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The purpose of this paper is to propose voyeurism as one possible lens to analyse the experiential nature of dark tourism in places of socio‐political danger, thus expanding psychoanalytic understandings of those who travel to a “dark” place.

Freud's and Lacan's theories on voyeurism are used to examine the desire to travel to and gaze upon something that is (socially constructed as) forbidden, such as a place that is portrayed as being hostile to international tourists. A qualitative and critical analysis approach is employed to examine one tourist's experience of travelling to Iran and being imprisoned as a result of taking a photograph of what he thought was a sunrise but also pictured pylons near an electrical plant.

The authors' analysis of the experiences of this tourist in Iran reveals that tourism, in its widest sense, can be experienced as “dark” through the consumption and performance of danger. This finding moves beyond the examination of dark tourism merely as “tourist products”, or that frame a particular moment in time, or are merely founded on one's connection to or perception of the site.

Whilst the authors recognise the limitations of the case study approach taken here, and as such, generalisations cannot be inferred from the findings, it is argued that there is merit in exploring critically the motivational and experiential nature of travel to places that may be considered forbidden, dangerous or hostile in an attempt to further understand the concept of dark tourism from a tourist's lived perspective.

As the authors bring voyeurism into the debate on dark tourism, the study analyses the voyeuristic experiences of a dark tourist. In short, the authors argue that the lived and “deviant” experiential nature of tourism itself can be included in the discussion of “dark tourism”.

This paper aims to employ the concept of subjectivity taken from Lacanian psychoanalysis and Slavoj Žižek's idea of the law, enabled via its “inherent transgression”, to critique the premises of neolibertarian theory about the market's superior ways of organizing society.

An alternative conceptual framework is being developed and applied to the analysis of the transition from a planned to a market economy in former socialist countries using the example of informal payments in the health system in Russia. The proposed schema builds on the idea of the subject eternally divided between the imaginary conceptions of the self/the other, and the socio‐symbolic order, which is offered to theorize on the role of phantasy in this transformation.

The applied (psycho)‐analytic schema reveals why the totalizing discourse of the market is no less tyrannical and no less totalitarian in its intent than the socialist ideology it opposes. The central argument is how dominant ideologies are made of, and stand for, an unattainable phantasy, as it was demonstrated in both socialism and the market.

By re‐engaging psychoanalysis to understand social and political projects and by unearthing the imaginary underpinnings of the symbolic order, the study argues for considering the phantasmatic dimensions of political and organizational transformations in management studies.

The portrayal of female superheroes is not a new phenomenon. To this day Lynda Carter's portrayal of Wonder Woman (1975–1979) is venerated (Hanley, 2014) as one of the first portrayals of a ‘super’ female character swathed in popularity and renowned in comic book lore. More recently, several superhero narratives, with women at the helm, have been adapted for the series format including Supergirl, Batwoman and Jessica Jones.

However, until the introduction of Wonder Woman (Jenkins, 2017), film narratives with a female superhero at the centre have been non-existent. In 2019, Captain Marvel was released as part of the Marvel cinematic universe (MCU). Due to its connection to the MCU and the successful Avengers film franchise, the character Captain Marvel, played by Brie Larson, has a built-in familiarity with audiences.

From its first introduction, it is evident that there is a definitive feminist slant to the character and the narrative of Captain Marvel. Therefore, this chapter analyses the comment threads of three fan-made YouTube videos on Captain Marvel. These videos specifically address the feminist overtone as depicted. Specifically, the chapter considers fan reactions to the representation of feminism. The data are analysed through discourse analysis under the guise of Jacques Lacan's mirror theory and Henry Jenkins's participatory culture. Jenkins further notes the connection between, amongst other aspects, the interpretation and the meaningful participation (2015, p. 2) in the specific fandom. The concept of ‘suspension of disbelief’ will also be used as part of the analysis, as well as Henry Jenkins' participatory culture.

It is generally considered that the old myths were a way of explaining the origins of the world and of humanity. They also played a vital role in uniting a society. Indeed the idea of the epic story is one which permeates history to such an extent that it can be considered to be omnipresent.

It is argued that this cohesive role remains crucial today and so myths remain relevant to us today. The design of the chapter is to show this relevance in business behaviour. This is explored through a consideration of corporate reporting.

It is demonstrated that these myths continue to be reinvented in modern form. For individuals these myths provide a source of strength and a sense of roots and values; they offer a mirror to reveal the source of our anxieties and the means by which they might be resolved.

In this chapter therefore the modern myths of the hero are explored in the context of managerial behaviour in organisations. In order to explore this there is a need first to consider the psychoanalysis of managerial behaviour before considering the mythic dimension of such reporting.

This paper demonstrates that organisational stories have a vitally important role in organisational cohesion and development.

The psychoanalytic approach provides an understanding which is not available through other methodologies.

New circus explores a wide range of contemporary global and existential questions. From the dystopian performances of pioneering French new circus Archaos, and the ongoing social justice agenda of Circus Oz, to the themes of social decay and environmental degradation in Oozing Future’s 2019 production Autocannibal, new circus has sought innovative ways to challenge and confront audiences mediated by the human body. With a focus on emotive narrative representations of risk and death, this qualitative research examines the interaction of embodied movement and music in Zebastian Hunter’s Lacanian-inspired Empty Bodies and the author’s development of a circus opera, The Blood Vote. The immediate and embodied artforms of music and circus combine to engender a non-literal, yet powerful, form of speech surrogacy that communicates meaning and emotion, so we are reminded that anything is possible, not least of which is the illusion of the victory of life over death that circus performance itself embodies. Death is ever present in life, a fact we try to repress; circus confronts the audience with the undoing of this repression: we are going to die. This is what captivates us. In this way, contemporary new circus functions as an important signifier of meaning in contemporary performing arts.

Mead's notion of “reflexivity” is one of his key ideas. Our mind “bends” or “flexes” back to itself in this process. Mead argues that universal ideas were first attained reflexively when humans could understand their own communications; for example, when the primate mother could both indicate to her children where food was and also give herself the same message. These two cases, viewed together, constituted the first “universal” (for Mead). This contrasted with the traditional theory of universals, which had the knower abstracting the universal idea, i.e. the “essence,” from a group of particulars. Mead's universal is not essentialist but linguistic. It is syntactic and not ontological. This allowed him to sidestep the problem of essences (since no one could find any, anyway). Mead's version shows how reflexivity may have first originated, in the evolutionary process, though he does not actually prove this. I examine reflexivity itself here, singling out several varieties. I look at self-referencing pronouns (especially “I”) and show how Cooley's observations of his daughter's use of pronouns clarified this process. I also examine the reflexivity of recognizing one's own face in the mirror. Mead said the body could not be reflexive, but self-recognition in a mirror is a form of bodily reflexivity. And there are several others, for example the varieties of bodily meditation, that Mead missed. Recognizing this reflexivity introduces the body (and, therefore, gender) early in Mead's theory, rather than late, as he has it. This point also opens him to a badly needed infusion of feminist thought, such as that of Nancy Chodorow. The self-recognizing mirror face is, as Lacan points out, “all smiles.” This insight also introduces emotion early into Mead. As it is, he has emotion late, as a kind of afterthought. This paper then promotes a badly needed feminization of Mead.

The development of Tanzanian civil society is widely understood to be one of the key processes in the democratization of the country, and this vision is also shared by the World Bank. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the intention and impact of World Bank policies aimed at supporting Tanzanian civil society organizations.

The paper uses the Lacanian psychoanalytic approach combined with Foucault's notion of governmentality as a conceptual tool. Within this theoretical framework, a specific World Bank programme in Tanzania, the Social Development Civil Society Fund, is analyzed.

Developed democratic states produce, through the World Bank, the desires of not‐yet‐fully democratic countries to embrace the benefits that (democratic) development can bring. The World Bank programme aimed at the development of Tanzanian civil society is formulated in a way that posits Tanzania as a not‐yet‐fully democratic country. This is achieved through the World Bank's advice and recommendations, which trigger the desires of Tanzanians to participate in development and thus to achieve (always elusive) prosperity and democracy. Moreover, the World Bank programme can be seen as an ensemble of governmental practices advancing the idea of self‐empowerment through which Tanzanians are made governable.

The paper contributes to the understanding of democratic transition, from the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis, as a social fantasy that plays a crucial role in the constitution of global hierarchical relationships and in the construction of the identities of so‐called democratic states and not‐yet‐fully democratic countries. Within this scheme, the World Bank's policies are governmental technologies that trigger desires of not‐yet‐fully democratic countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the process of successful introduction of total quality management (TQM) in Poland and the way in which it impacted on identity of Polish managers.

The study is based on a combination of ethnographic research and repertory grid interviews.

The process of TQM introduction and implementation is examined through the application of translation as a model incorporating cultural and socio‐economical dimensions in addition to individual and organizational levels that shaped the development of TQM in Poland. It then draws on the idea of fantasy as theorized in Lacanian psychoanalysis in order to incorporate the unconscious element of translation process which is missing from Latour's theorization and which forms an important aspect of adoption of new technology and the emergence of a new post‐transition generation of managers in Poland. The paper argues that a complex combination of contextual factors, amongst them the notion of fantasy shaped the process of translation of TQM to Poland, the identity formation of Polish managers and to the emergence of a new post‐transition generation of managers in Poland.

This paper contributes to the literature on the post‐command transition by illustrating this process through the fantasy of total quality management explored in a specific socio‐cultural and geographical context and by combining the idea of Latour's translation with Lacanian fantasy.