Apologies for cross postings
The Art of Management and Organization Conference
Istanbul, Turkey 31st August – 3rd September 2010
The Organization and Aesthetics of Place
CALL FOR PAPERS
Philip Hancock (University of Warwick)
&
Melissa Tyler (Loughborough University)
Contact
[log in to unmask]
Space is amorphous and intangible and not an entity that can be directly described and
analysed. Yet, however we feel or explain space, there is nearly always some associated
sense or concept of place. In general it seems that space provides the context for place
but derives its meaning from particular places.
(Relph, 1976: 8)
Istanbul is not only where the geographies of East and West meet, but where the cultures
of Asia and Europe collide. It is a space imbued with many meanings and, as such, a
place of many contesting values, experiences, hopes, fears, attachments and revulsions.
Furthermore, this contestation over place is one that has a profoundly aesthetic
character. It can be seen in the varying styles of architecture of its buildings and the
dress and even mannerisms of its people. It can be smelt in the city’s cafes and
restaurants, and heard in the music and language on its streets and in its shops. It has a
materiality that reminds us that the values and meanings of place, and the tensions that
these engender, are not simply intellectual in character, but profoundly sensual and
aesthetic.
Inspired by the city and its people, as well as recent developments in the field of
management and organization theory concerned with space and architecture (Watkins,
2005; Taylor and Spicer, 2007; Dale and Burrell, 2008) we invite you to join us to share
research and ideas that explore the experiences, representations and tensions of
organizational place.
Place, in this sense, refers to the intersubjective, emotional and aesthetic relationships
we have to space; space as it is meaningful to us, as summed up in the concept of
topophilia (Bachelard, 1958; Tuan, 1974; Warren, 2007), the ‘affective bond between
people and place’ (Tuan, 1974: 4). While neither ignorant or dismissive of the dialectics of
space and place as foregrounded in the work of Lefebvre (1991), our aim is to
reinvigorate an investigation of the ways in which the profoundly intersubjective nature of
organizational place is rendered, and represented, as meaningful through the mobilisation
of a host of structural and often highly contested aesthetic resources.
Specific issues addressed might include:
• The dialectics of place and space
• Uncovering the aesthetics of place
• Place, art and adornment
• Symbols and rituals of place
• Precarity, personalisation and place attachment
• Place, ethics and recognition
• Culture, ethnicity and place
• Gendering place/placing gender
• Eros and the sexualisation of place
• Place and corporeality
We would welcome not only submissions that offer traditional academic presentations,
but also alternative modes of delivery including the visual, auditory and dramatic as we
feel that these are particularly suited to the exploration of the intersubjectivity of place.
Abstracts (of 500 words approx.) for papers or other proposals - should be sent to Philip
Hancock at [log in to unmask] and copied to Jane Malabar at [log in to unmask]
by 1st Feb 2010.
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