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1 – 10 of 17The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and critically assess public space in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, recurring to Henri Lefebvre’s concept of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and critically assess public space in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, recurring to Henri Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis.
Design/Methodology/Approach
The empirical findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork on a courtyard in a housing estate in Khujand in northern Tajikistan.
Findings
The paper argues that an analytic dichotomy between the private and the public realm conceals more than it reveals, for the Central Asian case at least. The rhythmanalysis framework is presented as a possible solution to the deficiencies of dichotomic categories.
Originality/value
Even if we find a series of scholarly works dealing with (post-)Soviet and/or Central Asian public spaces, they very scarcely provide a critical assessment of the roots and the usefulness of this concept for the regional setting they work in. The paper strives to close this gap and to present Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis framework as a possible solution for overcoming dichotomic categories.
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Cecilia Cassinger, Jorgen Eksell, Maria Mansson and Ola Thufvesson
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the mediatisation of terror attacks affects the brand image of tourism cities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the mediatisation of terror attacks affects the brand image of tourism cities.
Design/methodology/approach
Informed by theories of mediatisation and space, the study analyses two different types of terror attacks in Sweden during 2017 as media events. The focus of analysis is on identifying spatial and temporal patterns that underpin the narrative rhythm of the discussions of the events on Twitter and online news platforms.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that the unfolding of the events can be divided into three phases of varying intensity in rhythm and implications for city brand image. The manifestation of an imaginary terror attack in a digital environment had a greater impact on the narratives of the city than an actual one.
Research limitations/implications
Rythmanalysis is introduced as a useful device to examine how urban space is mediatised through social media and online news flows.
Originality/value
The study contributes with novel knowledge on the mediatisation of city space on digital media platforms in a post-truth world. It shows that city administrations need to deal with both real and imaginary terror attacks, especially when there is an already established negative image of the city.
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Gabrielle Durepos, Terrance Weatherbee and Albert J. Mills
This paper features a critique of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies. The authors reply to the critique by drawing on Lefebvre’s notion…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper features a critique of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies. The authors reply to the critique by drawing on Lefebvre’s notion of rhythm to theorize time in an amodern condition. The purpose of this study is to call on historical organization studies scholars to theoretically engage with time.
Design/methodology/approach
After a pointed literature review of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies, an ANTi-History approach to time is developed through an exploration of how rhythm can inform key ANTi-History facets.
Findings
New insights on key ANTi-History facets are developed in relation to time. These include seeing the past as history through rhythmic actor-networks, a description of relationalism informed by situated rhythms, a suggestion that the performative aspect of history is rhythmic and an illustration of what one might see if they watched an amodern historian at work.
Originality/value
Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm has been largely neglected in historiography and historical organization studies. Rhythm offers a way to understand time in relation to situated actor practices as opposed to the universal clock or chronological time.
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James Scott Vandeventer, Javier Lloveras and Gary Warnaby
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise how place management practices in UK housing associations (HAs) involve processes of ecological place management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise how place management practices in UK housing associations (HAs) involve processes of ecological place management.
Design/methodology/approach
Ethnographic fieldwork focusing on how communal spaces are organised on a housing estate in a UK city revealed the importance of negotiation with other actors, including an HA which is responsible for managing the estate. The authors draw on extensive participant observation with residents, as well as interviews with both residents and employees of the HA, to show the wider forces and complexities involved in these ecological place management practices.
Findings
This paper identifies hybrid socio-ecological, socio-political and political-economic dynamics unfolding as places are managed and organised. These widen the scope of place management research and practice to account for multiple ways places are organised.
Research limitations/implications
This paper offers a critical perspective on place management, developing an ecological approach that is applicable both to the relatively new context of housing and to more established sites in town and city centres.
Practical implications
This paper’s findings point to ways that housing and place management practitioners, both in the UK and elsewhere, can use an ecological approach to re-frame their strategic and practical actions with regards to “place”.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to unveiling the complexity involved in place management and organisation, thereby encouraging place managers to embrace ecological thinking capable of addressing future challenges.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide an ethnographic account of a folk music venue from the perspective of a participant observer.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an ethnographic account of a folk music venue from the perspective of a participant observer.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a classic thick description, describing the central participants in a performance and the operation of spacing and timing processes, thus significantly creating private ownership of a public space.
Findings
There are collective proceses of spacing and timing that are informal but normative framing what superficially appears to constitute random or unstructured activities. The musical knowledge and performance competence drive these processes rather than externally visible considerations of authenticity.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is a single-venue descriptive research.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the relatively few small-scale ethnographies of urban music venues.
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Terrance Weatherbee and Gabrielle Durepos
This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment used in Wren’s (and later Wren and Bedeian’s) 50-year encyclical on the history of management thought, namely, The Evolution of Management Thought (EMT).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose that management histories operate as powerful narratives that shape our understanding of management thought and, consequently, our disciplinary futures. This paper explores the textual narrative of EMT. Additional data are drawn from other scholars’ observations of this text. This paper is positioned in the debates of management history.
Findings
While acknowledging the wealth of historical facts in EMT, the authors argue that the umbrella narrative orders events of the past in such a manner that the historical knowledge follows a form of Darwinian evolutionism. Thus, the narrative leads to problematic representations suffering from progressivism, presentism and universalism.
Research limitations/implications
Disciplinary scholars in management and organization studies need to carefully reflect on how we construct our representations of the past and histories. This will allow us to better craft transparent and reflexive histories.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a remedy, albeit a partial remedy, which we believe is needed to avoid adverse epistemological consequences associated with the use of problematic narratives in management and organizational histories.
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This study aims to propose a novel concept of choreography as a way of understanding co-creation of value and thus develops the spatial analytical dimensions of co-creation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to propose a novel concept of choreography as a way of understanding co-creation of value and thus develops the spatial analytical dimensions of co-creation theorising.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper contemplates the meanings and possibilities of leveraging the theoretical underpinnings of value co-creation, from the viewpoint of value-in-experience.
Findings
The concept of choreography opens up a way to read knowledge as movement. It enables a way to elaborate on both the phenomenological and non-representational aspects of co-creation processes. Conceptualising co-creation through such a lens, where knowing is seen as an on-going, spatio-temporal and affective process formed in movement, posits opportunities to further understand the value co-creation practices of experiences. Choreography gives access to the kinaesthetic and affective nature of knowing gained in and through different spatio-temporal contexts and can, in turn, be mobilised in others.
Originality/value
Only a few studies have conceptualised co-creation in relation to a spatio-temporal phenomenon. Notably, this study connects co-creation with mobilities and thus constructs a novel view of knowledge and value creation.
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Silvia Gherardi, Annalisa Murgia, Elisa Bellè, Francesco Miele and Anna Carreri
Affect is relevant for organization studies mainly for its potential to reveal the intensities and forces of everyday organizational experiences that may pass unnoticed or pass in…
Abstract
Purpose
Affect is relevant for organization studies mainly for its potential to reveal the intensities and forces of everyday organizational experiences that may pass unnoticed or pass in silence because they have been discarded from the orthodoxy of doing research “as usual.” The paper is constructed around two questions: what does affect “do” in a situated practice, and what does the study of affect contribute to practice-based studies. This paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors chose a situated practice – interviewing – focusing on the dynamic character of the intra-actions among its heterogeneous elements. What happens to us, as persons and researchers, when we put ourselves inside the practices we study? The authors tracked the sociomaterial traces left by affect in the transcript of the interviews, in the sounds of the voices, in the body of the interviewers, and in the collective memories, separating and mixing them like in a mixing console.
Findings
The reconstruction, in a non-representational text, of two episodes related to a work accident makes visible and communicable how affect circulates within a situated practice, and how it stiches all the practice elements together. The two episodes point to different aspects of the agency of affect: the first performs the resonance of boundaryless bodies, and the second performs the transformative power of affect in changing a situation.
Originality/value
The turn to affect and the turn to practice have in a common interest in the body, and together they contribute to re-opening the discussion on embodiment, embodied knowledge, and epistemic practices. Moreover, we suggest an inventive methodology for studying and writing affect in organization studies.
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The concept of children's alienation from, and reconnection to, nature has gained international interest. The purpose of this paper is to explore how forest school as a growing…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of children's alienation from, and reconnection to, nature has gained international interest. The purpose of this paper is to explore how forest school as a growing phenomenon in the UK is promoting this reconnection to nature as well as benefiting children's well-being. At the same time, forest school is providing children and young people with a more divergent learning experience, away from the structural pressures of the neoliberal classroom. With its emphasis on play-based learning in wooded areas, and the freedom to make connections and spatially engage with what is around them at their own pace, such engagement in these “alternative” learning spaces can support the development of a post-human discourse and sensibilities. This is fundamental in developing children's emotional connection in promoting pro-environmental behaviours and their attitudes towards valuing and protecting the non-human.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on field notes documented during forest school leader training undertook by the author from April 2017 to May 2018. Further data were collected in the form of participant observations of forest school sessions in three schools; semi-structured interviews with the head teachers of these schools and two forest school practitioners. Supplementary data will also draw on the experiences of a group of second-year education studies university students after completing a module on forest school and outdoor learning, led by the author.
Findings
This article finds that the more children engage with wooded areas and interact with the natural environment and other creatures within that space, the more it affords meaning to them. This in turn promotes a sense of belonging and environmental stewardship, particularly in relation to non-human creatures. This article also finds that where schools provide forest school opportunities on their sites, such provision is conducive to supporting more creative practices within the “spatialities” of the neoliberal classroom.
Originality/value
Neoliberal education policy with its focus on high stakes testing and performance outcomes increasingly shapes the spatial practices of school life. Consequently, time spent outdoors and its relationship with intrinsic learning has declined in many schools. With many schools placing less importance on outdoor learning, children and young people have become further alienated from engaging in different ways with their environments. Further, data highlighting the link between forest school and children's interest in plants and other animals have not been the subject of much research.
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