TY - JOUR

T1 - The topographical imagination: space and organization theory

AU - Beyes, Timon

AU - Holt, Robin

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020.

PY - 2020/4/1

Y1 - 2020/4/1

N2 - We live in a time of space, also in the study of organization. This review essay reflects on the state and the potential of organization theory’s spatial turn by embedding it in a wider movement of thought in the humanities and social sciences. Reading exemplary studies of organizational spatialities alongside the broader history and renaissance of spatial thinking allows us to identify and discuss four twists to the spatial turn in organization theory. First, organization is understood as something placed or sited. Second, it is a site of spatial contestation, which is constitutive for (and not merely reflective of) organizational life. Third, such contestation is itself an outcome of a spatial multiplicity that encompasses affects, technologies, voids and absences. Fourth, such an excess of space is beyond (or rather before) representation and thus summons a spatial poetics. In following these twists, increasingly complex and speculative topographies of organization take shape.

AB - We live in a time of space, also in the study of organization. This review essay reflects on the state and the potential of organization theory’s spatial turn by embedding it in a wider movement of thought in the humanities and social sciences. Reading exemplary studies of organizational spatialities alongside the broader history and renaissance of spatial thinking allows us to identify and discuss four twists to the spatial turn in organization theory. First, organization is understood as something placed or sited. Second, it is a site of spatial contestation, which is constitutive for (and not merely reflective of) organizational life. Third, such contestation is itself an outcome of a spatial multiplicity that encompasses affects, technologies, voids and absences. Fourth, such an excess of space is beyond (or rather before) representation and thus summons a spatial poetics. In following these twists, increasingly complex and speculative topographies of organization take shape.

KW - Sociology

KW - aesthetics

KW - affect

KW - organizational form

KW - materiality

KW - power

KW - process theories

KW - representation

KW - resistance

KW - space

KW - site technology

KW - topography

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/732d4cfb-4837-3188-9d92-10b281a44f81/

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103875622&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/2631787720913880

DO - 10.1177/2631787720913880

M3 - Scientific review articles

VL - 1

JO - Organization Theory

JF - Organization Theory

SN - 2631-7877

IS - 2

ER -