Dialectical Hegemony and the Enactment of Contradictory Definitions in a Rural Community Planning Process

On the force potential of strategy texts: a critical discourse analysis of a strategic plan and its power effects in a city organization

“…While previous studies provide insightful analyses of power and ideology in public sector reform (Forester, 1989;Norton and Sadler, 2006;Rakow et al, 2003), our analysis adds to this literature by focusing on the power of official strategy documents as vehicles through which specific social and societal changes are promoted, legitimized and naturalized in the 'post-bureaucratic era'. The point is that these texts do not only promote-or in some cases challenge-particular kinds of reforms, but also determine and redefine the power and subjectivity of various social actors (Thomas and Davies, 2005).…”

Managing Dialectics to Make a Difference: Tension Management in a Community-Building Organization

“…The introduction of a vertical focus in communal rituals suggests ways that intertwined diachronic and synchronic practices transform tensions. Dialectic tensions, such as noncooperation-cooperation, formed a ''knot of contradictions'' (Norton & Sadler, 2006) with unity-division. Members, prior to engagement in united prayer rituals, had focused on their diverse beliefs as obstacles to united service.…”

“…RDT has been extended to group (Kramer, Benoit, Dixon, & Benoit-Bryan, 2007) and organizational contexts (Barge, Lee, Maddux, Nabring, & Townsend, 2008;Jian, 2007;Norton & Sadler, 2006;Seo et al, 2009;Tracy, 2004). These studies document various tensions and tension management or framing practices and illustrate the way ''meanings emerge from the struggle of different, often opposing, discourses'' (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008, p. 351).…”

Property as Interorganizational Discourse: Rights in the Politics of Public Spaces

“…From this discursively engaged view, government is more than a neutral arbiter of material benefits; it is itself an active stakeholder with access to bring its own interests to the center of the political spectrum for material favor (Forester, 1989). Thus, we must dereify presently taken‐for‐granted organizational interests (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004; Norton & Sadler, 2007).…”

“…Property discourses reveal the constant interplay and tension between material and symbolic forces such that these discourses are grounded in labor of the land (Norton & Sadler, 2007). As a discourse , I mean to suggest that property is an order of discourse and interest groups talk themselves and others into material conditions through patterned, symbolic practices (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Deetz, 1995; Fairclough, 1995).…”