Performing Pan American Airways through coloniality: an ANTi-History approach to narratives and business history

Abstract

This paper centers on the role of narratives in business history from an ANTi-History perspective. We focus on the networked processes through which narratives are told of, for and by multinational companies embed the development of 'new imperialism' and coloniality. We set out to achieve this through a discussion and application of ANTi-History to a study of Pan American Airways and particularly its performance as a maturing multinational company and its relationship to postcoloniality. In the process, we also hope to contribute to recent calls in business history for more explicit accounts of the methods used in the development of historical accounts. We are concerned to encourage 'a narrative turn in business history' but also to do so critically, i.e., to reveal some of the strengths and limitations of a narrative turn. We conclude with reflections on the relationship between methods and the production of (business) history.

An emic-etic-emic research cycle for understanding context in under-researched countries

“…A recent example is the rebranding of the Aunt Jemima line of breakfast products by parent company PepsiCo in February 2021 after recognizing that the packaging was “based on a racial stereotype,” given the more recent calls for racial equality (Tyko, 2021). Other discussions in the literature that outline colonial issues in organizations include imperial narratives in the internal discourse of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Smith and Simeone, 2017), Eurocentric influences on the Brazilian advertising self-regulation system (Rodrigues and Hemais, 2020), and the corporate history of Pan Am as it relates to American imperialism (Kivijärvi et al, 2019; Paludi et al, 2019).…”

Controversies as method for ANTi-history: An inquiry into public administration practices

“…Initially, Durepos and Mills (2012a) and Mills and Durepos (2010: 27) argued that ANTi-History makes apparent the instrumentality of historical accounts enacting transparency in history. Durepos (2015) emphasizes that history is enacted through heterogeneous practices (see Corrigan, 2016) performing history through both human and non-human actants (Durepos and Mills, 2018; Hartt et al, 2014; Latour, 1999; Kivijarvi et al, 2018). If an element participates in the course of action, making a difference in other actors’ actions and leaving behind some detectable trail that allows researchers to identify its presence, it is an actant (Latour, 2005).…”

“…Tracing politics of actor-networks may make explicit silenced but salient voices and untold stories (Durepos et al, 2008; Kivijarvi et al, 2018). Durepos et al (2008) researched an airline’s history and concluded that ‘actors try imputing or imposing interests upon others in hopes of enlisting them onto their cause’ (p. 76).…”

“…Accounts that stabilize history can be invented discourses (see Corrigan, 2016; Secord and Corrigan, 2017) or a consequence of power relations silencing peripheral voices (see Durepos et al, 2008; Kivijarvi et al, 2018). Therefore, from the genesis to the temporary closure of controversy, it is essential to describe the representativeness, influence and interests of diverging points of view (Venturini, 2010b).…”

“…An ANTi-History approach (Corrigan and Mills, 2012; Durepos and Mills, 2017; Durepos et al, 2008) assumes that the past is never ontologically available to researchers other than through accounts (see Corrigan, 2016) the narratives of which always skew that which is being recounted. The stories of actors silenced or forgotten for the vast majority of human history remain unexplained because the actor-networks (see Latour, 2005) to fix them in dominant inscriptions were absent (Kivijarvi et al, 2018). For ANTi-History, historical accounts are a product of the politics of actor-networks.…”