Replicating Organisation

Abstract

This chapter argues that the normalising mirror plays a central part in the simultaneous production of knowledge of organisations and organising, and in the production of the organised ‘subject’ (and by this I mean both individual subjectivity and the subject of organisation studies). It suggests that much of the discipline of organisation studies is based on processes of replication and normalisation. It goes on to argue that even those areas of the discipline that seek radical change are still seduced by the normalising mirror of the ‘anatomising urge’. The final section of the chapter demonstrates that, while mechanical replication around a norm is embedded in the discipline, issues and concepts of human and social reproduction are excised, as they are from organisations themselves. This is another instance of the marginalisation of bodies and embodiment from organisation studies.

‘Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’ (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1)