Call for Papers: 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference
Date: June 27 - 29, 2019
Location: The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes

Sub-theme 12: Practices and strategies of ignorance

Convenors:

Janna Rose, Grenoble Ecole de Management, [log in to unmask]
Marcos Barros, Grenoble Ecole de Management, [log in to unmask]
Ozan Nadir Alakavuklar, Massey University, [log in to unmask]

The social construction of knowledge is often taken as a truism, yet the
simultaneous production of ignorance during knowledge creation processes
has been paradoxically ignored.  The role of ignorance in social life is
undeniable with information overload, fake news, doubt-as-a-product, and
attention economies playing key roles.  The study of ignorance has suffered
from the stigma and norms resulting from a scientific culture where the
production and accumulation of knowledge dominate the main drive of social,
economic, and political legitimacy and authority.

Nevertheless, the critical study of ignorance has been gaining traction in
social studies in the last decade. Following the footsteps of Bourdieu and
Foucault, scholars have started to recognize how “the unspoken and
unspeakable are generated and mobilized in the interests of power and
capital” (Mair et al., 2012, p.14). Most particularly, many studies have
explored how major corporations have strategically created doubt and
ignorance in order to promote their own interests (Michaels, 2008; Oreskes
and Conway, 2010; Proctor, 2011). Yet, it is also a question how rising
populism, skepticism about expertise (Huising, 2015), and the so-called
post-truth era (signified in the form of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative
facts’) affect the relationship between truth, fact, doubt and ignorance
(Kelly and McGoey, 2018).

The critical appraisal of the power of ignorance, however, should go beyond
the macro strategy of big actors (McGoey, 2012). Sociologists and
anthropologists have recently been calling for studies to investigate the
practice of ignorance in everyday lives (Tuana and Sullivan, 2006; Marder,
2015). In other words, ignorance is also a part of micro practices that
serve to sustain or disrupt social order (Scott, 1985; Mair et al., 2012).
From a critical point of view, this perspective might stress how ignorance
is part of a systemic mode of control, but also how actors might create
spaces of emancipation through practices of ignorance. Moreover, they might
explore micro-practices of epistemicide or “cognitive injustice” (de Sousa
Santos, 2015).

As a broad field of study, management and organization studies are
criticized for their  ignoring or excluding various socio-economic and
political aspects that shape organizations and organizational life (e.g.
Slavery (Cooke, 2003); total institutions (Clegg, 2006); (post)colonialism
(Westwood and Jack, 2007)). Similarly, a focus on how such epistemological
and ontological ‘ignorance’, with its own politics, shapes our
understanding of organizing society and normalizing/marginalizing specific
theories and methodologies.
We invite contributions that consider, but are not limited to, the
following themes and topics around the critical side of ignorance:
• Macro narratives of non-knowledge
• Strategic uses of ignorance, ambiguity, doubt, and secrecy
• Practices of epistemicide and efforts of “cognitive justice”
• Power effects of ignorance
• Ignorance as an act of resistance and micro-emancipation
• Methodological challenges for studying ignorance
• Epistemological and ontological ignorance and critical organization
studies
• Post-truth discussions and ignorance

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]
<[log in to unmask]>*. The deadline for submission of
abstracts is *January
31, 2019*. We will notify you of our decision by the end of February.

References:
Clegg, S. R. (2006). Why is organization theory so ignorant? The neglect of
total institutions. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(4), 426-430.
Cooke, B. (2003). The denial of slavery in management studies. Journal of
Management Studies, 40(8), 1895-1918.
de Sousa Santos, B. (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against
epistemicide. Routledge.
Huising, R. (2014). The Erosion of Expert Control through Censure Episodes.
Organization Science, 25(6), 1633-1661.
Kelly, A. H., & McGoey, L. (2018). Facts, power and global evidence: a new
empire of truth. Economy and Society, 47(1), 1-26.
Mair, J., Kelly, A. H., & High, C. (2012). Introduction: making ignorance
an ethnographic object. In The Anthropology of Ignorance (pp. 1-32).
Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Marder, L. (2015). Democracy and practices of ignorance. Routledge
International Handbook of Ignorance Studies, 282.
McGoey, L. (2012). Strategic unknowns: Towards a sociology of ignorance.
Economy and society, 41(1), 1-16.
Michaels, D. (2008). Doubt is their product: how industry's assault on
science threatens your health. Oxford University Press.
Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Defeating the merchants of doubt.
Nature, 465(7299), 686.
Proctor, R. (2011). Golden holocaust: origins of the cigarette catastrophe
and the case for abolition. Univ of California Press.
Scott, J. (1985). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant
Resistance. Yale University Press.
Tuana, N., & Sullivan, S. (2006). Introduction: Feminist epistemologies of
ignorance. Hypatia, 21(3), vii-ix.
Westwood, R. I., & Jack, G. (2007). Manifesto for a post-colonial
international business and management studies: A provocation. Critical
Perspectives on International Business, 3(3), 246-265.