Eco-feminism, sustainability and organization
1) 7th international interdisciplinary conference, 27th- 29th June, 2012, Keele University, UK: Queering gender, work and organization
2) GWO Biennial Conference, 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK: Gendered Ageing at Work: Beyond the ‘Double Jeopardy
3) 7th international interdisciplinary conference 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK: Eco-feminism, sustainability and organization
7th international interdisciplinary conference, 27th- 29th June, 2012, Keele University, UK
Call for abstracts: Queering gender, work and organization
Stream Convenors:
Alison Pullen, Swansea University, WALES
Ann Rippin, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
Torkild Thanem, Stockholm University, SWEDEN
Louise Wallenberg, Stockholm University, SWEDEN
Queer theory has enjoyed a somewhat ambivalent position in the study of gender, work and organization. While Butler's work on gender performativity has been central in rethinking gender and sexuality beyond dualistic and stereotypical conceptions of masculinity and femininity (see e.g. Brewis and Linstead, 2004; Linstead and Pullen, 2006; Thanem, 2011; Thanem and Wallenberg, 2011), queer theory as such and queer subject positions have attracted less attention. At the heart of this stream therefore lies a desire to engage with all things queer, particularly as they relate to work and organizations. Following Halberstam, we refer to queer as 'non-normative logics and organizations of community, sexual identity, embodiment, and activity in space and time' (2005:6). We are hopeful that this will spur active reengagement with contemporary debates surrounding the conceptualisation and practice of queer identities and non-identities, queer spaces and places, and the political leverage that queer knowledge and methodology brings about. In particular, we seek to create a politically transgressive space in the academy by engaging in dialogue with queer lives, queer theory and queer performativity to challenge authoritative and heteronormative forms of thinking, working and organizing in our scholarly field as well as in everyday work organizations. Contributors may wish to reengage philosophically with some of the early writers on queering such as de Lauretis (who coined the term in 1991 but distanced herself from it three years later); Kosofsky Sedgwick (who broke the silence on oppressive discursive regimes and presented performative taxonomic frameworks for thinking, living and theorising queer); Butler (who has challenged hegemonic heteronormative practices); through to Halberstam (whose theorising of queer time and space has brought forth political activism). At the same time, we recognize that this might require contributors to critically interrogate and go beyond queer theory and politics.
In this stream, we ask, what is the future of queer practice and politics for continued debates in the Gender, Work and Organization community? Does the future involve re-membering the advancements made which have all challenged the relationship between gender and sexuality, identity and non-identity, materiality and corporeality, and gender and post-gendering? Further on, what are the limitations of queer theory and politics, and how might we create ways of thinking, living, working and managing that are more politically transgressive?
This is also a phenomenological task, and we hope to bring together researchers who present queer lived experiences through gendered, sexual and corporeal performativity, problematize the relationship between gendered and sexual identities and corporeality, and interrogate and resist discrimination and stigmatization encountered by queer identities. Areas for possible contributions include but are not restricted to:
• Queering organisational heteronormativity and homonormativity.
• Queer theory, queer analysis and queer representation.
• Queer identities and non-identities, sexuality, gender and corporeality/embodiment.
• Queer (work)places, (organisational) spaces and temporalities.
• Queer politics, resistance and activism.
• Queer agency, community, identity politics, and class politics.
• Queer performance and performativity.
• Post-gender debates and sexual politics.
• Queer engagements with oppression and exploitation in work and organizations.
• Material and philosophical transgression and subversion.
• Queer aesthetics and materiality.
• Queer parody, humour and performativity.
Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes) are invited by 1st October 2011 with decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be emailed to torkild.thanem@fek.su.se Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.
Call for abstracts: 'Gendered Ageing at Work: Beyond the ‘Double Jeopardy’ GWO Biennial Conference, 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK
Stream Convenors: Susan Ainsworth (University of Melbourne, Australia), Wendy Loretto (University of Edinburgh, UK), Kathleen Riach (Essex University, UK) The concept of ‘double jeopardy’ has long sought to spotlight ways that ageing women experience disadvantage in social, political and organizational arenas. This disadvantage is not only constant in its various manifestations across the life course, with women ‘never the right age’ (Duncan and Loretto 2004), but also cumulative. However, the gendered division in theories of ageing have also undoubtedly stunted an understanding of both men’s ageing, as well as overlook the experience of those growing older who encounter the gendered narratives surrounding class, masculinity and sexuality. As a result, organizational ageism continues to be one of the ‘less visible gendered mechanisms’ (Gorman and Kmec 2007: 845), yet a conceptual understanding of its complexity in studies of the workplace is rarely undertaken. In light of this deficit, the objective of this stream is to interrogate the intersections between age and gender and/or other social categories in the new economy. We invite full papers, work in progress or working papers from scholars at all stages of their career that address one of more of the following themes: The experience of gendered ageing; Gendering effects of the ‘demographic timebomb’; accumulative disadvantage; The intersectionality of ageing working lives; State and organizational practices and policies, and; Creative ways of thinking of ‘doing’ gendered ageing. For more details of these themes, please view the full call for abstracts at http://www.essex.ac.uk/ebs/research/GWO2012%20Call%20for%20abstracts.pdf. Abstracts of approximately 500 words (one page word document, single spaced) are invited by 1st October 2011 to gwoageing@gmail.com. All abstracts will be peer reviewed and new and early career scholars with 'work in progress' papers are particularly welcomed.
7th international interdisciplinary conference 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK
Call for Abstracts: Eco-feminism, sustainability and organization
Stream Convenors:
Mary Brydon Miller, University of Cincinnati, USA
Anne Inga Hilsen, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, Oslo, NORWAY
Mary Phillips, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
Patricia Gayá Wicks, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
In the face of multiple ecological crises, such as climate change, pollution and depletion of biodiversity and habitat, the responses of most organizations and most mainstream management literature are characterized by greenwashing, the technical fix and a business case approach based on eco-efficiency. As Banerjee (2003, p. 173) points out: ‘There is still a belief that better technology and management and more “inclusive” procedures by international institutions...can save the planet’ while Harvey (1996, p. 148) comments that sustainability issues such as scarcity of resources, biodiversity, and ecological limits are subsumed in a debate about the ‘preservation of a particular social order rather than a debate about the preservation of nature per se’. The primacy of technology, science and economic progress remains largely unquestioned (Dryzek, 1997; Hopwood, Mellor and O’Brien, 2005; Newton and Harte, 1997; Shrivastava, 1994).
It is thus apparent that techno-rational responses to ecological challenges, where the environment/nature is presented as something to be managed through mastery and domination or appropriated, commodified and consumed (Banerjee, 2003), are grounded in what Connell has referred to as hegemonic masculinity (1995). Masculinity is aligned with reason, the mind and the human in dualistic frameworks that devalue the feminine, emotion, the body and the natural world. This is a long-established tenet of feminist theory, but its treatment has tended to focus on the implications for gender, instead of what it might mean for gender and nature. Ecofeminism has thus developed in response to the ways in which ‘woman’ and ‘nature’ are conceptually linked in Western thought, wherein the processes of inferiorization have been mutually reinforcing. In so doing, ecofeminism has the potential to mount a radical challenge to current organizational and academic discourses (Plumwood, 1993). This stream seeks to provide an arena through which ecofeminist concepts can be further developed in the context of studies of work and organization.
As an academic discourse, ecofeminism is located in the field of environmental ethics. It has largely been ignored outside this, even by feminist academics. There is also evidence that it has not just been ignored but silenced (Sturgeon, 1997) possibly because some early expositions tended to posit what were regarded as essentialist connections between women and nature (Mies and Shiva, 1993). However, ecofeminism is an approach that can articulate epistemic, moral and political positions by applying feminist philosophy and ethics to relations with the more than human world, thus generating broader theories of oppression and liberation. It seeks to illuminate the interwoven nature of imperialism, ecological degradation, exploitation of workers, racism and women’s oppression by offering critique but also by visioning creative alternatives that are life affirming and transformative. It does not, however, offer a grand theory to replace current truth claims. Instead, it is pluralist and multicultural yet committed to core values such as justice and caring. Karen Warren, whose work has been highly influential in the development of a philosophical ecofeminism, has metaphorized ecofeminism as a quilt: ‘An ecofeminist philosophical quilt will be made up of different “patches”, constructed by quilters in particular social, historical and materialist contexts’ (2000:66). In the same way that the borders of a quilt can contain an infinite richness of patterns, colours and designs, the parameters of ecofeminism allow for a wide range of emphases and methodologies (Cuomo, 2002).
In this stream we therefore seek papers that can be located broadly within an ecofeminist commitment to the study of gender and nature in work and organizations. More specifically, we are interested in papers that build on such an approach to provide a critical analysis of the gendered ways in which organizations, and organizational studies, represent, construct and appropriate nature and how that might be subverted and re-imagined. The primary aim is therefore to analyse the relations between gender, organization and the ‘natural world’.
Areas of interest include but are not limited to:
· Developing methodologies for ecofeminist research
· Enhancing ecofeminism through productive encounters and cross-fertilizations with feminist philosophers such as Hélène Cixous or Luce Irigaray
· Generative deconstructions of associations of masculinity with the domination of nature
· Envisioning embodied, emotional responses to ecological challenges
· Critiques of gendered sustainability discourses
· Ecofeminist responses to globalization
· Intersections between the colonization of nature and effects on disenfranchised communities
· Appropriations of nature in organizational strategies (eg representations in marketing, the development of eco-tourism, “wilderness” experiences)
· Connections between the devaluation and abjection of women’s bodies and maternality in organizations and that of nature
· Ecofeminist perspectives on animal ethics applied to organizations
· Ecofeminist spirituality as a means of enacting a critique of hyper-rationality
Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes) are invited by 1st October 2011 with decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. In the first instance, abstracts should be emailed to Mary.Phillips@Bristol.ac.uk Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.
Call for abstracts: Queering gender, work and organization
Stream Convenors:
Alison Pullen, Swansea University, WALES
Ann Rippin, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
Torkild Thanem, Stockholm University, SWEDEN
Louise Wallenberg, Stockholm University, SWEDEN
Queer theory has enjoyed a somewhat ambivalent position in the study of gender, work and organization. While Butler's work on gender performativity has been central in rethinking gender and sexuality beyond dualistic and stereotypical conceptions of masculinity and femininity (see e.g. Brewis and Linstead, 2004; Linstead and Pullen, 2006; Thanem, 2011; Thanem and Wallenberg, 2011), queer theory as such and queer subject positions have attracted less attention. At the heart of this stream therefore lies a desire to engage with all things queer, particularly as they relate to work and organizations. Following Halberstam, we refer to queer as 'non-normative logics and organizations of community, sexual identity, embodiment, and activity in space and time' (2005:6). We are hopeful that this will spur active reengagement with contemporary debates surrounding the conceptualisation and practice of queer identities and non-identities, queer spaces and places, and the political leverage that queer knowledge and methodology brings about. In particular, we seek to create a politically transgressive space in the academy by engaging in dialogue with queer lives, queer theory and queer performativity to challenge authoritative and heteronormative forms of thinking, working and organizing in our scholarly field as well as in everyday work organizations. Contributors may wish to reengage philosophically with some of the early writers on queering such as de Lauretis (who coined the term in 1991 but distanced herself from it three years later); Kosofsky Sedgwick (who broke the silence on oppressive discursive regimes and presented performative taxonomic frameworks for thinking, living and theorising queer); Butler (who has challenged hegemonic heteronormative practices); through to Halberstam (whose theorising of queer time and space has brought forth political activism). At the same time, we recognize that this might require contributors to critically interrogate and go beyond queer theory and politics.
In this stream, we ask, what is the future of queer practice and politics for continued debates in the Gender, Work and Organization community? Does the future involve re-membering the advancements made which have all challenged the relationship between gender and sexuality, identity and non-identity, materiality and corporeality, and gender and post-gendering? Further on, what are the limitations of queer theory and politics, and how might we create ways of thinking, living, working and managing that are more politically transgressive?
This is also a phenomenological task, and we hope to bring together researchers who present queer lived experiences through gendered, sexual and corporeal performativity, problematize the relationship between gendered and sexual identities and corporeality, and interrogate and resist discrimination and stigmatization encountered by queer identities. Areas for possible contributions include but are not restricted to:
• Queering organisational heteronormativity and homonormativity.
• Queer theory, queer analysis and queer representation.
• Queer identities and non-identities, sexuality, gender and corporeality/embodiment.
• Queer (work)places, (organisational) spaces and temporalities.
• Queer politics, resistance and activism.
• Queer agency, community, identity politics, and class politics.
• Queer performance and performativity.
• Post-gender debates and sexual politics.
• Queer engagements with oppression and exploitation in work and organizations.
• Material and philosophical transgression and subversion.
• Queer aesthetics and materiality.
• Queer parody, humour and performativity.
Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes) are invited by 1st October 2011 with decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be emailed to torkild.thanem@fek.su.se Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.
Call for abstracts: 'Gendered Ageing at Work: Beyond the ‘Double Jeopardy’ GWO Biennial Conference, 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK
Stream Convenors: Susan Ainsworth (University of Melbourne, Australia), Wendy Loretto (University of Edinburgh, UK), Kathleen Riach (Essex University, UK) The concept of ‘double jeopardy’ has long sought to spotlight ways that ageing women experience disadvantage in social, political and organizational arenas. This disadvantage is not only constant in its various manifestations across the life course, with women ‘never the right age’ (Duncan and Loretto 2004), but also cumulative. However, the gendered division in theories of ageing have also undoubtedly stunted an understanding of both men’s ageing, as well as overlook the experience of those growing older who encounter the gendered narratives surrounding class, masculinity and sexuality. As a result, organizational ageism continues to be one of the ‘less visible gendered mechanisms’ (Gorman and Kmec 2007: 845), yet a conceptual understanding of its complexity in studies of the workplace is rarely undertaken. In light of this deficit, the objective of this stream is to interrogate the intersections between age and gender and/or other social categories in the new economy. We invite full papers, work in progress or working papers from scholars at all stages of their career that address one of more of the following themes: The experience of gendered ageing; Gendering effects of the ‘demographic timebomb’; accumulative disadvantage; The intersectionality of ageing working lives; State and organizational practices and policies, and; Creative ways of thinking of ‘doing’ gendered ageing. For more details of these themes, please view the full call for abstracts at http://www.essex.ac.uk/ebs/research/GWO2012%20Call%20for%20abstracts.pdf. Abstracts of approximately 500 words (one page word document, single spaced) are invited by 1st October 2011 to gwoageing@gmail.com. All abstracts will be peer reviewed and new and early career scholars with 'work in progress' papers are particularly welcomed.
7th international interdisciplinary conference 27th -29th June 2012, Keele University, UK
Call for Abstracts: Eco-feminism, sustainability and organization
Stream Convenors:
Mary Brydon Miller, University of Cincinnati, USA
Anne Inga Hilsen, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, Oslo, NORWAY
Mary Phillips, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
Patricia Gayá Wicks, University of Bristol, ENGLAND
In the face of multiple ecological crises, such as climate change, pollution and depletion of biodiversity and habitat, the responses of most organizations and most mainstream management literature are characterized by greenwashing, the technical fix and a business case approach based on eco-efficiency. As Banerjee (2003, p. 173) points out: ‘There is still a belief that better technology and management and more “inclusive” procedures by international institutions...can save the planet’ while Harvey (1996, p. 148) comments that sustainability issues such as scarcity of resources, biodiversity, and ecological limits are subsumed in a debate about the ‘preservation of a particular social order rather than a debate about the preservation of nature per se’. The primacy of technology, science and economic progress remains largely unquestioned (Dryzek, 1997; Hopwood, Mellor and O’Brien, 2005; Newton and Harte, 1997; Shrivastava, 1994).
It is thus apparent that techno-rational responses to ecological challenges, where the environment/nature is presented as something to be managed through mastery and domination or appropriated, commodified and consumed (Banerjee, 2003), are grounded in what Connell has referred to as hegemonic masculinity (1995). Masculinity is aligned with reason, the mind and the human in dualistic frameworks that devalue the feminine, emotion, the body and the natural world. This is a long-established tenet of feminist theory, but its treatment has tended to focus on the implications for gender, instead of what it might mean for gender and nature. Ecofeminism has thus developed in response to the ways in which ‘woman’ and ‘nature’ are conceptually linked in Western thought, wherein the processes of inferiorization have been mutually reinforcing. In so doing, ecofeminism has the potential to mount a radical challenge to current organizational and academic discourses (Plumwood, 1993). This stream seeks to provide an arena through which ecofeminist concepts can be further developed in the context of studies of work and organization.
As an academic discourse, ecofeminism is located in the field of environmental ethics. It has largely been ignored outside this, even by feminist academics. There is also evidence that it has not just been ignored but silenced (Sturgeon, 1997) possibly because some early expositions tended to posit what were regarded as essentialist connections between women and nature (Mies and Shiva, 1993). However, ecofeminism is an approach that can articulate epistemic, moral and political positions by applying feminist philosophy and ethics to relations with the more than human world, thus generating broader theories of oppression and liberation. It seeks to illuminate the interwoven nature of imperialism, ecological degradation, exploitation of workers, racism and women’s oppression by offering critique but also by visioning creative alternatives that are life affirming and transformative. It does not, however, offer a grand theory to replace current truth claims. Instead, it is pluralist and multicultural yet committed to core values such as justice and caring. Karen Warren, whose work has been highly influential in the development of a philosophical ecofeminism, has metaphorized ecofeminism as a quilt: ‘An ecofeminist philosophical quilt will be made up of different “patches”, constructed by quilters in particular social, historical and materialist contexts’ (2000:66). In the same way that the borders of a quilt can contain an infinite richness of patterns, colours and designs, the parameters of ecofeminism allow for a wide range of emphases and methodologies (Cuomo, 2002).
In this stream we therefore seek papers that can be located broadly within an ecofeminist commitment to the study of gender and nature in work and organizations. More specifically, we are interested in papers that build on such an approach to provide a critical analysis of the gendered ways in which organizations, and organizational studies, represent, construct and appropriate nature and how that might be subverted and re-imagined. The primary aim is therefore to analyse the relations between gender, organization and the ‘natural world’.
Areas of interest include but are not limited to:
· Developing methodologies for ecofeminist research
· Enhancing ecofeminism through productive encounters and cross-fertilizations with feminist philosophers such as Hélène Cixous or Luce Irigaray
· Generative deconstructions of associations of masculinity with the domination of nature
· Envisioning embodied, emotional responses to ecological challenges
· Critiques of gendered sustainability discourses
· Ecofeminist responses to globalization
· Intersections between the colonization of nature and effects on disenfranchised communities
· Appropriations of nature in organizational strategies (eg representations in marketing, the development of eco-tourism, “wilderness” experiences)
· Connections between the devaluation and abjection of women’s bodies and maternality in organizations and that of nature
· Ecofeminist perspectives on animal ethics applied to organizations
· Ecofeminist spirituality as a means of enacting a critique of hyper-rationality
Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes) are invited by 1st October 2011 with decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. In the first instance, abstracts should be emailed to Mary.Phillips@Bristol.ac.uk Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract.