Spacing and Timing

Abstract

The aim of this special issue is to explore organizing processes in ways which do not assume an a priori existence of space and time. Rather than providing a summary of the papers collected here, this introduction illustrates how Spacing and Timing relate to issues of knowing, organizing, mediation, engagement, alterity and absence/presence. We examine how various actions and practices may be seen as seeking to achieve order but also concomitantly create further openings and orderings. Finally, while this introduction attempts to highlight a range of issues relating to this process, the development of alternative vocabularies, approaches, and insights are required to develop this work further.

Critical management studies: some reflections

“…The definition of organization provides a good example of highlighting the problem of focusing on outcomes of homogeneity and order. It is clearly problematic to define an organization in terms of what it is, but how do we understand it in terms of what it is not, and what it can potentially become (Jones et al, 2004). Clearly we wish to avoid the exclusion of diversity in terms of what does not become organized, but we also wish to focus on the specific features of such achievements, through a further understanding of issues of repetition and alterity.…”

“…Therefore, we need to feed from controversies over agency , as action and the attribution of agency is the result of the continual process of translation, connections, negotiations and the assemblage of different and complex entities (Latour, 1999a;De Laet & Mol, 1998;Gormat & Hennion, 1999;Law & Moser, 1999;Michael, 1996;Callon & Law, 2004). One way of addressing this issue of action and agency is via the overflowing of interactions with the many different ingredients, coming from other times, spaces and actings (Jones, McLean, & Quattrone, 2004).…”

“…When reflecting on issues of durability and difference it is necessary to avoid relying on a view of space and time as given in the order of things, as spaces and times are also fabricated through this process (Jones et al, 2004). Latour ( , p. 1997 argues that nothing travels without chains that sustain them and this requires the support of many entities to exist (e.g.…”

Hyper-Organizational Space in the Work of J. G. Ballard

“…Indeed, a range of organization theorists have recognised the continued importance of physical space in how we think about and engage with organizations. This has produced a growing body of research considering the spatial aspects of organization (Jones, McLean and Quattrone, 2004). This work has investigated the whole gambit of organizational spaces including the global economy (Castells, 1996), international regions (Yeung, 1999), the nation state (Whitley, 1999), intra-national regions (Saxinen, 1993), neighbourhoods (Baum and Meizas, 1996), work stations (Warren, 2005), the body (Dale, 2005) and more hybrid spaces such as action-nets (Czariawska, 2004).…”

Mobilities, moorings and boundary marking in developing semantic technologies in educational practices

“…As she goes on to point out, we need to think in terms of 'space-time', of a conception and actuality of time and space as inseparable and interactively relational, as, for example, we witness in school timetables and their organisation of spaces, times, bodies and artefacts. Or, as Jones, McLean, and Quattrone (2004) suggest, we may need to consider spacing and timing as actions, verbs rather than nouns, thus pointing to the ways in which they are both performative and performed rather than existing in some assumed state of being.…”