Kathleen Riach | Monash University (original) (raw)

Papers by Kathleen Riach

This article examines the relationship between organizational ethics, the uncanny and the annual ... more This article examines the relationship between organizational ethics, the uncanny and the annual celebration of Halloween. We begin by exploring the traditional and contemporary organizational function of Halloween as 'tension-management ritual' (Etzioni, 2000) through which collective fears, anxieties, and fantasies are played out and given material expression. Combining the uncanny with the folkloric concept of ostension we then examine an incident in which UK supermarket retailers made national news headlines for selling offensive Halloween costumes depicting 'escaped mental patients'. Rather than treating this incident as a problem of moral hygiene – in which products are removed, apologies made, and lessons learned – we consider the value of Halloween as a unique and disruptive ethical encounter with the uncanny Other. Looking beyond its commercial appeal and controversy, we reflect on the creative, generous, and disruptive potential of Halloween as both tension-management ritual and unique organizational space of hospitality through which to receive and embrace alterity and so discover the homely within the unheimlich.

This article explores the methodological possibilities that Butler's theory of performativity ope... more This article explores the methodological possibilities that Butler's theory of performativity opens up, attempting to 'translate' her theoretical ideas into research practice. Specifically, it considers how research on organizational subjectivity premised upon a performative ontology might be undertaken. It asks: What form might a Butler-inspired methodology take? What methodological opportunities might it afford for developing self-reflexive research? What political and ethical problems might it pose for organizational researchers, particularly in relation to the challenges associated with power asymmetries, and the risks attached to 'fixing' subjects within the research process? The article outlines and evaluates a method described as anti-narrative interviewing, arguing that it constitutes a potentially valuable methodological resource for researchers interested in understanding how and why idealized organizational subjectivities are formed and sustained. It further advances the inroads that Butler's writing has made into organization studies, thinking through the methodological and ethical implications of her work for understanding the performative constitution of organizational subjectivities.

Human Relations

This paper contributes to a sensory equilibrium in studies of workplace life through a qualitativ... more This paper contributes to a sensory equilibrium in studies of workplace life through a qualitative study of everyday smells in UK offices. Drawing on Csordas’ (2008) phenomenology of intercorporeality, we develop the concept of corporeal porosity as a way of articulating the negotiation of bodily integrity in organisational experience. We explore the corporeal porosity of workplace life through smell-orientated interview and diary-based methods and our findings highlight the interdependence of shared, personal, local, and cultural elementals when experiencing smell in office-based work. Our analysis highlights three elements of bodily integrity: ‘cultural permeability’; ‘locating smell in-between’; and ‘sensual signifiers’. This suggests that whilst the senses are part of the ephemeral, affective ‘glue’ that floats between and around working bodies, they also foreground the constantly active character of relationality in organisational life. Corporeal porosity therefore capturesthe entanglement of embodied traces and fragments - corporeal seeping and secretion that has hitherto taken a backseat in organisational studies of the body at work.

Organization Studies

This paper is based on a series of ‘anti-narrative’ interviews with self-identified LGBT people d... more This paper is based on a series of ‘anti-narrative’ interviews with self-identified LGBT people designed to explore the ways in which lived experiences of age, gender and sexuality are negotiated and narrated within organizations in later life. It draws on Judith Butler’s performative ontology of gender, particularly her account of the ways in which the desire for recognition is shaped by heteronormativity, considering its implications for how we study ageing and organizations. In doing so, the paper develops a critique of the impact of heteronormative life course expectations on the negotiation of viable subjectivity within organizational settings. Focusing on the ways in which ‘chrononormativity’ shapes the lived experiences of ageing within organizations, at the same time as constituting an organizing process in itself, the paper draws on Butler’s concept of ‘un/doing’ in its analysis of the simultaneously affirming and negating organizational experiences of older LGBT people. The paper concludes by emphasizing the theoretical potential of a performative ontology of ageing, gender and sexuality for organization studies, as well as the methodological insights to be derived from an ‘anti-narrative’ approach to organizational research.

In this article we argue that sexuality is not only an undercurrent of service environments, but ... more In this article we argue that sexuality is not only an undercurrent of service environments, but is integral to the way that these workspaces are experienced and negotiated. Through drawing
on Sara Ahmed’s (2006a) ‘orientation’ thesis, we develop a concept of ‘bodyspace’ to suggest that individuals understand, shape and make meaning of work spaces through complex sexuallyorientated negotiations. Presenting analysis from a study of UK pubs, we explore bodyspace in the
lived experience of workplace sexuality through three elements of orientation: background; bodily
dwelling; and lines of directionality. Our findings show how organizational spaces afford or mitigate possibilities for particular bodies, which simultaneously shape expectations and experiences of sexuality at work. Bodyspace therefore provides one way of exposing the connection between sexual ‘orientation’ and the lived experience of service sector work.

Organization, 2014

This article argues that older age inequality within and across working life is the result of vam... more This article argues that older age inequality within and across working life is the result of vampiric forms and structures constitutive of contemporary organizing. Rather than assuming ageism occurs against a backdrop of neutral organizational processes and practices, the article denaturalizes (and in the process super-naturalizes) organizational orientations of ageing through three vampiric aspects: (un)dying, regeneration and neophilia. These dimensions are used to illustrate how workplace narratives and logics normalize and perpetuate the systematic denigration of the ageing organizational subject. Through our analysis it is argued that older workers are positioned as inevitable ‘sacrificial objects’ of the all-consuming immortal organization. To challenge this, the article explicitly draws on the vampire and the vampiric in literature and popular culture to consider the possibility of subverting existing notions of the ‘older worker’ in order to confront and challenge the subtle and persistent monstrous discourses that shape organizational life.

Work Employment and Society

This article explores the ways in which male traders negotiate ageing in the highly competitive w... more This article explores the ways in which male traders negotiate ageing in the highly competitive world of finance. It draws on a study of a UK hedge fund to show how ageing processes intersect with masculinity and class-based bodily practices to reproduce market-based ideals of the sector. Through developing the concept of body accumulation, this article provides a new framework for exploring ageing in an organizational context by demonstrating how masculinity, class and organizational values are mapped onto the traders’ bodies over time and in ways that require individuals to continually negotiate their professional value. This not only significantly advances current understanding of how one group of professionals navigate growing older at work, but also highlights the importance of understanding ageing as an accumulation process that takes into account temporal, spatial and cultural dimensions.

Culture and Organization

This article presents a new perspective for analysing organizational death through the concept of... more This article presents a new perspective for analysing organizational death through the concept of reanimation. Mobilizing recent discussions of the monstrous in
organization theory, we draw on the figure of the reanimated monster to analyse an apparent case of organizational dying in the UK financial services sector. Through this, we explore how organizations may neither live nor die, but instead
constitute a continual process of reanimation in which organizational spaces and the materials, bodies and narratives surrounding them are recycled, reintegrated and reused to maintain the appearance of the immortal organization. However,
reanimation is not merely the clean and efficient synthesis of old and new. There is an unsettling consequence to living and working within the reanimated organization and it is here that the article considers the value of the monstrous for challenging and rethinking established categories of continuity, change,
death, life and loss in contemporary working life.

Urban Studies, Jan 1, 2011

Gender, Work & Organization

Wiley Online Library. Gender, Work & OrganizationEarly View, Article first published onli... more Wiley Online Library. Gender, Work & OrganizationEarly View, Article first published online: 30 NOV 2009. ...

European Journal of Marketing, Jan 1, 2011

... West Quadrangle Gilbert Scott Building University of Glasgow G12 8QQ Tel: +44 141 330 5411 Fa... more ... West Quadrangle Gilbert Scott Building University of Glasgow G12 8QQ Tel: +44 141 330 5411 Fax: +44 141 330 5669 E-mail: d.shaw@lbss.gla.ac.uk Dr Kathleen Riach Essex Business School University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester CO4 3SQ Tel: +44 1206 872373 ...

Work, employment & society, Jan 1, 2009

abdn.ac.uk

This paper seeks to explore how older individuals negotiate and manage their self-identity in rel... more This paper seeks to explore how older individuals negotiate and manage their self-identity in relation to work whilst situated outwith paid employment. After overviewing the current positions of the older unemployed in the UK, noting the substantial overlap between age and ...

Human Resource Management Journal, Jan 1, 2009

Human relations, Jan 1, 2007