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This paper aims to formulate a hypothesis for the origin and position of binarism within human meaning systems. Specifically, binarism exists ineluctably as a living system's impetus toward life over death, and then – at the symbolic level within human meaning systems – as a device by which humans more efficiently dissipate the solar-energetic gradient.

Organisms composing terrestrial ecosystems acquire and degrade solar energy or its derivatives, thereby reducing the thermal gradient impressed on Earth by the Sun. Kay and Schneider call this “the thermodynamic imperative of the restated second law for open systems.” This paper connects the “thermodynamic imperative” to aspects of human meaning systems and pushes Serres' notion regarding homeostasis and the origin of communication one step further to consider such an origin in terms of a binarism born of solar-energetic gradient dissipation.

It is hypothesized that the human homoiotherm extends the ineluctable binarism of life over death for all living systems to a symbolic level – as a first, or local, “energetic order” – which serves as a foundational device of human meaning systems; humans efficiently use this binary device to produce entropy and maintain homeostasis within individual organisms and comprehensive ecosystems; and human language, and ultimately the entirety of human meaning systems, emerges from the dissipation of the solar-energetic gradient.

Modern Western philosophical concepts related to binarism – i.e. Kantian and Hegelian dialectics – are not associated with ecological imperatives. The present hypothesis proposes the co-existence of both a fundamental binarism (i.e. impetus of life over death) and more complex symbolic differentials (in a Leibnizian/Deleuzian sense) as necessary for the emergence of complex human meaning systems in consonance with thermodynamic and ecological imperatives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an alternative strategy to decrease disadvantaging gender binarism and cis-normativity in an organisational context by including trans* and gender diverse (TGD) employee voices through the development of a safe and brave space (S&BS).

This conceptual paper discusses the potential construction of S&BS and the possible integration as well as requirements of it into an organisational environment. The elaborated theoretical underpinning of a queering approach is used to build the foundation and the design of a potential successful implementation.

Current diversity management strategies are repeatedly reported as inadequate to tackle the issue of gender binarism and cis-normativity or even to reinforce them via various strategies. The integration of S&BS could offer cis as well as TGD people an opportunity to participate in the development of organisational structures and managerial decision-making within a democratic and empowering environment. Managing gender with the support of TGD employees may increase inclusion, equity and diversity of gender in management and organisation.

Although much of the management and organisational literature accepts the concept of gender binarism and cis-normativity, the integration of TGD employee voices through the adaptation of S&BS from an educational context into organisational management has not been explored.

This paper aims to challenge the cisnormative and binary assumptions that underpin the management and gender scholarship. Introducing and contextualising the contributions that comprise this special issue, this paper critically reflects on some of the principal developments in management research on trans* and intersex people in the workplace and anticipates what future scholarship in this area might entail.

A critical approach is adopted to interrogate the prevailing cisnormative and binary approach adopted by management and gender scholars.

The key finding is the persistence of cisnormativity and normative gender and sex binarism in academic knowledge production and in society more widely, which appear to have hindered how management and gender scholars have routinely failed to conceptualise and foreground the array of diverse genders and sexes.

This paper foregrounds the workplace experiences of trans* and intersex people, which have been neglected by management researchers. By positioning intersexuality as an important topic of management research, this paper breaks the silence that has enwrapped intersex issues in gender and management scholarship. There are still unanswered questions and issues that demand future research from academics who are interested in addressing cisnormativity in the workplace and problematising the sex and gender binaries that sustain it.

The traditional postcolonial focus on the modern and the European, and pre-modern and non-European empires has marginalized the study of empires like the Ottoman Empire whose temporal reign traversed the modern and pre-modern eras, and its geographical land mass covered parts of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. Here, I first place the three postcolonial corollaries of the prioritization of contemporary inequality, the determination of its historical origins, and the target of its eventual elimination in conversation with the Ottoman Empire. I then discuss and articulate the two ensuing criticisms concerning the role of Islam and the fluidity of identities in states and societies. I argue that epistemologically, postcolonial studies criticize the European representations of Islam, but do not take the next step of generating alternate knowledge by engaging in empirical studies of Islamic empires like the Ottoman Empire. Ontologically, postcolonial studies draw strict official and unofficial lines between the European colonizer and the non-European colonized, yet such a clear-cut divide does not hold in the case of the Ottoman Empire where the lines were much more nuanced and identities much more fluid. Still, I argue that contemporary studies on the Ottoman Empire productively intersect with the postcolonial approach in three research areas: the exploration of the agency of imperial subjects; the deconstruction of the imperial center; and the articulation of bases of imperial domination other than the conventional European “rule of colonial difference” strictly predicated on race. I conclude with a call for an analysis of Ottoman postcoloniality in comparison to others such as the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Mughal, and Japanese that negotiated modernity in a similar manner with the explicit intent to generate knowledge not influenced by the Western European historical experience.

The work of Henri Lefebvre Rhythmanalysis, Space, Time and Everyday Life (2004) is generally known as the original proposer of rhythmanalysis, inspired by the last chapter of Gaston Bachelard's book La dialectique de la durée (1963), entitled ‘Rhythmanalysis’. Nevertheless, it was the Portuguese philosopher Lúcio Pinheiro dos Santos who developed the notion of rhythmanalysis. In this chapter I address this episode of the genealogy of rhythmanalysis aiming to contribute to a broader understanding of its context of origin. I also present fragments of a rhythmanalysis exercise developed in Caminito, Buenos Aires, as part of my research in the field of art studies. Following a pre-Platonic notion of rhythm (Benveniste, 1966), I draw on those fragments as much as on the reflexive confrontation of rhythmanalysis with feminist and ch'ixi epistemologies (e.g., Haraway, 1988; Rivera, 2018) in order to propose what I come to call rhuthmanalysis.

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.

The French film I’ve Loved You for So Long (2008) raises intriguing questions about the tension between silence and speech. It centers on an accused woman who has chosen to give no explanation in words about the motive for her criminal act. Her silence worsens her punishment and renders it harder to rebuild her life after her release from prison. This essay proposes seeing this silence as a critique of law. It aims to challenge our understanding regarding the different kinds of silence before the law and to assess the practical consequences arising from the decision of legal subjects to remain silent.

The purpose of this paper is to critically look at how immigrants to Canada are informed and educated about how to become productive members of society. The authors adopted a postcolonial framework to unveil the underlying assumptions embedded in the messages that are conveyed to “teach” and “prepare” immigrants for the Canadian workplace. In particular, the authors focus on non-white immigrants because they form the majority of immigrants to Canada and at the same time data show that they experience particular socio-economic obstacles in their settlement process that European immigrants did not.

The authors apply postcolonialism as the theoretical framework. This approach allows the authors to analyze the relationship between the local subject and the encounter with the non-local other, in this case the immigrant who is from a non-European background. The authors conduct a Foucauldian critical discourse analysis on selected texts that serve as information sources for immigrants. These texts include government documents, immigrant information brochures, and workplace information books and booklets.

The analysis shows ideological positions that reveal discursive messages representing the non-white immigrant in binary terms. Such immigrants are represented in opposing (and inferior) terms to the local (largely white) Canadian citizen. By adopting a postcolonial lens, the analysis shows that the messages to acculturate immigrants reveal assimilationist features.

The authors acknowledge that the authors’ own personal socio-political, intellectual, and ideological locations influence the approach, logic, research process, and the interpretation of the findings. For future research, other textual sources should be analyzed with regard to the messages they convey to immigrants as a form of education to see what kind of acculturation is conveyed.

This paper sheds light on the necessity to develop policies that not only aim to acculturate immigrants using integration strategies but also to carefully communicate and educate newcomers through messages that that do not stem from colonial assumptions.

This research points out the taken-for granted and oftentimes invisible forms of discriminatory practices in the workplace that appear non-discriminatory on the surface but are rooted in colonial thinking. Consequently, the authors challenge “mainstream” management theories concerning diversity in the workplace by questioning the underlying messages portrayed to immigrants.

In casting a new look at city; this study interprets the urban form in respect of the role played by human perception of space. The main aim of this research at a macro level is to attain a strong theorical basis through a multi-dimensional approach to the city. The method of analyzing and carrying out a critique of it at an applied level will clarify the impact, which cultural factors have in the formation of urban form. This preliminary recognition and idealism is based on a hermeneutic and deductive method that is particular to the intellectual sciences In the process of devising theories, studying the urban planning texts related to the subject of study and the conclusion from the field study which is carried out in the Isfahan Naghshe Jahan square in the Safavy period played a key role in the research in addition to the goals and questions.

The article discusses some general features of the dominant discourses of ethnicity and culture, their historical roots and relations to contemporary forms of multiculturalism. It compares different expressions of cultural belonging in European societies taking Sweden as an example. Departing from the complex meaning of culture the problems of essentialism inherent in concepts of culture and ethnicity are discussed. Sweden, as well as other European multiethnic societies, is undergoing a division along ethnic lines. Social inequalities tend to be understood in terms of cultural difference. Culture is usually connected with ethnicity and race and understood as pure, as an “essence,” as related to some original and eternal ethnic core. In this way important aspects of cultural dynamics in the multiethnic society, not least among young people, are left unobserved. What are usually not recognized are cultural crossings and the emergence of composite identities and their relations to social structure.