scholarly journals Investigating the Dark Side of Stories of “Good” Leadership: A Discursive Approach to Leadership Gurus’ Storytelling

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Ontological Shift ◽  
Empty Signifier ◽  
Discursive Approach ◽  
The Way

Since the quest for locating an agreed upon prediscursive phenomenon behind the word “leadership” has proved fruitless, some researchers have suggested that leadership is an empty signifier to which many meanings can be attached. Taking this ontological shift seriously, rather than trying to locate leadership as a “thing” that is out there somewhere, it is perhaps better to investigate how meanings of leadership are constructed as in situ social practice. Adopting a discursive approach to leadership and using transcripts of a celebrity interview with management gurus Jack and Suzy Welch, this article analyses the stories they tell in which they provide normative accounts of what good leadership should be. Rather than taking these stories at face value, this article investigates both the way in which these stories are told as in situ social practice and the Discourses of leadership that are used as resources for storytelling and which are (re)produced in the storytelling. Findings indicate that while Jack and Suzy Welch do morally accountable identity work that presents leadership as heroic and positive, these stories also hide a darker side of leadership that is revealed in the analyses of wider societal Discourses that are invoked. The article closes with a call for a more critical approach to stories of leadership.

On critical approaches, unintended consequences and the data of everyday life in ‘performing towns’

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Fleisher
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Way

I welcome Axel Christophersen's effort to offer a new approach to the study of Scandinavian medieval urban communities, and his outline of an ‘urban archaeology of social practice’. His presentation of a theoretical framework and language offers many insights as to how archaeologists can analyse the way people constructed their social lives through practice. It is exciting to see studies that grapple with the complexities of everyday life in urban settings. This article makes a significant contribution in its explicit approach to a theory of practice that archaeologists can use to explore and describe social change. Christophersen draws heavily on the work of Shove, Pantzar and Watson as detailed in their 2012 bookThe dynamics of social practice. Everyday life and how it changes; I was unfamiliar with this work until reading this essay and I am impressed with the way this framework offers a language and a concrete approach to understanding how practices emerge, evolve and disappear. My goal here is not to revisit the details of this argument, but rather to push on some select issues raised in the paper. I first discuss the way that Christophersen frames his arguments against a processual archaeological approach, suggesting that his effort to provide an alternative might be unintentionally minimizing a more critical approach to everyday life. Next, I discuss the role and place of unintended consequences in Christophersen's argument. And finally I examine the way that Christophersen's approach might be more fully operationalized with data, providing some examples from my own work in eastern Africa.

scholarly journals A discursive analysis of the in situ construction of (Japanese) leadership and leader identity in a research interview. Implications for leadership research

Leadership ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton ◽  
Wenjin Dai
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Leader Identity ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Research Interview ◽  
A Site ◽  
Leadership Research

Interviews are a way, if not the key way, in which knowledge of leadership and leader identity is sought. Yet, the interviews as a site of the construction of this knowledge are often “black-boxed” and few scholars consider how the “what” of leadership and leader identity are constructed as in situ social practice. Taking a discursive approach to leadership, and using membership categorization analysis as a methodological tool, this paper considers the identity work that participants do when constructing (Japanese) leadership and leader identity in a research interview. Findings indicate that leader identity is fragmented and contradictory and that identity work is skewed to producing a morally acceptable leader identity that has little to do with revealing underlying truths of leadership as often assumed. On the basis of these findings, we call for the discursive turn in leadership research to go beyond considering leadership-in-action to also consider the way in which both meanings of leadership and leader identities are discursively constructed as in situ social practice, notably in research interviews. Second, we call for more careful consideration and analysis of research interview as a site for building knowledge of leadership and leader identities, which, close analysis reveals to be fluid, changeable, and even contradictory. Third, we argue that researchers should also analyze what the particular constructions of leadership and leader identities “do.” This aligns with calls for more critical approaches to leadership studies that challenge hegemonic views of leadership and seek to make visible the power dynamics of presenting leadership and leader identity in one way rather than another.

Klein with Lacan: A Study on the Reception of Lacanian Ideas in Uruguay and Its Effects on Clinical Practices (1955–82)

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-361
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Grau-Pérez ◽  
J. Guillermo Milán
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Clinical Material ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Discursive Approach ◽  
The Way ◽  
Clinical Cases

In Uruguay, Lacanian ideas arrived in the 1960s, into a context of Kleinian hegemony. Adopting a discursive approach, this study researched the initial reception of these ideas and its effects on clinical practices. We gathered a corpus of discursive data from clinical cases and theoretical-doctrinal articles (from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s). In order to examine the effects of Lacanian ideas, we analysed the difference in the way of interpreting the clinical material before and after Lacan's reception. The results of this research illuminate some epistemological problems of psychoanalysis, especially the relationship between theory and clinical practice.

Reflections on the Freedman School

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gow
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers Freedman’s contribution to scholarship and the nascent elements of a school of thought relevant to both academic and policy realms, as well as introducing a more skeptical and critical approach to the subject’s scholarship. It considers Freedman’s engagement with the policy world and why this has managed to be both extensive and successful, as well as its outcomes. It also introduces discussion of possible challenges to Freedman’s work, presenting a balancing perspective to positive appreciations of his oeuvre. The chapter concludes by indicating the weaknesses of such challenges and reaffirms the sense of a school of thought informed by a distinctive approach. This is the blend of scripturalism and constructivism, on one side, with realism, on the other, that is the hallmark of the nascent school, and the way in which it is germane in both academic and policy domains.

From compassion to distance: Hannah Höch’s ‘Mother’

2021 ◽  
pp. 135050682110289
Author(s):  
Andrea Pérez-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Abortion Rights ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Way

This article addresses the work of the German artist Hannah Höch in the light of the struggle for abortion rights in the Weimar Republic. I attempt to show how Höch’s uses of the technique of photomontage can be read as a way of introducing a distance between the work and the viewer that allows us to question the beliefs we use to make sense of the world. Specifically, I discuss her photomontage Mutter (‘Mother’), a version of a photograph taken by John Heartfield, and some of her writings and interviews. I also examine closely the material conditions and political debates in which Höch’s work – as a social practice – developed. After a brief introduction and a methodological outline, I present Höch in the context of Berlin Dada and summarise the main underlying arguments of my hypothesis. Namely, that the major interest of Höch’s photomontages lies in the complex articulation of activism and philosophy, and in the way in which they put mainstream categories into question by ‘distancing’ fragments of reality.

Who is pulling the strings in the platform economy? Accounting for the dark and unexpected sides of algorithmic control

Organization ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135050842097452
Author(s):  
Edouard Pignot
Keyword(s):  
Digital Control ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Structuralist Theory ◽  
Ideological Fantasy ◽  
Platform Economy ◽  
The Way

This paper aims to address the dark side perspective on digital control and surveillance by emphasizing the affective grip of ideological control, namely the process that silently ensures the subjugation of digital labour, and which keeps the ‘unexpectedness’ of algorithmic practices at bay: that is, the propensity of users to contest digital prescriptions. In particular, the theoretical contribution of this paper is to combine Labour Process with psychoanalytically-informed, post-structuralist theory, in order to connect to, and further our understanding of, how and why digital workers assent to, or oppose, the interpellations of algorithmic ideology at work. To illustrate the operation of affective control in the Platform Economy, the emblematic example of ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber, and their algorithmic management, is revisited. Thus, the empirical section describes the way drivers are glued to the algorithm (e.g. for one more fare, or for the next surge pricing) in a way that prevents them, although not always, from considering genuine resistance to management. Finally, the paper discusses the central place of ideological fantasy and cynical enjoyment in the Platform Economy, as well as the ethical implications of the study.

scholarly journals The problem of nationalistic discourse in modern sociologic science

2013 ◽  
pp. 160-166
Author(s):  
A. V. Lomagina
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Social Investigation ◽  
Discursive Approach ◽  
The Way

The notion of discourse represents a major novelty in modern theory of nationalism. Discursive approach as a key method of social investigation continues to earn indisputable authority in modern science. The article is dedicated to study of nationalism as a specific social discourse and the way of cognizing and interpreting social reality.

Operation Hiram Revisited: A Correction

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-76
Author(s):  
Benny Morris
Keyword(s):  
Archival Material ◽  
The Way

The author revisits the Israeli Defense Forces' October 1948 Galilee operation in the light of newly available archival material and finds that, contrary to earlier findings, orders were in fact issued to clear the Galilee of Arabs. The reasons that most of the population remained in situ are examined, and the pattern of massacres in the region is discussed. The article concludes by emphasizing the cumulative nature of historiography and the way the picture changes in accordance with the available data.

Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy

2017 ◽  
pp. 2-22
Author(s):  
Philip Kitcher
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Large Project ◽  
Progressive Inquiry ◽  
The Way

Dewey campaigned for a “recovery” or a “reconstruction” of philosophy. He did not see philosophy as having come to an end, but, instead, hoped to find a radically new way of continuing. This chapter seeks to understand what he had in mind and to recommend it. At different stages of his career, Dewey offered characterizations so different that it seems he had no single conception of philosophy; however, when his writings are seen as contributions to a large project of fostering human social progress, the diverse accounts of philosophy can be reconciled. Further, recognizing the important role philosophy is to play in progressive inquiry and progressive social practice enables us to understand why Dewey’s writings proceed at distinct levels. The changes he advocates mark a decisive shift in the way philosophy is to be done.

Hermeneutische Überlegungen zu Heideggers schwarzen Heften und zum neudenken seines Denkwegs II.

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-39
Author(s):  
István M. Fehér
Keyword(s):  
Time Factor ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
Formal Indication ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Devil ◽  
The Way

"Hermeneutical Considerations on Heidegger’s Black Notebooks and on the Revisiting of his Path of Thinking II. Starting with preliminary philological-hermeneutical considerations concerning the way Heidegger’s Black Notebooks can and should be dealt with, as well as concerning the question of what tasks may be derived from them for future research, the paper attempts to discuss the Black Notebooks applying a variety of methods and approaches. Themes that are discussed at more or less length include: Time factor and the formulation of our task; explanation and understanding or the way a philosophical path should be approached and dealt with methodically (hermeneutically); the theme related to “Heidegger and anti-Semitism” and the question concerning individuality; prejudices from a hermeneutical perspective and the way to deal with them; relapses and their philosophical explanation; insufficient and exaggerated sensibility; Heidegger and Hegel; equivocality and the dark side of the “formal indication”; Lukács, Scheler and the devil; Heidegger’s great being-historical treatises and their greatness; suggestions for a reconsideration of Heidegger’s way of thinking. – One important hermeneutical claim brought to bear on the various discussions is this: just as it would be inappropriate in our dealing with Heidegger’s texts to disregard Heidegger’s own self-interpretations, it would be no less inappropriate to consider those self-interpretations – which themselves call for interpretation – as telling us the sole and ultimate truth. This second part of the paper dedicates special attention to the question of re-examining Heidegger’s whole philosophical itinerary in the light of the Black Notebooks. Keywords: hermeneutics, being, history, interpretation, individuality "

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