Preface
Introduction
1) Making trouble: Organizational performativity and parody
2) The organizational ‘matter’ of bodies at work
3) Un/doing organization - Coherence at the cost of complexity
4) Accounting for/in organization: Giving and working an account of one’s self
5) Organized dispossession: The organizational politics of precarity
6) Organizational (re)assemblage: Towards a plural performativity
Postscript - Organizing a/as non-violent ethics and politics
References
Biography
Melissa Tyler is a Professor of Work and Organization Studies at Essex Business School, The University of Essex, UK.
"Given the extensive referencing of Judith Butler in Organization Studies and not just within the sphere of gender, this book is long overdue and there could not have been an author more qualified to write it. Melissa provides an extensive analysis, guided not only by a lengthy engagement with Butler’s writings but also an understanding that benefits from her knowledge of authors such as Hegel, Foucault and Merleau-Ponty and their impact on Butler’s thinking. The book is framed around the distinction between the ontology of organizations that ground empirical studies (e.g., processual studies of organizations) and the organizing of ontologies wherein a whole range of conceptions of what it is to be human are organized to close off alternatives (e.g., the heterosexual matrix in the organization of social life and the foundation of the gendered organization). While every chapter in this book is a delight and extremely informative, I found particular value in the postscript which examines the developing ethics of vulnerability where it can be seen as a mode of collective resistance and solidarity. This is an essential read for social science scholars in general but especially for students of gender, work, and organization" —David Knights, Lancaster University Management School, UK.
"Organizations are not merely places where people go to work, but theatres for love and hate, identity and desire, cruelty and repetition. In this extraordinary and beautifully written book, Melissa Tyler takes on one of the most influential thinkers of the past few decades and shows why Judith Butler matters. Together, these authors make organizations into microcosms of the wider world, and propel us to think and act differently." —Martin Parker, Bristol University, UK.
