The 14th Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies Conference
Nov 29-Dec 1, 2011 School of Management, Massey University Auckland, New Zealand
Practicing space, organizing the future
Relying on the latest geographical strands on spatial theory, this paper argues that “organization” is a spatio-temporal matter that emerges from the practices through which contexts are built, performed and enacted. Introducing a Lefevbrian-based understanding of social space (Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 1996), and integrating it with a more-than-human account of relationality (Whatmore, 1999), this work proposes an account of space as a relational more-than-human product that cannot be neither fully controlled nor entirely predictable in its outcomes. Starting from these premises, the question of how we might organize things in space, in order to achieve certain future outcomes, is presented in all its ambiguity. Is it possible to organize space assuming that space is in continuous, unpredictable, motion? Can the future space being imagined and controlled? Is it possible to dissociate organizational aims from the spatial situatedness of the organizer him/her-self?
More on my research on space, here.