Slipping and sliding
Speaker
Abstract
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It can hardly be denied that the concept of subjectivity has a central role in organization studies, as it addresses the relationship of the individual to itself and to others, and to processes of power, interpellation and resistance. The self, far from an essential core or a set of traits, is constantly reconstructed within particular social contexts. This identity work has been the object of a stream of research that emphasizes the constitutive role of language in producing and shaping identities in organizations (see for instance Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Ezzamel et al., 2001; Brown and Coupland, 2005, and also Collinson, 2003; Symon, 2005; Halford and Leonard, 2006).. I will propose an analysis of identity work following the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and explore the Lacanian notion of identification (Lacan, 1988a; 1988b; 2002) as a way of understanding identity work as part of subjectivity in an organizational context. I will base myself on a case study research conducted in a large public sector organization in the Netherlands. |
| Contact information: |
| Dicea Jansen |
