Overcoming Resistance to Surveillance: A Genealogy of the EAP Discourse

In the fast-changing and globally competitive business environment, organizations' efforts to appropriate knowledge from their workers will be increasingly resisted by those employees forced into more fragmented and uncertain careers. We interpret this contested scenario in terms of the apparently diametrically opposed ways in which knowledge is conceptualized. The organization sees knowledge as an asset which it seeks to appropriate through mechanisms designed to achieve employment flexibility. However, this process is not unidirectional, as we posit that the individual conceives of their knowledge as 'career capital' and, in building it up as a response to the uncertainties of reconstituted careers, pursues a strategy of employability. With reference to Foucault's genealogical approach, we argue that the above contest not only reflects the shifting employment relationship and economic turbulence, but is in fact a social phenomenon rooted in the knowledge−power dialectic and one which sheds light on individuals' efforts to free themselves from the effects of normalization, thus challenging organizational efforts to appropriate the knowledge inherent in careers.

Section: Foucauldian Analysis and Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Genealogical Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

Career Development and Knowledge Appropriation: A Genealogical Critique

Kamoche

Pang

Wong

2011

“…We find Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy's (2004, p. 635) critique that research (on institutionalization) 'has been dominated by realist investigations in which the analysis of organizational practices has been disconnected from the discursive practices that constitute them' equally applicable to research on knowledge appropriation. Yet discourses provide a variety of ways to talk about knowledge appropriation, or any other phenomenon, be it managerial identities (Sveningsson, & Alvesson, 2003), how managerial discipline engenders and disguises social control (Weiss, 2005), textual analysis of mergers and acquisitions (Vaara & Tienari, 2002), how a career operates as a power/knowledge regime that constitutes subjectivity (Fournier, 1998), the controlling and restrictive impact of discourse on subjectivity and identity (Anderson-Gough et al, 2000), and so forth. For Alvesson andKarreman (2000, p. 1126) there are two major approaches to discourse analysis: the study of the social text at the micro-level of language use (hence micro-discourse and mesodiscourse), and the 'study of social reality as discursively constructed and maintained' (hence grand-discourse and mega-discourse).…”

Section: Discourses Of Knowledge Appropriationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge Appropriation and Identity: Toward a Multi-Discourse Analysis

Kamoche

Beise–Zee

Mamman

2014

Knowledge appropriation has been underpinned by an assumption of the organization's 'entitlement' to appropriate knowledge and the outcomes of its utilization. Given the complexity of knowledge and the potentially conflicting views held about it, this assumption is revealed to be theoretically imprecise in the way it marginalizes alternative voices through the pursuit of competitive advantage and 'value capture'. We attribute this approach to the functionalist analytical lens which sees knowledge as an asset appropriable almost exclusively by the organization in the form of financial/economic 'rents'. In order to advance understanding of the multi-faceted nature of the organization-individual appropriation regime, we make the case for an expansion of the discursive space for talking about the phenomenon, and posit the concept of 'property in knowledge' which we tie to the way individuals construct their identities.

“…The self-discipline in, for example, managing the body in order to be selected and retained informs the experiences of employment (Hancock & Tyler, 2000;Trethewey, 1999), and also the material body (Shilling, 2003;Wolkowitz, 2006). This literature attempts to reach beyond the 'grids of meaning imposed by discourse' (Shilling, 2001, p. 445) to understand how the body is 'moulded' by governmental regimes in the workplace, such as sex, food, diets, exercise and health (Weiss, 2005;Zoller, 2003). For sickness absence this suggests that the body is defined and classified by doctors, employers, health insurance agents, and so on, each with access to, and authority in, discursive regimes to order and discipline the 'ill' body.…”

Section: Governmentality and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You Need to be Healthy to be Ill’: Constructing Sickness and Framing the Body in Swedish Healthcare

Nyberg

2012

Recent trends have seen a move from 'welfare' to 'workfare' in Europe to increase labour flexibility and reduce state expenditure on sickness absence. This shift in healthcare logics has meant an increasing role for individuals to take an active part in the political process of managing their health and sickness absence. This paper draws upon empirical cases of observations of status meetings, in which the employee's medical situation and work capacity are evaluated, as well as interviews with participating actors. The study finds that governmental standards are, at times, incompatible with each other and this complexity allows for local strategies in managing the sickness absence process. These findings are discussed in relation to employment and it is concluded that local actors' translations of policies have important material consequences for employees' health, rehabilitation opportunities and access to sickness benefits. This contributes to our understanding of how political interventions to govern the population are appropriated locally to govern individual bodies.