13th International Conference on Organizational Discourse - “Deception, Demonization and Dissection”
106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK
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13th International Conference on Organizational Discourse
“Deception, Demonization and Dissection”
Cass Business School, City University of London, 11th - 12th July 2018
M.C. Escher’s “Still Life with Spherical Mirror” © 2017 The M.C. Escher Company – The Netherlands. All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com
We warmly invite you to the 13th biannual Organizational Discourse Conference 2018! The conference represents a timely opportunity to collectively take stock of ‘where we are’ and ‘where we are going’ in terms of the field. As such, we invite contributions that explore and extend our understanding of the discursive properties of organization(s) and/or organizing properties of discourse(s) both in terms of this year’s dedicated theme and more generally around the theme of ‘organizational discourse’.
The 13th Conference is intended to accommodate a rich variety of perspectives on organizational discourse in order to grasp ‘where we are’. This is far from easy. A major analytic theme in organizational discourse has been a focus on the intrinsic ambiguity of discourse and yet we are confronted by an emergent global authoritarianism which paints societies in the starkest shades of black and white. These are quite singular narratives which feed off the truth claims of ‘post-facts’ and ‘alternative facts’ which, in turn, appear to reflect increasing global insecurity and inequality.
Hence, the 2018 theme of ‘deception’ calls for analyses of the ever-expanding litany of authoritarian narratives which have been deployed to legitimise social and political changes which are stripping away the norms, values and practices of social democracy. At the macro-level, ‘conversations’ and ‘debate’ are being replaced by ideological diktat. What were once considered the ‘rational arguments’ of now discredited ‘experts’ have been jettisoned for evangelistic mass meetings demanding the destruction of the ‘Other’.
This links directly to our theme of ‘demonisation’. This has emerged as a core feature of ‘where we are now’. Trump’s ‘wall’ is to be built between all varieties of the ‘Other’ – virtually anyone who is somehow ‘foreign’ to whomever has been imagined as the ‘normal’ citizen have come under scrutiny and discrimination if not attack. This theme calls for work exploring the discursive construction of these Others and how they are now projected as undesirable.
But, of course, discourse has to be enacted and this demands an understanding of socio-economic and political context. And, more importantly, authoritarian demands have not been uncontested. Indeed, there are signs of vigorous if, as yet, unsuccessful resistance. Our third theme, ‘dissection’ is intended to explore ‘where we are going’. It targets analyses of how authoritarian narratives are being discursively translated into social action and social practices and how they are being socially contested.
Overall, we anticipate a wide range of differentiated analyses which explore these troubling times. While recognising the need to clearly acknowledge that ‘things may get worse before they get better’, we remain optimistic that our deliberations can offer a more positive and humane vision of our collective pluralistic futures.
Beyond this, and in keeping with past conferences, we also welcome contributions outside of the confines of the specified 2018 theme. The resultant broader conference streams will emerge from the papers themselves. At this moment, in addition to contributions exploring our central themes, we anticipate paper presentations that organize themselves within and around the following topics:
Conflict, Collaboration and Symbolism Identity and Boundaries
Institutions, Entrepreneurship and Networks Time, Space and Materiality
Sense-making, Stories and Narrative Crisis, Change and Transformation
Knowledge, Power and Politics Diversity and Distinction-drawing
Ethnography and Organizational Life Language, Culture and Ideology
With a nice mixture of colleagues from all over the world with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds we envisage that the Conference will provide an inspirational forum in which academics with various perspectives on organization and discourse engage in lively debate and constructive dialogue.
Conference Organizers
Cliff Oswick, Sierk Ybema, and Ida Sabelis
Conference Advisory Board
Nic Beech, David Grant, Cynthia Hardy, Tom Keenoy, David Sims, and Robyn Thomas
Conference Secretariat
Rob Whitelam, Cass Business School
File Attachments: 1 Preliminary Conference Schedule.docx
Where
TBD
106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK