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Strangely Familiar: The Uncanny and Unsiting Organizational Analysis
Journal
Organization Studies
ISSN
0170-8406
ISSN-Digital
1741-3044
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2013-10
Author(s)
Beyes, Timon
Abstract
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.
Language
English
Keywords
aesthetics
affect
everyday
Rimini Protokoll
uncanny
unsiting
white space
witnessing
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Sage Publishing
Publisher place
London UK
Volume
34
Number
10
Start page
1445
End page
1465
Pages
21
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
225239