2007? It would appear that this stream has become the phenomena it seeks ...


Dr Damian O'Doherty
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK
T: +44(0)1613063489
E: [log in to unmask]

www.manchesterethnography.com


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From: SCOS Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Hancock, Philip G [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 14 November 2016 13:24
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Subject: [SCOS] CFP CMS 2007 - Stream on Vintage Organization – Re-valorizing the Past in Production, Consumption and Management

Apologies for cross-posting

Call for papers for a stream at the 10th Critical Management Studies Conference, Liverpool, July 3rd to 5th 2017
Stream Convenors:

Dr Ödül Bozkurt (University of Sussex, UK)
Professor Philip Hancock (University of Essex, UK)
Professor Melissa Tyler (University of Essex, UK)

Vintage Organization – Re-valorizing the Past in Production, Consumption and Management


While there has been significant critical attention paid to the history of organization and its management (cf. Burrell; 1997, Booth and Rowlinson, 2006; Hamilton and Parker, 2016), what has enjoyed less scrutiny, however, are the ways in which the past, in numerous guises, appears to have increasingly become a source of contemporary commercial and organizational value. Couched in a range of terms, including ‘heritage’ (Balmer and Burghausen, 2015), ‘vintage’ (Cassidy et al. 2012; Duffy et al. 2012) and ‘retro’ (Brown 2001; Jenss 2005), from the more obvious realm of marketing and advertising, through techniques and styles of organizational management, to organized practices of work and consumption, the past increasingly permeates commercial sensibilities and popular consciousness. Not only has it has become a medium through which both organizational and individual identities are favoured, negotiated and stabilized, however, it also increasingly functions as a performative resource through which various organizational practices aspire to legitimacy through a reference to an idealised, or a simulated narrative of pervious achievements, values and settlements.

What connects such terms and values is arguably what Samuel (1994) calls ‘the aura of pastness’, emphasizing as it does the potential contained within the past to provide a sense of connection and continuity. Sarial-Abi et al. (2016) attribute the need for this not simply to individual life circumstances, but rather to a broader structural condition they describe as the need for a ‘sense of intertemporal interconnection’, borne of economic instability and socio-political uncertainty. In using the term ‘vintage’ organization, therefore, we not only acknowledge its wider popularity as a signifier of both a commercial and individual orientation towards the past – especially in the sphere of consumption (DeLong et al., 2005; Veenstra, & Kuipers, 2013) – but also to recognize ‘vintage’ as an evocation of the past in the present that possesses the capacity to imbue any aspect of organizational activity with commercial value and/or critical, reflexive potential.

Contributions

We invite papers that look to explore the nature, politics, and impact of past-orientated values and activities across a range of contemporary organizational phenomena including: work, management, marketing, consumption and the theorization of organizational practices and processes.

In doing so, we would welcome submissions that critically evaluate the ways in which ‘the past’ is increasingly re-valorized as a commercial, organizational and intellectual resource for the present. In particular, we hope the discussion will encourage reflection on how the past might not only encourage less performative or instrumental ways of working, managing and consuming, but also how it might, by increasingly aestheticizing bygone eras and ideals, trivialize past inequalities and deprecate or marginalize those critical voices and historical struggles that have promoted progressive organizational change.

Topics for consideration might include:


·         Contexts and affinities for the past: Why does the past appear to have become such a prominent theme at this juncture in history? Can we understand it as an extension, for example, of a neo-liberal sensibility that valorizes individual economic choice, or a reaction to the excesses of a present that appears to have increasingly abandoned past notions of the collective good?

·         Who valorizes the past? How is value bestowed on the past, be it through goods, services of symbolic systems? Whose past is deemed worthy of valorization and recognition and whose is not? What narratives are generated in order to value certain artefacts or ideas over others and how are these negotiated?

·         Experiences of work and working in sectors of the vintage economy: What, if anything, distinguishes the various labour processes associated with working in say vintage markets or stores, heritage centers or performances. What unique affective demands – in the form, for instance, of emotional or particularly aesthetic labour – might it give rise to?

·         Retro-representations and nostalgia marketing: What particular demands fall on those charged with managing and marketing organizations espousing heritage values within a contemporary market place. What can the popularity of retro-marketing tell us about current understandings of the market and society?

·         Heritage organizations, sustainability and their management: What role might the burgeoning heritage sector play in promoting a more sustainable economic sensibility? What processes define aspects of the past as ‘heritage’ and what role should markets and the state play in this?

·         Vintage consumption, reflexivity and resistance: To what degree can the consumption of the past be understood as a rejection of the present? Can the past offer alternative or subversive narratives in the face of the colonizing tendencies of neo-liberal economics? To what extent might vintage offer more critical, reflexive, ways of managing, organizing and marketing?

·         The past as an inspiration for alternative economies: Does the contemporary fascination with the past recognize alternative ways of organizing both economically and politically? What opportunities and dangers might this offer?

References

Balmer, J.M.T. and Burghausen, M. (2015). Explicating corporate heritage, corporate heritage brands, and organisational heritage. Journal of Brand Management, 22(5): 364-384.

Brown, S. (2001) Marketing - The Retro Revolution. London: Sage.

Booth, C. and Rowlinson, M. (2006) ‘Management and Organizational History: Prospects’
Management & Organizational History, 1(1):5-30.

Burrell, G. (1997) Pandemonium: Towards a Retro-Organization Theory. London: Sage.

Cassidy, T.D. & Bennett, H.R. (2012) ‘The Rise of Vintage Fashion and the Vintage Consumer’. Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion, 4(2): 239–262.

DeLong, M., Heinemann, B. & Reiley, K. (2005) ‘Hooked on Vintage!’ Fashion Theory, 9(1): 23-42.

Duffy, K., Hewer, P., and Wilson, J. (2012) ‘Granny would be proud’: On the labours of doing vintage, practices and emergent socialities, Advances in Consumer Research. 40: 519-525.

Hamilton, V. and Parker, M. (2016) Daniel Defoe and the Bank of England:
The Dark Arts of Projectors. London: Zero Books.

Jenss, H. (2005) ‘Sixties dress only! The consumption of the past in a retro scene’, in A. Palmer and H. Clark (eds) Old Clothes, New Looks. New York: Berg, pp. 177-195.

Samuel, R. (1994) Theatres of Memory. London: Verso.

Sarial-Abi, G., Vohs, K., Hamilton, R. and Ulqinaku, A. (2016) ‘Stitching time: Vintage consumption connects the past, present and future’, Journal of Consumer Psychology. (online early, pp. 1-13).

Veenstra, A. & Kuipers, G. (2013) ‘It Is Not Old-Fashioned, It Is Vintage, Vintage Fashion and the Complexities of 21st Century Consumption Practices’. Sociology Compass. 7(5): 355 – 365.

Abstract submission and decisions

Please submit an abstract of maximum 500 words to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

The deadline for abstract submission is 31st of January 2017, with decisions on acceptance to be expected by 28th of February 2017

Conference date and venue:

July 3rd – 5th
Britannia Adelphi Hotel,
Liverpool,
UK

More information about the conference can be found at:
https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/business/homepage/cms2017/