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How can we reimagine the relationship between academia and activism to provide new opportunities for social change?
Based on an ethnography with an anti-violence feminist collective, this vibrant and vital book develops an interdisciplinary approach to activism and activist research, helping us reimagine the role of scholarship in the fight against social inequality.
With its reflections on novel tools that can be utilized in the fight for social justice, this book will be a valuable resource for academics in critical management studies, sociology, gender studies, and social work as well as practitioners and policymakers across the social services sector.
political action, then it will never reach its potential. In this vein, academia is argued to have much to add to activism, and there is vast potential in academics resisting institutional demands to narrowly focus on topics of academic interest (Varkarolis and King, 2017 ), partnering with communities (Brennan, 2019 ), and bringing their knowledge to the aid of social justice (Sudbury and Okazawa-Rey, 2009 ; Yerbury and Burridge, 2013 ; Khasnabish and Haiven, 2015 ). As I started my research project, I found that my own field of critical management studies (CMS
management studies, scholars have claimed that stories about our sense of self are important for stimulating personal transformation (Maclean et al, 2015 ), creating new ways of being (Murgia and Poggio, 2009 ), raising awareness of how we can think about ourselves differently (Parsons and Priola, 2013 ), developing new meanings (Lapointe, 2013 ), and giving voice to marginalized people (Gherardi and Poggio, 2007 ). In other words: stories do things to ourselves and to others. Generally, in anti-violence activism, stories are seen as a powerful mechanism to empower
surface power dynamics in organizing. To me, a crucial aspect of critical management studies is also about the (re)imagining of ways forward and new structures for organizations and organizing. These two aspects are particularly linked to feminist approaches. I strive to achieve ‘radical reflexivity’ ( Cunliffe, 2003 ) and to consciously elaborate the complexities behind my positionality and my work as a researcher – this approach helps me understand the dynamics behind my interpretation and research practice, for instance, and it is also a political choice in writing
In a neoliberal academia dominated by masculine ideals of measurement and performance, it is becoming more important than ever to develop alternative ways of researching and writing.
This powerful new book gives voice to non-conforming narratives, suggesting innovative, messy and nuanced ways of organizing the reading and writing of scholarship in management and organization studies. In doing so it spotlights how different methods and approaches can represent voices of inequality and reveal previously silenced topics.
Informed by feminist and critical perspectives, this will be an invaluable resource for current and future scholars in management and organization studies and other social sciences.
‘Attracted to girls … but my understanding of what a lesbian was, was this hairy, big, truck driver, butchy jeans and boots … and I knew that wasn’t the sort of woman that I wanted to be. Therefore, if I was a lesbian, and I didn’t want to be one of those, then I didn’t know what I was.’
Many years later, Jen was exposed to the possibilities of being a lesbian like she wanted when she joined the collective as a volunteer. She described it as extremely emancipatory, telling me: “I came out as a lesbian about the same time [as I started volunteering]. That was really quite cool because being a lesbian in [the organization] in those days was a very … recognized and celebrated thing.”
