If you have an interest in the intersections between activism and organizing, please consider submitting an abstract to our stream at CMS 2019: Organizations and Activism: From Precarious presents to Open Futures 

Deadline for abstracts (500 words) is 31st January 2019.

Critical scholars and activists have long challenged the manner in which systems of global capitalism create and perpetuate precarity, inequality, dominance and control (see for instance Ferree and Martin, 1995). From Occupy’s critique of the 1% (Graeber, 2004) to critiques of the Uberization of work (Fleming, 2017), academics and activists alike are simultaneously challenging the status quo and taking an active role in transforming the world around them (see for instance Chatterton et al., 2010; Naples and Bojar, 2002; Pain et al., 2007; Ram et al., 2015).
This stream will explore the role of organization in contentious politics in two main directions. First, by empirically and theoretically examining the organization of activism and its role in generating organizational change:
•       How is activism organized? 
•       How can activism change organizations?
•       How do specific organizations emerge as a site or target for activism?

Second, by reflecting on the role of activism in changing academic practice, and the potential for academic work to initiate, inform and participate in activism:
•       Can academics also be activists and under what conditions?
•       Is there a role for activism in the business school classroom? 
•       What tensions emerge when working at intersection of activism and academia? 
•       How should researchers engage with activists and what are the risks for both parties? 
•       What methodological challenges arise when academia meets activism (Reedy & King, 2017)? 
•       What are the possibilities for forms of activist enquiry in academia?

Our interest is in exploring the potential for a dialogic, rather than colonising, engagement between academic research and activist practice. In a higher education context characterised by an existential insecurity as academic research is repeatedly called upon to demonstrate its ‘relevance’ and ‘impact’ in ‘the real world’, we wish to explore how critical management academics can make a difference through various forms of activism and activist scholarship. 

For example and recognising the criticism that academics often make careers reporting on activism with little benefit to their participants, we also want to consider how activism might benefit from academic work and how academic work can becomes activist in form, character and content.  For example,  how can academics generate knowledge that supports activism and how might academic work involve mobilizing, organizing, supporting and leading challenges and changes to organizations, industries and economies?

Finally, and in relation to the latter, we want to consider how activism can mobilize the university and the academy  (and perhaps counter the dysfunctional form of neoliberal managerialism  that has run riot in the groves of academe in recent times). In this context we might ask what CMS might learn from activism in order to make a difference to the organizing of our home institutions?

This stream is being convenes as part of a book series on Organization and Activism published by Bristol University Press (http://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/organizations-and-activism). We therefore welcome not only traditional conference papers but conceptual pieces that might be able to be developed into full book proposals. We also intend to publish a book drawing upon the contributions presented at the conference, if participants are willing.
 
The stream will consider organizations and organizing in the broadest sense, offering critical examinations of organizations as sites of or targets for activism, and we will also assume that our authors are themselves agents of change. Contributions may focus on specific organizations, industries or fields, or they may be arranged around particular themes. Topics might include:
-        The alternative economy
-        Surveillance, whistleblowing and human rights
-        Digital politics
-        Environmental organizations
-        Activism and the pharmaceutical industry
-        NGOs in the global south
-        Religious groups and activism 
-        The relationship between knowledge and power in a post-truth world-disorder
-        Feminism and anarchist organization
-        The law and radical social movements
-        Action research and co-production
-        Activism and the neoliberal university
-        Industrial activism
-        The activist university

The stream is open to academics, activists and practitioners. We particularly welcome early-career academics and Doctoral students 
Stream Convenors

Daniel King, [log in to unmask]
Kiri Langmead, [log in to unmask] 
Chris Land, [log in to unmask]
Erica Lewis, [log in to unmask]

Please submit a 500 word abstract (excluding references, one page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, no header, footers or track changes) together with your contact information to [log in to unmask] with the subject heading Organizations and Activism: From Precarious presents to Open Futures. The deadline for submission of abstracts is January 31st 2019, and we will notify you of our decision by the end of February

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