When ‘I’ becomes ‘we’: An ethnographic study of power and responsibility in a large food retail cooperative

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research of a large food retail cooperative in New York (the Co-op), this paper raises the research question of whether organizations can cultivate an ethic of responsibility to others and, if so, how this can be secured in everyday working practices? It draws principally on the work of Foucault and especially his later writings on the care of the self and ethics but seeks to link these deliberations to Levinas in identifying responsibility to the Other as prior to identity. Indeed, one message that we seek to convey is that attachments to identities are frequently a stumbling block for developing ethically responsible relations and organizations and this may necessitate some normative control. While recognizing that normative control can easily become oppressive and there were occasional signs of this where staff were watching one another and demanding compliance, our research provides a platform for exploring conversations about alternative forms of organization. We explore how relations of power can produce ethically progressive relations, through generative norms that give space to, and nurture, care and responsibility for others to constitute morally engaging organizational life.

Exercising power in autoethnographic vignettes to constitute critical knowledge

“…The PSFC retail cooperative was founded in 1973 by a small group and has since grown to 16,500 members; it is committed to principles that include diversity, equality, openness, solidarity, and reciprocation. This culture of mutual responsibility produces generalized, ethically progressive practices of care, nurture, and trust (Huber and Knights, 2021b), which facilitated the provision of access for my study. Having become a Coop member, I interviewed a general coordinator who gave permission for my research, provided that I enacted responsibility and respect for other members in the spirit of cooperation, which I did.…”

Health and wellness but at what cost? Technology media justifications for wearable technology use in organizations

“…For instances, Sewell and colleagues have shown how discourses of care and coercion both shape how people make sense of surveillance (Sewell and Barker, 2006; Sewell et al, 2012). Huber and Knights (2022) point out that sometimes coercive power relations can be “ethically positive and productive of life” (p. 2) and can create cooperative norms. They argue technology can create demands for care and responsibility and may combine “exogenous norms, endogenous freedoms, and a responsibility for others” (p. 3), further contending that ‘ethical relations of responsibility within cooperative modes of organizing .…”

“…We iteratively read back and forth between the selected texts and previous research to enable us to identify “normative statements” about surveillance, asking the text’s purpose, and how, what, and who is affected by technology (Clarke, 2009; Sewell and Barker, 2006: 935–936)? We interrogated our texts for a focus on the self and self-discipline (the “I” in self-quantification) while also looking at how the “self” might become co-opted into a wider, collective, organizational ethic of responsibility (the “We”—see Huber and Knights, 2022) concerned with wellbeing.…”