Research at Manchester Business School 
CMS5 Conference - Hegemonies 
 
CMS 5
The Fifth International Critical Management Studies Conference

11-13 July 2007 

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Reconnecting Critical Management
The Fifth Critical Management Studies Conference, Manchester Business School

Call for papers

Stream title:  Movements of Transition: hegemonies, resistances, 
alternatives

Stream Description
The transition from ‘socialism’ to a free market economy has probably been 
one of the most pivotal events over the past two decades, affecting the 
lives of millions of people inside and outside the countries and nations 
involved in this process. This transition has been part of a wider movement 
towards the widening and deepening of the logic of neo-liberal states, free 
markets and capitalist management around the world. In popular imagination 
this societal change process has been frequently portrayed as the 
archetypal journey from serfdom to freedom with certain teleological 
references to the ‘end of history’. Reflecting the Zeitgeist of drastic 
transformations set in motion by the disintegrating Soviet model (and its 
variants), the free market ideology has captured the minds of its reluctant 
allies and foes alike. Unanimously embraced as an antidote to the 
inefficiency and irresponsiveness of state bureaucracies, and (the only) 
tool for wealth creation, but also as an emancipatory political force – the 
free market has been elevated to the status of the new master signifier in 
societal discourse. In this new ‘post-historical’ world the free market and 
its associated capitalist management processes in the state, economy and 
civil society have become the hegemonic articulation of organisation as 
such, promising freedom, democracy, wealth and even equality, 
responsibility and security.

Perhaps such grand transformation with high moral underpinnings at stake 
justifies the ‘transitory’ human costs: the tears, broken dreams and 
anxieties; the massive unemployment, religious hatred and nationalist wars; 
the military and daily violences, poverty and disillusions. Perhaps the TV 
images transmitted to unsuspected consumers in the making – those ‘poor’ 
souls who are yet to fully experience the promised land of Big Macs and big 
Mercs – might eventually materialise turning the catastrophic wastelands of 
the present into dreamlands of the future. Perhaps the many liberations 
that privatisation of state industries have brought about together with 
privatising common fates has been a price worth paying. Or we are made to 
believe so…

In contrast to prevailing ideologies, we would like to question this notion 
of transition as an imposition of historical, a-historical or pseudo-
historical truths onto our reality and subjectivity. We see transition – 
transformation, reconfiguration, repositioning – as a particular change 
process, a personal and collective one at the same time, that is concerned 
with the real opening of and in society. Moving beyond nostalgia and 
critique, we look out for rupture/s in the symbolic order and wish to 
interrogate imaginary institutions of contemporary consumerist society with 
the hope of experiencing the real; the real being defined as a resistance 
to dominant discourses pertaining to market fundamentalism and neo-
liberalism, and as a quest for alternative ways of being, organising and 
constituting public space. 

Our aim is to challenge the distortion that equates collective and 
agonistic forms of action with tyranny and coercion, and to identify ways 
of resisting hegemonic discourses and share alternative experiences. We are 
interested in movements of transition that point to speculative openings: 
new ways of social organising, new ways of producing, new ways of being. We 
are excited to explore the creativity and innovation of social movements in 
all parts of the world resisting the neo-liberal market logic and, at the 
same time, experimenting with the organisation of new, alternative forms of 
life. 

Trying to make sense of a wider change process involving new forms of 
citizenship and collective engagement, we would like to invite 
contributions that problematise, re-think and re-define different notions 
of transition, including:

The historical epoch of social transformation from what was known as ‘real 
existing socialism’ to today’s (post-)transition market economies –
examining and evaluating the significance of social and organisational 
transformations in light of foreclosed and recreated opportunities for 
radical movements of transition; 
The liberalisation and structural adjustment policies implemented in many 
developing countries around the world – examining and evaluating the human, 
social, cultural and economic costs involved and documenting the movements 
of resistance against neo-colonial oppressions; 
The ‘successful’ Marx-to-Mao-to-Market transition as experienced in China – 
teasing out the historical complexities and hidden costs of this change 
process with particular emphasis on the different types of resistances 
possible in today’s Chinese society; 
The ‘forced’ and violent transition in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq 
and Kosovo – not to mention Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada and the many other 
countries where Western hegemony has invaded foreign territories in the 
name of liberation, freedom and democracy. 
While we would not like to confine our inquiry to the historical 
transitions outlined above, we would particularly welcome analyses of:

Comparative aspects of transition across countries and geographical areas 
and between different models of transition (e.g. ‘successful’ and ‘failed’ 
ones); 
The roles of, and the relationships between, the state, economy and civil 
society in organising societal transitions and change processes; 
The mechanisms for establishing hegemonic regimes and organising counter-
hegemonic resistance movements; 
The role of particular organisations (e.g. NGOs, charities, affinity 
groups, direct action groups, media organisations) in facilitating 
hegemonic as well as counter-hegemonic transitions; 
The modes of organisation in what can be regarded as alternative states, 
economies and civil societies. 
We are inviting a range of creative and innovative engagements including 
contributions such as:

Theoretical papers presenting counterintuitive and provocative analyses and 
ideas using a range of frameworks (e.g. feminist, post-colonial, neo-
Gramscian, post-Marxist, etc); 
Empirical engagements presenting data and texts in novel and non-
conventional ways; 
Individual accounts by researchers, practitioners, artists and activists 
presenting their own personal and auto-biographic stories and experiences 
of transitions; 
Artistic projects using techniques of performance, video, poetry and 
photography; 
Activist accounts of social movement organising, resistance and alternative 
institution building. 
Details of the Convenors: 

Dr Marianna Fotaki
Manchester Business School
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Dr Steffen Böhm
Essex University
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Professor John Hassard
Manchester Business School
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Professor Maria Ceci Misoczky
School of Administration, Federal University do Rio Grande du Sul
Porto Alegre, Brazil
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Nebojša Milikic
Editor of ''YEAST'', the youth web-magazine for politics and culture 
Belgrade, Serbia
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Timeline for paper submission: 

Abstracts to Convenors (e-mail) - 6 November 2006

Decisions on acceptance/rejection communicated to authors - 14 February 2007

Full papers to Convenors (e-mail) - 28 April 2007

Abstracts must contain the following information:

Authors (including affiliation and contact details, with lead author 
clearly indicated) 
Stream to which the abstract is submitted 
Title 
Body text 
Maximum 300 words 
All abstracts must be single-spaced, prepared using at least an 11-point 
Ariel font, with a left margin at least 1 inch for binding and be formatted 
for A4 paper (21cm * 29.7 cm).