Strangely Familiar: The Uncanny and Unsiting Organizational Analysis
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Authors
This paper focuses on the aesthetics of the uncanny to inquire into and perform affective sites of organizing
that are imbued with feelings of uncertainty and uneasiness. We argue that the uncanny forms an ‘unconcept’
that allows us to think and apprehend ‘white spaces’ of organization not as new or other spaces but through
a process of relating intensively with the conventional places, streets and squares that form the backdrop to
everyday life. We also make use of the notion of ‘unsiting’ to show how organizational research is able to
enhance our appreciation of the aesthetic dimension of organization in ways that expose and undermine that
which has become familiar and taken-for-granted. Based on an artistic intervention by the theatre collective
Rimini Protokoll, we encounter and analyse such processes of unsiting through the affective and spatial
doublings at work in the organization of urban space. Theorizing the organizational uncanny opens up new
sites/sights in organization by forging an interconnection of the recent affective, spatial and aesthetic ‘turns’
in organizational theory. To do this demands what we call scholarly performances that involve the witnessing
and enacting of everyday sites of organizing.
that are imbued with feelings of uncertainty and uneasiness. We argue that the uncanny forms an ‘unconcept’
that allows us to think and apprehend ‘white spaces’ of organization not as new or other spaces but through
a process of relating intensively with the conventional places, streets and squares that form the backdrop to
everyday life. We also make use of the notion of ‘unsiting’ to show how organizational research is able to
enhance our appreciation of the aesthetic dimension of organization in ways that expose and undermine that
which has become familiar and taken-for-granted. Based on an artistic intervention by the theatre collective
Rimini Protokoll, we encounter and analyse such processes of unsiting through the affective and spatial
doublings at work in the organization of urban space. Theorizing the organizational uncanny opens up new
sites/sights in organization by forging an interconnection of the recent affective, spatial and aesthetic ‘turns’
in organizational theory. To do this demands what we call scholarly performances that involve the witnessing
and enacting of everyday sites of organizing.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Organization Studies |
Volume | 34 |
Issue number | 10 |
Pages (from-to) | 1445-1465 |
Number of pages | 21 |
ISSN | 0170-8406 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 10.2013 |
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