Call for papers
Organization: The Critical Journal of Organization, Theory and Society
A postcolonial interrogative space has finally emerged in the study of organizations and organizing. But in the effort and excitement of such interrogation, have some directions for critique been closed down rather than opened up? What are the limits to the theoretical, methodological, and political possibilities currently articulated in the name of the postcolonial? How else might these possibilities for analysis and critique take form?
Specifically, complexity exists in the configuration of postcolonial studies at the intersection of three distinct though at times overlapping moments: the postcolonial (or postcolonialism) as an epistemic critique; the post-colonial as a historically portentous moment; and postcoloniality as a condition experienced within the post-colonial. These different significations of the postcolonial co-exist within and outside our field, yet their inter-relationships and tensions remain under-explored, as do their connections to other modes of critique under the banners of anti-colonialism and decolonization. What they do share, however, is a commitment to questioning prevailing ontologies, epistemologies, and methods of the academic centre and offering alternatives to neo-positivistic and neo-modernist perspectives that characterise OS orthodoxies. They also have in common recognition that the postcolonial is primarily an interrogative space not a theoretical discipline. There is not one postcolonial, nor one school of theory, rather an interpretive sensibility conditioned by different thinkers and positions.
Despite this existing engagement, it is the starting point for the special issue that the diverse and rich resources of postcolonial theory have barely been mined for productive dialogue with management and organization studies. By casting a more concerted glance at the diversity and complexity of this interdisciplinary discourse on the postcolonial, our final goal in this special issue is to be able to offer readers an array of critical texts developing a wider and differently nuanced interrogation of organization through the postcolonial. Questions of interest, among others, include:
• What is the significance of the following ‘moments’ for OS: the postcolonial (or postcolonialism) as an epistemic critique; the post-colonial as a historically portentous moment; and postcoloniality as a condition experienced within the post-colonial?
• What theoretical resources from postcolonial theory might be used to reconfigure OS?
• What new or alternative ethical commitments do postcolonial studies bring to OS?
• How might we set about decolonizing theory and methodology in management and organizational research, perhaps through an interdisciplinary engagement with the work of indigenous researchers?
• How are historical representations, as well as contemporary experiences of organization, work and professional identity shaped by the colonial experience?
• How do discourses of indigeneity and ‘the local’ enable and constrain the future development of OS?
• How does a transnational identity, consciousness, or location intersect with organizational practice, identity and/or theorization?
• How can work from postcolonial and transnational feminist positions inform OS?
• What would be useful resources for understanding global capitalism and corporate globalization from a postcolonial perspective?
• How can we productively engage with critics who see poststructuralist strains in postcolonialism as self-indulgent, aestheticizing and inescapably provincial?
Guest Editors
Gavin Jack - La Trobe University GSM, Australia
Nidhi Srinivas –The New School, New York, USA
Bob Westwood- University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Ziauddin Sardar – City University, London, UK
Submissions
Papers must be submitted to electronically SAGETrack by 31st January 2010 (but not before 31st December 2009). Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines published in Organization and on the journal’s website.
Papers should be no more than 8,000 words, excluding references, and will be blind reviewed following the journal’s standard review process. For further information, please contact one of the following guest editors: Gavin Jack, Nidhi Srinivas, Bob Westwood and Ziauddin Sardar.
