Italo Calvino and the organizational imagination: Reading social organization through urban metaphors

Case, Peter; Gaggiotti, Hugo

doi:10.1080/14759551.2014.901325

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…The use of fiction in organization studies is an established practice in its own right (e.g. Case & Gaggiotti, 2016; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1999; Land & Śliwa, 2009) that assumes that ‘literary fiction can reveal important truths about organisational life without recourse to the representation of factual events’ (Munro & Huber, 2012, p. 524). It thus displays numerous overlaps with the methodological and political concerns at the heart of affect-theoretical contributions to organization studies.…”

Section: The Uncertain Experiences Of Contemporary Work Livesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studying novels has become an established practice in organization studies (e.g. Case & Gaggiotti, 2016; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1999;; De Cock & Land, 2006; Land & Śliwa, 2009), which claims that literary work offers important insights about organizational life, such as making organizational scholars more sensitive to and aware of the role of affect and embodied experiences in organizing (e.g. Ratner, Bojesen, & Bramming, 2014, p. 78; see also Munro & Huber, 2012; Steyaert, 2015).…”

Section: Introduction1mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Novel as Affective Site: Uncertain work as impasse in Wait Until Spring, Bandini

Otto

Strauß

2019

Organization Studies

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In this paper we propose that reading and writing with novels contributes to the emerging field of researching affect in organization studies. Situating our argument in current research on work-related uncertainty, we take John Fante’s novel Wait Until Spring, Bandini as a ‘sensuous site’ of research to engage with the experience of feeling stuck – addressed as impasse, limbo or permanent temporariness – as a condition of contemporary work lives. While affect theoretical approaches often emphasize precognitive intensities and their transformative potential, the novel foregrounds how affective intensities stay and stick as they are entangled with powerful socio-political conventions, such as investments in the American Dream or the idea of stable employment. Such affective attachments take shape in antithetic dynamics of the not-so-static state of feeling stuck.

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Section: The Uncertain Experiences Of Contemporary Work Livesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction1mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Novel as Affective Site: Uncertain work as impasse in Wait Until Spring, Bandini

Otto

Strauß

2019

Organization Studies

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“…The book’s peculiar vision cannot be reduced to a simple constructive dialectics of order and disorder, as implied in various readings offered by urban scientists (including those of Case and Gaggiotti 2016; Lévy 2010; Mukhija 2015). Calvino rather engages in what we could call a deconstructive process that leads the reader to rethink the major categories through which the city is usually conceptualized.…”

Section: Unscrambling Calvino’s Riddle: the Subject Is The Framementioning

confidence: 99%

“… 2 Invisible Cities has been celebrated as a rich source of powerful tropes to describe the variegated entanglement of the urban condition and its issues (Dematteis 1988; Farnetti 1994), as well as a subtle commentary on social organization and urban metaphors (Case and Gaggiotti 2016). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Glint of Lights in the Fog: Invisible Cities and the Riddles of Planning Practice

Colucci

Sacco

2021

Journal of Planning Education and Research

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This paper examines Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities as a unique literary canvas to reformulate the relationship between narratives and planning practices. It does so from the vantage point of the Frame, namely, the dialogues between the Khan (the planner) and Marco Polo (the resident/traveler) punctuating the imaginary cities described in the book. Read through with the aid of narratological concepts, the Frame functions a mini-treatise on urban complexity, structured along nine dyads of oppositional concepts (e.g., chaos vs. meaning; reality vs. possibility), which call into question as many planning milestones (e.g., control, purpose, model, balance), fostering an original reflection on the limitations and potentials of planning practices.

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“…Van Es and van Rossum (2016) elaborate in their volume on The city as organisation, questions such as 'which knowledge from organisation theory and change management can deliver a positive contribution to the development of the city' , and 'which way of organisation and which attitude of actors contribute to the city as organism' . Case and Gaggiotti (2014) explore the way in which uses or abuses of urban metaphors can inform differing polities and ethics of human organization. Our search is a bit different: can organisation theory be used for urban studies?…”

Section: "To Speak Of a City As A Whole Is To Speak In Metaphors "mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor and urban studies-a crossover, theory and a case study of SS Rotterdam

Nientied

2016

City Territ Archit

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Metaphors are used in various ways; at the surface for framing a message (systems of language) and below the surface metaphors are related to the ways we think and act. In this paper we will explore, below the surface, the relationship between metaphors and urban studies. From an analysis of metaphors used in urban studies, it will be concluded that, so to speak, every new phenomenon gets a new metaphor around which theoretical notions are developed. Indeed, 'a 1000 flowers bloom' . This paper will study what urban studies can learn from organization theory. In particular, the question whether the set of metaphors from one of the classics in organizational theory-namely Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization-can inform urban studies, can be used to grasp, to 'read' cities. After exploring theoretical notions, the case study is the SS Rotterdam, a former luxury cruise ship that that came back to Rotterdam to serve as a catalyst for urban development. Different metaphors of Morgan's set are applied in this case study to get a better understanding of the management, decision making, culture and political system. It will be concluded that Morgan's set of metaphors looks promising for urban studies and recommendations are made about research lines along which further theoretical and empirical work may be carried out.

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Italo Calvino and the organizational imagination: Reading social organization through urban metaphors

Cited by 8 publications

References 34 publications

The Novel as Affective Site: Uncertain work as impasse in Wait Until Spring, Bandini

The Novel as Affective Site: Uncertain work as impasse in Wait Until Spring, Bandini

A Glint of Lights in the Fog: Invisible Cities and the Riddles of Planning Practice

Metaphor and urban studies-a crossover, theory and a case study of SS Rotterdam

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