Ethics and entangled embodiment: Bodies–materialities–organization

Abstract

In this article, we are concerned with the ethical implications of the entanglement of embodiment and non-human materialities. We argue for an approach to embodiment which recognises its inextricable relationship with multiple materialities. From this, three ethical points are made: first, we argue for an ethical relation to 'things' not simply as inanimate objects but as the neglected Others of humanity's (social and material) world. Second, there is a need to recognise different particularities within these entanglements. We draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty and Levinas to think through how the radical alterity of these Others can be acknowledged, whilst also recognising our intercorporeal intertwining with them. Third, we argue that recognition of this interconnectedness and entanglement is a necessary ethical and political position from which the drawing of boundaries and creation of separations that are inherent in social organising can be understood and which contribute to the denigration, discrimination and dismissal of particular forms of embodiment, including those of non-human Others. In order to explore the ethical implications of these entanglements, we draw upon fieldwork in a large UK-based not-for-profit organisation which seeks to provide support for disabled people through a diverse range of services. Examining entanglements in relation to the disabled body makes visible and problematises the multiple differences of embodiments and their various interrelationships with materiality.

Stress at Work, Gendered Dys‐appearance and the Broken Body in Policing

“…The gendered dys-appearance of the stressed body Similar to organizational scholars' exploration of corporeality (e.g. Dale and Latham, 2014;Hancock et al, 2015), Leder's (1990) work is situated among phenomenological accounts that emphasize our being-in-the-world as rooted in embodied experience. However, in his account, Leder sees disregard of the body ('the absent body') as an everyday, necessary condition of lived experience.…”

Reassembling difference? Rethinking inclusion through/as embodied ethics

“…Recognition of the organizational potential and implications of this ethical relationship has been a strong theme in feminist and pro-feminist writing within work and organization studies in recent years (Dale and Latham, 2015;Hancock, 2008;. Much of this literature is either directly or indirectly premised upon a post-dualistic understanding of subjectivity (Merleau-Ponty, 2002) that thinks of embodied ethics as not simply a moral obligation but an ontological compulsion.…”

“…While Pullen and Rhodes (2015) and Hancock (2008) (Dale and Latham, 2015: 178) that recognizes inter-corporeality and the ways in which organizations make difference.…”

Becoming the Leader: Leadership as Material Presence

“…A similar influence of technology on practices is seen in Orlikowski and Scott's (2014; exploration of how social media has changed ways of evaluating hotels and how this in turn shapes hotel owners' activities. Dale and Latham (2015) meanwhile show how it is not so much entanglements of flesh and prosthetics that constitute certain bodies as dis-abled and others as able, but discourses of choice and necessity that are entangled with flesh and prosthetics. In a classic move in new materialities theory, they argue there is 'no necessary or essential inside or outside between human and non-human bodies' (p.171) but a 'cut' is performed that creates boundaries between the two.…”