Anatomising Embodiment and Organization Theory

Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory Karen Dale ANATOMISING EMBODIMENT AND ORGANISATION THEORY Anatomising...

Author: Karen Dale

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Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory Karen Dale

ANATOMISING EMBODIMENT AND ORGANISATION THEORY

Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory Karen Dale

# Karen Dale 2001 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP OLP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0±333±67465±0 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dale, Karen. Anatomising embodiment and organization theory/Karen Dale. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0±333±67465±0 1. Organization. 2. Industrial organization. 3. Body, Human. I. Title. HD31 .D185 2000 302.3 5Ðdc21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

00-059123

This book is written in memory of and dedicated to my sister and friend, Suzy Dale, 1969±96

Contents List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction: Body Politics

1

1

The Body and Organisation Studies

8

2

Written On the Body: Social Theory and the Body

32

3

Bodily Knowledge: An Approach to Èmbodied Subjectivity'

57

4

The Scalpel: An Introduction to the Ànatomising Urge'

83

5

Under the Knife: Anatomising Organisation Theory

114

6

The Mirror

153

7

Replicating Organisation

174

8

Conclusions

203

Notes

216

Bibliography

227

Index

246

vii

List of Illustrations I.1

Arno Breker working on `Prometheus', 1937

2

I.2

`Magic Wand Cartoon/Kimono Burns Tokyo/Nagasaki' by Paul Graham, 1991

6

1.1

Title page from Julius Casserius, Tabulae Anatomicae (1627)

24

4.1

Valverde, self-flayed figure, from Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (1556)

89

6.1

Ultrasound picture

166

8.1

Flowering foetus, Spigelius, De formato foeto (1627)

214

viii

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleagues Martin Corbett, Linda Dickens and Karen Legge, who commented on endless drafts of the text, giving me the benefit of their insights and expertise. It is important for me to acknowledge the contribution of several people who shaped the course of this work, often without them being aware of their influence! Thus I am grateful to Sonia Liff for asking difficult questions, Hugh Willmott for pointing me to Bauman's Modernity and Ambivalence and Nick Crossley's work; Rolland Munro for comments and discussions on the chapter in Ideas of Difference; and Carolyn Steedman for lending me the Figlio paper. Zelah Pengilley and Stephen Rutt at the publishers have been most encouraging and helpful. I would also like to thank Heather Ward for friendship and for her astute political and personal insight. My family is very supportive about my work, so I thank Lilian Slocombe; Duncan, Gavin, Claire and Ellie Dale; my precious nephew Matthew Dale; Clare, Anna and Katy Burrell; and particularly my parents, Lilian Payne and Howard Payne, for their love. My mother continues to be my inspiration and the constant rock on which I can build. Although my father died in 1987, well before this project was conceived, the memory of his encouragement still sustains me. My partner Gibson Burrell has continued to be enthusiastic about the book and to believe in my ability. He provided the practical possibility for me to finish it, but much more than that he inspires creativity and gives me happiness throughout our life together. Thanks are especially due to Rosie and Owain for lighting up my life and reminding me that there are more important things in it than writing. Ka r e n Da l e In relation to the pictures, Natalie Rudd at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool and Michelle Minto of the Wellcome Institute Library have provided invaluable assistance in tracking down the Paul Graham photograph and the Valverde print respectively. The author and the publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce the illustrations: AKG, London, for Arno Breker's Prometheus; Tate Gallery, London, for Magic Wand Cartoon/ ix

x

Acknowledgements

Kimono Burns Tokyo/Nagasaki by Paul Graham (1991); the British Library for the title page of Julius Casserius Tabulae Anatomicae (1627) and Spigelius De formato foeto (1627); and the Wellcome Institute Library, London, for the Valverde self-flayed figure from Historia de la Composicion del Cuerpo Humano (1556).

Introduction: Body Politics In a recent exhibition, Àrt and Power: Europe under the Dictators 1930±1945', at the Hayward Gallery,1 contrasting images of the body forcefully brought home to me the significance of the social, historical and cultural construction of the body and the meanings attached to its representation. Two statues in particular caught my eye through their different readings of the body. The first was an idealised male form, nude, drawn from mythology ± Prometheus returning with fire from the gods. With bulging muscles, the sinews marked out in detail, and taut stomach, he carried a torch held high above his head, his bearing suggesting dynamism, one moment of which had been captured in the image. The other statue was a male form clothed from the waist downwards, a miner, his arms and chest obviously strong and developed, but the muscle tone was not emphasised as in the first statue. He carried a drill connected to a hose, which was draped over one of his shoulders. His was a stationary posture, of stillness after exhaustingly physical exertion. The first was a product of Nazi Germany (`Prometheus', Arno Breker, a 1937 bronze: see figure I.1), the symbolism of the pinnacle of Aryan perfection which so emphasised the body ± the outward expression of genetic `purity' (an influential book linking body types to the notions of racial purity was Nordic Beauty by Paul SchultzeNaumberg,2 1937). The second was from the former USSR (`Miner', Sarra Lebedeva, another 1937 bronze), indicating the subject of the worker ± here portrayed as an ordinary man, but with heroic qualities echoing the vaulted achievement of Stakhanov3 who produced fourteen times the target output in one shift. The body of each becomes the vehicle of the cultural values embodied in the representations. But these do not merely remain cultural artefacts in the sense of a realm which is apart from the social, material world. They do not even simply stand as propaganda for two particular political regimes. The bodies shown in these statues are implicated in very real social and historical actions: the systematic destruction or discipline of bodies which did not correspond to the ideal in each. Indeed, Elaine Scarry (1985) argues that the state is imprinted on to the body in such a powerful way that only war can unmake that material memory through the acute disruption of the body ± the scarring, 1

2

Figure I.1 Source:

Arno Breker working on `Prometheus', 1937

AKG, London


3

maiming and ultimate dissolution of the body through death ± that the weapons of war accomplish. The multiplicity and political potency of images such as these provoke doubt about the predominant assumption of the body as the natural biological material on which all human society and culture is built. Over the last two decades or so of the twentieth century there was an outpouring of academic work on `the body' throughout the social sciences and humanities. A major theme of these studies is that the body is not ahistorical and asocial material, but that it is, in a variety of ways, socially and culturally constructed; indeed, that `we invent the body and the nature which suit our world' (Romanyshyn, 1989, p. 111). In relation to the bronze statues, these particular constructions are also, significantly, of the male body. (Of course, Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR had their own constructions of the female body, too, and other countries and regimes have different cultural representations of male and female bodies.) We might note that, despite their differences, these male bodies emphasise strength, endurance, dominance and the subordination of nature (respectively, fire or earth). In other words they incorporate characteristics which, in `western' cultures at any rate, are perceived as masculine. Yet I find that an interesting feature of both, in relation to the cultural construction of bodies, is the subordination ± or perhaps sublimation ± of the penis (although, importantly, not the phallus)4 itself. Prometheus is shown in his uncovered male splendour, but although unmistakably present the penis is the only part of him àt rest' ± here masculinity is put to use for other means, for the achievement of `progress', which the torch represents. In the figure of the miner the penis appears to have been subsumed by the large drill ± the symbol of work. It might even be interpreted that the length of hose over the miner's shoulder is much more significant than the tired phallic symbol of the drill. Here the hose becomes a symbol of a massive `vas deferens', the potential for an abundant and fertile ejaculation, but here in relation to the libido being subverted into labour power (Burrell, 1992). This indicates a pervasive occlusion of (sexual) reproduction ± associated with the body, women and the private sphere, by and into production, associated with the rational organisation of resources and the economic sphere. I shall return to this theme in Chapters 6 and 7. Here I am reminded of Cynthia Cockburn's observation that `Men in patriarchy castrate men, literally and symbolically, in the interests of phallocracy' (1991, p. 8). Men have to subordinate some aspects of their masculinity ± emotional, sexual and individual ± to the demands

4


of another masculine construction. This is production: the rational organisation of resources and people. `Western'5 knowledge, science and the organisation of production are all closely connected, and they all have a common foundation in a particular conception of rationality, one which has been separated off from the body, emotions, and women (Lloyd, 1984; Seidler, 1994). The dream of the Scientific Revolution, in the words of its great populariser, Francis Bacon, was to achieve `the dominion of man over the universe' (Bacon, 1964 [1653], p. 62, emphasis added). I stress the masculine in this for, even though `man' may be taken to refer to humankind in Bacon's statement of intent, many writers have discussed how the culture of science has developed in opposition to nature, which became not only the object of scientific investigation, but also open to its exploitation and `reengineering' (see, for example, Plumwood, 1993; Keller, 1992). Science becomes associated with the masculine principle; nature with the feminine, and this relationship of opposites plays out the social relations between the genders from the Scientific Revolution onwards (see, for example, Jordanova, 1989). Bacon, again, epitomises this attitude when he says of science: Ì am come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave' (Bacon, 1964 [1653], p. 62). These relations often become focused on the female body. Jordanova discusses the significance of the nineteenth-century statue in the Paris medical faculty, `Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science': Ìt implies that science is a masculine viewer, who is anticipating full knowledge of nature, which is represented as the naked female body' (1989, p. 87). In the statues at the Hayward exhibition, we see the other side of this particular coin: the masculine exploitation of nature, seen as the progress of civilisation. The masculine6 has also become associated with the rational ± where reason is dissociated from emotion, located in the mind, which is dissociated (via Cartesianism) from the body. As Bacon's statements indicate, the purpose of `western' science and rationality was not simply to gather information, but to put this knowledge to use to manipulate the world for the benefit of mankind [sic].7 The binding together of knowledge and its use has been developed to such an extent that Hilary Rose has characterised their relationship as indivisible `technoscience' ± `that iron-bound marriage of science and technology in the West' (1994, p. 11). Indeed, faced with social science critiques of scientific work, the main line of counterargument is `but it works'! The overlap of laboratory and factory leads to important questions about the `production of science'. As will be


5

discussed further below, science can no longer be thought of as pure knowledge, disconnected from its methods of material production. Although many of us retain images of the lone genius at work in their home discovering the secrets of the universe in a moment of inspiration, craft production has given way to `big science' ± the amassing of huge resources, research teams, grants and sponsorship, and large institutions, with all this entails in terms of organisation, formalised relations, procedures and hierarchies. Management has entered the laboratory in no uncertain terms. Thus there is a cluster of relations around the development of science, industrialism and organisation that centres around the discourse of rationality. And the applications of this rational principle have been argued variously to have been the basis of the managerial `success' of the Holocaust (Bauman, 1989) and of the scientific `success' of the atomic bomb (Easlea, 1983). In each of these, bodies are destroyed systematically by the powers of reason and science. Thus the triumphant masculine bodies of the statues with which we started might be seen rather differently with historical hindsight, after the `progress' of five years of world war, the pogroms of Germany and Russia, and the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This brings to mind another image of the body that is both powerful and painful. Again, an art gallery ± this time the Tate in Liverpool (see Figure I.2). Here is an image of a woman's body: the upper back and back of the head. The back is naked, with irregular striped patterns on it evoking a colourful garment ± the burn marks on a survivor from Nagasaki, reflecting the pattern of her kimono, the traditional dress symbolising Japanese femininity. The contrast and yet identification between the `choice' of adornment and the àdornment' of violence and destruction is stark. The body is subjected; the subject is objectified. In some ways it seems that it is not significant whether this image is of a woman or not: those who suffer in an atomic attack are hardly discriminated in terms of gender. Nor, for that matter, are women the sole targets for the commercialisation and commodification of the body (see, for example, Mansfield and McGinn, 1993; Morgan, 1993). However, in so many ways, women's bodies are the subject of stringent discipline from ìnside' and òutside'.8 For example, control and selfcontrol of women's bodies can be seen in terms of space, geography and the built environment (for example, Sibley, 1995; Wajcman, 1991); through dieting and fashion (for example, Bordo, 1989); through discourses around sexuality as well as harassment (for example, Ring, 1994; Collinson and Collinson, 1989, 1996); in medical discourses and

6


Figure I.2 `Magic Wand Cartoon/Kimono Burns Tokyo/Nagasaki', Paul Graham, 1991 Source:

Tate Gallery, London.

1994; Collinson and Collinson, 1989, 1996); in medical discourses and through control of childbirth (for example, Martin, 1987; Lupton, 1994); in public life, employment and politics (for example, Cockburn, 1991). In other words, although the dualisms female/male, nature/ science and body/mind are discursive devices, they still have their own material consequences. The female body is marginalised and subordinated. *

*

*

*

This discussion may appear to be only tangential to organisation theory and modern organisations; bringing totalitarian regimes, war and death into view may even seem a little over-dramatic. Yet I want to suggest that the themes sketched out here, centred around these dualisms of body/mind, male/female and nature/science, offer a different dimension to understanding the development of the discipline of organisation theory. In this study, I argue that the body is an àbsent presence' in organisational theory (see Shilling, 1993, on sociology).


7

However, this book is not simply about adding the body back on to an understanding of organisations. The objective, rather, is to understand how particular assumptions about the body have shaped the area of organisation studies, as part of a wider tradition of `western' knowledge and rationality, and as part of the development of social theory. I now turn to examining this objective in more detail.

1 The Body and Organisation Studies ...friends, we are organized bodies. (Saint-Simon, 1966 [1813], pp. 28±37) The aim of this book is to examine the interrelationship between the (human) body, embodiment and the development of organisation studies as a disciplinary field. Obviously, the body is present in organisations and in organisation studies ± after all, how could workers, even managers, do anything without bodies! It is argued here, however, that on the explicit level the body is not theorised and rarely seen as being relevant to the development of knowledge about organisations. Yet, while the body is not theorised in its own right, the discipline is riddled with implicit assumptions about the nature of the body, which have significantly shaped the course and approach of organisation studies. These assumptions affect even some of its fundamental preoccupations, such as the conceptualisation of `the organisation' and dominant perspectives on the relationship between people and organisations. Thus it is in the sense of an àbsent presence' (see Shilling, 1993, on sociology) that the human body has been influential in organisation studies. In this book I intend to demonstrate how these assumptions about the body have shaped the discipline and draw out some of the consequences for the study of organisations. However, none of the elements of this aim is uncontroversial, so it is necessary to examine them before we turn to the relationship between them in more detail.

`THE BODY' AND ÈMBODIMENT' It is a foundational argument of this book that bodies are constructed and lived differently and can be `known' in different ways. The discussion of bodily politics in the Introduction illustrates the specificity of bodies in their cultural and historical situations. Yet the most characteristic assumption of `western' cultures lower case is to denote `the body' as a singular definite article. This is a significant distinction, with material and social consequences, not merely a grammatical habit. The 8


9

assumptions incorporated into the notion of `the body' are those that have shaped and underpinned not only scientific theory, but also social science, philosophy and, indeed, organisation theory. Thus it is important to examine `the body' as a particular way of looking at the bodily experience of humans. `The body' is predominantly that body as known by biological and medical science. These forms of knowledge have constructed the body as an object in the world about which there can be objective knowledge of a universal kind. Physiological and anatomical differences are admitted, although the models that are created in biological science are predominantly generalised ones intended to be used despite differences. This creates a distinction between the `normalised' model of the body and potentially àbnormal' or `pathological' specific lived bodies. Where differences are acknowledged they tend to be assumed to be `natural', with the implication that these are `given' or biologically determined, and therefore immutable. `Western' science and medicine tend to understand the body in a particular way. They generally ànatomise' the body into distinct constituent parts and systems, trying to understand it explicitly as a series of structures that perform definite functions.1 The implications of understanding the body in this way form the basis of this work, since it is this body ± the body-as-organism ± that has been implicitly incorporated into organisation studies. This construction of the body entails a characteristic ontology and epistemology. In construing `the body' as a definite article it becomes a natural, universal given (assuming a realist ontology of the body, that is, that there is a `real' body which can be known objectively and neutrally), which can thus be understood as an object of natural science and its method (a positivist epistemology of the body ± that is, that knowledge of the body can be gained which explains and predicts its workings). Since it is a given object it is already made, rather than something in process. The body therefore tends to be seen as a fixed, stable state, with little emphasis on birth and death. As a singular article, `the body' is reduced to a normative type: it is neither specific nor lived. This reduces the significance of gender, race, age, and different or changing abilities. It is an implicitly neutered and normalised body. The basis for understanding the body as an object of knowledge is found most thoroughly worked out in the Cartesian separation of `mind', which is seen as the source of knowledge and reason, and `body', which becomes a passive, material container for the active

10

Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory

mind. Here lies the philosophical basis for seeing knowledge as being unconnected to the body, which can therefore become the object of the knowing mind. However, recent work in the social sciences, humanities and philosophy has questioned the notion of the body-as-organism that was constructed by the natural sciences. Biology can no longer simply be understood as an objective and `truthful' knowledge of the body. Biological metaphors have been used frequently in organisation studies, but these biological metaphors and models have been taken as objective science in the sense that they are understood to have a transparent relationship with the `real' world ± and body ± that they are taken to represent. Thus the use of biology as a resource for organisation theory needs to be reappraised critically from the perspective of the social studies of science, which argue that science is itself socially constructed, based on the consensus of the community, not cumulative but subject to disjunctures, and used as an ideological basis within society rather than being neutrally rational (see, for example, Kuhn, 1970; Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984; Latour and Woolgar, 1979). For example, Gilbert and Mulkay's (1984) study of biochemists analyses two different sets of discourse that scientists use about their work. They characterise these as the èmpiricist' or official discourse, which stresses the objectivity and neutrality of science as a universal truth claim; and the `contingent' or social discourse, which recognises all the social and material factors that mean that `the operations and measurements that a scientist undertakes in the laboratory are not ``the given'' of experience but rather ``the collected with difficulty'' ' (Kuhn, 1970, p. 126). Significantly, it is the embodied nature of doing science that is written out in the final ìnscription devices' (scientific books and papers), which Latour and Woolgar (1979) argue are the ultimate product of the laboratory. Yet in informal dialogue scientists are willing to debate the way that all scientific work departs from the ideal of the formal method: `there are all sorts of things that you don't know about, like the ``finger factor'', the local water, built-in skills, which you have taken for granted' (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984, p. 53). This points to the way that practical science is, as both studies comment, a craft skill in which lived experience and a `feel' for the work is often more important than theoretical knowledge. As another of Gilbert and Mulkay's biochemists remarks: ` ``recipe'' is the right word. It's like cooking' (1984, p. 54). Biological language has been shown to be infused with cultural ideology, such as the Cartesian legacy. For example, Lewontin, himself


11

a biologist, comments that: Ìsolating the gene as the ``master molecule'' [and elevated above the complex system of chemical production to make other proteins] is another unconscious ideological commitment, one that places brains above brawn, mental work as superior to mere physical work, information as higher than action' (Lewontin, 1993, p. 48). In another instance, Martin (1991) has described how the narrative of human fertilisation is governed by cultural gender stereotypes which characterise the sperm as active and the egg as passive, despite the process being much more complex than this would suggest. Since the mid-1980s there has been an explosion of interest in including the body as a relevant issue in social and cultural theory. Aspects of this literature pertinent to the present argument will be discussed in Chapter 2. This interest in the body marks a different approach to understanding the body from that of biological science, this has also meant that a common-sense denotation of `the body' can no longer be taken for granted. Broadly speaking, two other ways of conceptualising the human body can be distinguished from recent literature. These are, first, the historical body ± a body that is recognised as being constructed differently over time through social and cultural forces; and, second, the phenomenologically lived body ± the body we experience in our everyday lives as the medium through which we `know' our world. Taken together, these approaches to the body may be distinguished from the body-as-organism of biology by using the term èmbodiment'. Embodiment emphasises the `lived body', but not simply in the sense of presenting the body as the subject who knows the world through bodily perception in opposition to the body as object of scientific knowledge. Rather, èmbodiment' rejects the dualistic separation of subject and object along with the basis for this dichotomy ± the Cartesian split between mind and body. The burgeoning interest in the body can be seen to be closely connected with the challenge that theoretical developments in the social sciences have made towards these traditionally dominant dualistic formations. Here the body has become both subject and object, knower and known, nature and culture. Williams and Bendelow (1998) usefully draw a distinction between à sociology of the body', which tends to take the body as one more topic for sociologists to àdd on' to their analysis of society without necessarily questioning the Cartesian dualistic perspective, and an èmbodied sociology' which takes `the embodiment of its practitioners as well as

12


its subjects seriously through a commitment to the lived body and its being in the world, including the manner in which it both shapes and is shaped by society' (1998, p. 23). It will be apparent that these different approaches to the body are premised on very different models of ontology and epistemology. In this text, two forms of knowledge of the body and of the world (that is, two broad epistemological paradigms) are contrasted. These can be characterised as objectified disembodiment and embodied subjectivity. The first takes the science of anatomy as its exemplar. Here, the body is seen as an object to be fragmented into parts which are then used as the basis of a body of knowledge. The rest of the book will be organised around this model of knowledge. This, it is argued, forms the basis of the implicit understanding of the body that is incorporated into mainstream areas of organisation studies and of the dominant form of knowledge about organisations that is valued. The second suggests that the world and knowledge about it are constructed through our embodied experience, thus challenging the notion of an external separate world which is `real' and which exists objectively outside our knowledge of it. However, this is not a model that takes our physical experience of the world as being `truth' instead of reasoned knowledge (what might be described as an empiricist approach compared to a rationalist one). Rather, it sees that our relationship with the world is an inextricably social and cultural one ± that is, it stems from not only our corporeal nature but also from our intercorporeal character. In other words, our `selves' and `the world' can never simply be separated into these distinct fields: they are intertwined. These epistemological positions will be further explored in Chapter 3. These different `bodies' ± the body-as-organism, the social body and the phenomenological body ± are not, of course, separate from each other. The way in which we experience our bodies is influenced by the societal norms around us, so that, for example, the lived experience of being a young white woman is shaped significantly by the cultural expectations and ideals of a female body, in relation to the acceptable size and shape of the body, its comportment, adornment and so on. How we experience our bodies is also influenced by what we `know' of anatomy and physiology, so that we identify particular feelings and changes of our bodies in relation to medical constructions of what is `normal' or àbnormal'. And, as social scientists have demonstrated in more recent decades, medical understanding of the body is itself constructed through cultural norms and expectations. As has already been discussed, science is not a pure and neutral factual knowledge, as has


13

traditionally been portrayed (see, for example, Martin, 1987, 1991, 1994). ORGANISATION THEORY AND DISCIPLINARY FORMATION This point about the cultural nature of science is also relevant for looking at the knowledge that is constructed about organisations. In many ways, the social sciences, as they coalesced into distinct disciplines, attempted to emulate the success of the natural sciences in carving out their own intellectual territory in terms of content and method, and in seeing the knowledge they produced elevated to the position of objective, neutral `truth' (Heilbron, 1995). However, the nature of the social has always been contested and perhaps, over the last few decades of the twentieth century epistemological questioning increased, influenced by a number of social and academic trends, including the so-called `postmodern' critique of metanarratives (Cooper and Burrell, 1988; Gergen, 1992). In this section I shall consider the different ways in which organisation studies has been defined. The academic field of òrganisation studies' has been characterised by various designations in common usage, including òrganisational behaviour', `sociology of organisations' and òrganisation theory', as well as òrganisation studies'. What each of these delineates is debatable. Some definitions are predominantly linked to levels of analysis ± individual, group, organisation, and environment ± where others are linked to the theoretical assumptions or traditions to which they trace an allegiance. For example, the `sociology of organisations' is usually linked to the Weberian tradition (Donaldson, 1985, p. 6), and òrganisation theory' has sometimes been taken as the òrthodox approach' which `tends to adopt theories and models of organisational functioning, and to focus on areas of empirical investigation, that are highly oriented towards managerial conceptions of organisations' (Salaman and Thompson, 1973a, p. 1). For the purposes of this book I intend to take a broad and open understanding of what is relevant to understanding the development of organisation studies as an academic field which has òrganisation' in its widest sense as its subject, rather than try to define what should be included or excluded. There are three reasons for this stance. First, I wish to look at a number of ways in which organisation studies, social

14


theory and other disciplines are interrelated, including looking at historical connections between constructions of the body and notions of òrganisation' across disciplines. To close down the borders of the field would hamper this tracing of a history of ideas. Second, I am interested in the very processes of the creation and maintenance of boundaries around an academic discipline; the debates about the openness of the field; and the attempts of some members to `discipline' others who will not respect closure of the field. These dynamics in themselves can be seen to be related to dominant conceptions, both of the body and of what constitutes a `body of knowledge'. Third, to accept the notion of à discipline' is an ahistorical view of how knowledge becomes organised. It takes for granted the notion of the division of knowledge into distinct areas and therefore does not recognise that knowledge is produced within a context that is social and political, and not simply a natural progression or accumulation of `facts'. The formation of modern `knowledge' into disciplinary areas is an organised and organising process of differentiation. Heilbron, in his study of the development of social theory, argues that from about 1600 to the mid-nineteenth century can be characterised as a `predisciplinary stage' (1995, p. 3), where ideas were fluid across intellectual areas which were themselves very generally described as `reason', `nature' and `philosophy'. The organisation of disciplines is not only apparent from a different view of the frameworks of knowledge ± that these should progress in distinct areas ± but from the growing organisation of the institutional environments that were becoming increasingly influential in the creation and transmission of knowledge. Thus modern universities developed with separate curricula for different subject areas, specialist learned journals and professional bodies. The organisation of knowledge within these institutions became more structured and regulated, with the disciplining of people into their subject fields through such control devices as career progression for academics, examinations, set syllabuses and peer assessment (see also Foucault, 1977).2 Each disciplinary area carries with it the history of its own development, which is often taught and invoked through such cultural and symbolic devices as `classical' theories or the `founding fathers'. But Heilbron comments that these are usually from the disciplinary stage (1995, p. 2) and the pre- or early disciplinary history is forgotten. This means that what is covered in a disciplinary area, including its `history', comes to shore up a sense of its consistency and coherence. Members are socialised into a shared heritage, which provides a


15

common sense of interest. This `common sense' becomes a takenfor-granted understanding, not only of the legitimate content of the discipline but also the `fact' that it is a discipline in the first place. The process of differentiation that created the discipline has itself become hidden. However, as Heilbron argues, many significant assumptions of the discipline stem from before this disciplinary formation proper (1995, p. 3). This is the case, I suggest, with regard to many of the assumptions about the body that have become incorporated into the `common sense' of organisation studies. Therefore this book will look at themes from beyond the usually accepted borders of the discipline. Not only is there the historical dimension to the separation between what is legitimately part of a discipline, there is also the continued drawing of boundaries around the field. These are not impermeable boundaries, as will be discussed in Chapter 5, and there is a certain amount of tension between those who want greater or lesser degrees of closure of these borders. However, again, these function as a disciplinary mechanism. This reminds us that we need to be careful about characterising a discipline as being too internally homogeneous. By dividing off one area and defining it in opposition to others, what is included within that area comes to appear identical, while that from which it is separated becomes entirely different. In his introduction to Rethinking Organization (1992), Reed describes how organisation studies has changed since the 1960s, from òrthodox consensus' (characterised as the dominant functionalist paradigm, as outlined by Burrell and Morgan (1979)) to `pluralistic diversity'. He charts the changes, starting with the systems-based contingency approach of the late 1960s, later challenged as having too static a view of òrganisation', and a problematic conceptual separation between òrganisation' and ènvironment'. This is replaced by an approach which looked at the construction of organisations, stressing processes of power and politics, and the significance of culture and symbolism. This also marks a move away from the acceptance of organisation studies as being dominated by the influence of òbjective' science (Brown, 1992). By the late 1980s and 1990s, organisation studies were marked by a much greater openness to theoretical work and issues from a range of disciplines (for example, the influence of Foucault, Derrida and that work that is sometimes described as the `postmodern turn'), often a world away from traditional managerial interests in the structure and design of organisations. Some of these more recent developments have epistemological stances commensurate with my own views in this study, and indeed have influenced my

16


approach to organisation theory. However, even in these works there is still very little explicit exploration of issues of the body and embodiment and therefore, given the constraints of space, I have reluctantly had to forgo the detailed consideration they warrant. Although I wish to take a broad view of what material is relevant to understanding the ways in which certain constructions of the human body underpin key assumptions in organisation theory, in order to bring together relevant subject matter from a number of fields it has been necessary to be selective. In relation to organisation theory, I have chosen examples from a diversity of approaches to the subject to illustrate the different themes of the anatomised body which can be seen as woven through them. Since I am interested in the formation of the discipline and its predominant `discursive formations' (see discussion in Chapter 3), these perspectives tend to be mainstream ones which have influenced key debates in the field. In this I have been guided by the material which has been seen to be the most relevant by a number of texts that have sought to define and shape the discipline, and which are discussed below. For the purpose of understanding some of the dynamics of the development of organisation studies in defining its disciplinary borders, it is useful to consider briefly some texts which started to reflect on the discipline (Silverman, 1970; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980; Pfeffer, 1982).3 These not only discuss the content of the discipline, they also seek to organise it themselves. They cannot escape from the effect they have in actively constructing the field while they are in the very act of analysing it, since no academic work is ever external to that which it examines. It is noticeable that these come from a particular period in the disciplinary formation where the subject matter and approaches to the field are in flux. Thus they are interesting since they show the discipline self-consciously in process. They also reflect, to some extent, wider academic concerns around the nature of knowledge and its relationship to social and political issues. Although none of them completely rejects all elements of their scientific patrimony, they do show a questioning and a reflexivity about the field, and how knowledge in it has come to be so constructed. Silverman's The Theory of Organisations (1970) was influential in initiating discussions on the constitution of the field. Despite his development of an àction frame of reference' with its interpretative approach to organisational activity (set against his critique of the prevailing systems approach), some of his discussion of the nature of


17

theory on organisations illustrates a continued espousal of the assumptions of scientific rationality. For example, he proposes that À theory is a statement in general terms about the likely relationship between two or more phenomena. It suggests hypotheses that it is possible to test and, where necessary, refute. A theory of organisations would explain why organisations are as they are and examine the factors that make them change' (Silverman, 1970, p. 169). However, he does question that there could be a single theory of organisations, seeing the field as multiple and thus paving the way for greater acceptance of diversity and questioning of orthodoxy. In relation to typical theorising about organisations, he argues that `most attempts to construct such theories have tended to take both the definition of organisation to be used and the theoretical perspective as non-problematic' (1970, p. 170). He argues that early work in the discipline came from managerial interest in techniques (perhaps we can compare this to Reed's (1985, p. 6) statement that the `true ``founding fathers'' ' of modern organization theory were Barnard and Simon), that it only tended to look at a single aspect of organisations at a time and ignored the wider social context (Silverman 1970, p. 2). This tends to take the beginning of the discipline as being around the start of the twentieth century, implicitly disregarding prior sociological studies of organisations, and drawing a particular line around the field, which contrasts with his own arguments about the importance of bringing sociological work back into the field. Silverman ostensibly has sympathy for theoretical diversity, although he argues for a radical break with previous functionalist approaches. Similarly, Pfeffer welcomes multiple approaches on the one hand, but his language closes down this openness on the other (and indicates his later, more explicit, calls for disciplinary consensus (Pfeffer, 1993)). He describes `The domain of organization theory [as] coming to resemble more of a weed patch than a well-tended garden' (Pfeffer 1982, p. 1) because of the proliferation of different theories and approaches. He goes on to recommend weeding and pruning the field, since the diversity makes it òften difficult to discern in what direction knowledge of organizations is progressing ± or if, indeed, it is progressing at all' (1982, p. 1). Pfeffer (1982, pp. 26±33) links the development of the discipline to the growth of industrial capitalism since the beginning of the twentieth century (to economic and political influences predominantly in the context of the USA), and its expansion both in extent and in the multiplicity of approaches to the rise of the business school and the

18


teaching of organisation studies on undergraduate and MBA programmes. He estimates that between 125 000 and 200 000 students would be following courses in the discipline in the early 1980s in the USA alone (1982, p. 25). It is interesting that these two studies in the field emphasise the development of the discipline from managerial interest in techniques for managing organisational behaviour. Other texts which consider the development of the discipline take their intellectual roots from the development of sociology in the nineteenth century. Both Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Clegg and Dunkerley (1980) look to the thoughts of `classical' theorists such as Weber, Marx, Durkheim and SaintSimon to trace the influences on the discipline. This history fits with their own agendas in organising the field. For Burrell and Morgan, looking towards sociological theory gives them the intellectual material to analyse different research paradigms in organisation theory; for Clegg and Dunkerley, these theorists provide an understanding of the wider political and social nature of organisations which is the foundation of their argument that organisations are centrally about class and control. In this brief discussion it becomes apparent that drawing boundaries around organisation studies is in itself a political act intended to orientate the field in a particular direction. This is a point from which my own work here also cannot escape. Indeed, as will be discussed below, this is an explicitly political project. Theoretical considerations of the field since this time have continued to try to make sense of the diversity of organisation studies (for example, Reed, 1985, 1991, 1996) or to close down the multiplicity as threatening the coherence of the field (for example, Donaldson, 1985, 1996a). There has also been a growing recognition and interest in a greater multiplicity of forms of organisation, away from the rationalbureaucratic to embrace especially concepts around networks, flexibility and adhocracy (see, for example, Clegg, 1990). In theoretical terms, and certainly as a significant influence on this project (which does not in any way claim to stand outside the social and academic currents of its time, nor the power relations of the discipline), some parts of organisation studies have become open to a more fundamental questioning of its common-sense terms and processes. Thus there has been a reconsideration of the taken-for-granted nature of `the organisation', as suggested by Silverman in 1970 (1970, p. 170). The emphasis of the discipline would seem to have moved somewhat away from the conception of the organisation as a distinct entity and more to processes of organising and ordering. Indeed, it has been argued that òrganizing


19

needs to be seen as a verb not a noun, since it is incomplete, precarious, plural and heterogeneous' (Law, 1994, p. 2). The foundational processes of differentiation and organisation have themselves been questioned (for example, Cooper, 1989, 1992; Munro, 1997). Thus there is a tension between the multiplicity of ways òrganisation' can be understood, and processes of power that seek to define boundaries to the subject. As I mentioned above, the subject of this book focuses on the dominant and more sedimented approaches to organisation studies (those approaches which, in the terms of Chapter 3, will be designated as the more practised and habituated discursive formations as distinct from those at the fringes and interstices of the discipline that are more fluid and in process). However, there are three points of exit from the main argument of the book which look to the future and towards these departures from mainstream organisation theory. These are to be found in the conclusions to Chapters 5 and 7, and in Chapter 8. THE BODY AS AN ÀBSENT PRESENCE' IN ORGANISATION THEORY Organisation studies is not alone in its neglect of the human body. As will have been seen from the discussion above, it is an important aspect of this argument that organisation studies is part of a broader trend of intellectual development that encompasses the dominant tradition of `western' social science and philosophy. Throughout the book, organisation studies as an intellectual field is related explicitly to social theory, although it is also recognised that organisation studies has attempted to mark out a distinct area of concern centred around the theoretical object of `the organisation'. A considerable weight of interest in the human body has developed in social theory since the 1980s (discussed in Chapter 2). Organisation studies has so far largely ignored this subject and the burgeoning literature in commensurate disciplines (but see Hassard et al., 2000). This myopia is in itself interesting. It suggests that while organisation theory owes a great historical debt to social theory, large parts of it have become somewhat detached from this heritage. This may stem from the continued institutional connection of organisation studies to business education, or from the twin pressures for `relevance' and high levels of publication in accepted journals, both related to funding issues. However, there is not space in this text to explore these potential reasons in more detail. Here I shall turn to

20


consider how the body is an absent presence in organisation studies, which may itself suggest reasons for its continued neglect. There are two ways in which the body is an àbsent presence' in organisation theory. The body is present in two implied modes. The first implied body is that of the individuals who are the members of organisations. The second is the body as biological organism, which goes to construct the discipline's dominant image of the organisation as a distinct entity. The body's absence is also twofold. In relation to the first implied body of the individual subject, the body itself has disappeared under the weight of a tradition of mind/body dualism that has centred value, meaning and knowledge in the mind and largely dismissed the body as mere material ± a container for the mind or soul. In this, organisation studies has followed other social sciences. In relation to sociology, Williams and Bendelow (1998) argue that there has been a tendency `to define human actors in disembodied terms as rational agents who make choices through means/ends formulae, based on `ùtility'' criteria or ``general value'' orientations (Turner, 1991) . . . The body, in effect, became external to the actors who appeared, so to speak, as a rational, disembodied, decision-making agent (Turner, 1991, p. 9)' (Williams and Bendelow, 1998, p. 10). The second level of absence is in relation to the scientifically constructed organism, the dead piece of meat that is all that is left of the physical material from Cartesian dualism. This dissected corpse has been laid out for the superior, living, active mind to examine and utilise. In this book I consider that one important reason for the lack of explicit theorising stems from the approach which sees the body merely as the biological container of the person. As has already been discussed above, the `western' intellectual tradition is largely built around this mind/body dualism. Three major assumptions come from this Cartesian heritage (Grosz, 1994). The first is that the body is perceived as an object of investigation. The body is objectified and commodified, ripe for classification; it becomes a generalised body, trampling rough-shod over the specificity of individual bodies. In the second, the body is regarded in terms of metaphors which construe it as an instrument, a machine at the disposal of consciousness, a vessel occupied by an animating, wilful subjectivity, which requires careful training and discipline. For example, in Locke and the liberal tradition of the Enlightenment generally, the body is conceived of as a possession, the property of the subject, who can therefore make decisions about how to dispose of it. Third, the body is seen as a signifying medium, a vehicle of expression, a mode of rendering public and communicable


21

what is essentially private (thoughts, ideas, beliefs, emotions). Underlying this is the belief in the transparency and passivity of the body. Again, it must be pliant so that information is not distorted. The Cartesian split between mind and body has been incorporated into the very heart of the discipline of organisation theory. The need to control the body has been seen as a problem within organisation studies, especially in its more managerialist parts. Solutions to the `problem' of the body have generally been concerned with appealing to the mind and rationality. For example, two of the cornerstones of the discipline ± scientific management and the Human Relations School ± are both concerned with the role of the body in production. Frederick Winslow Taylor aimed to standardise the movements of the body in the execution of work tasks, which eliminated workers' freedom of choice over their bodily actions. To do this successfully he also had to extract the tacit (bodily) knowledge that the workers had of the job and transfer this to the cognitive, systematised and codified (that is, organised) knowledge of managers. Thus the division of body and mind was institutionalised through the division of labour, of èxecution' and `conception'. The Human Relations School developed out of an original preoccupation with the physiological conditions that would optimise production output. Again, we can see the attempt to extract knowledge from and about workers' bodies that will be used for their greater control. The `fatigue studies' looked at the physical effects of ventilation, lighting, and the number and duration of breaks. As this emphasis gave way to an interest in the motivational and social aspects of work, we see the development of an approach to controlling workers' bodies which utilised their own minds. This continues to tap into the tradition of Cartesian thought, since the mind/body split is also a hierarchical relationship whereby the mind is seen as the living, active principle, and the body merely material that is only animated by the indwelling mind. It is therefore for the superior mind to control and subordinate the body. These are studies that take the body as an object for granted; its control is a problem but reason prevails. The tradition continues in a multitude of initiatives and schools of thought geared to capturing the `hearts and minds' of employees ± for example, the `soft' dimension of human resource management (Townley, 1994), employee involvement initiatives, èmpowerment', and the `learning organisation'. It also constitutes a fundamental assumption in various theories of the labour market such as Human Capital Theory, which proposes that individuals will make `rational' choices about whether to invest in developing their skills and education depending on what return they

22


believe they will get for investing in themselves (see, for example, Mincer, 1958; Mincer and Polachek, 1974). The Enlightenment ideal of the individual citizen possessing rights has turned into a living commodity, the indwelling mind deciding how the biological container should be shaped and utilised in its own self-interest. The control of the body is closely linked to the principle of `panopticism' which Foucault (1977) sees as the definitive mode of discipline in modern times. Although many writers focus on the surveillance aspect of this principle in these days of electronic tagging, hidden cameras (including those inside the VDUs of workers), bugging, and the myriad ways that IT can be used to òbserve' and measure (see, for example, Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992), it is the effect of this in terms of the internalisation of self-discipline that might be seen as being of the greatest significance. I shall return below to the link between this mode of discipline and the ways in which identity becomes `normalised'. The body as a passive signifying medium has been considered in some areas of organisation studies. Since a concern with the representation of the body has often been found in studies of gendered work, it tends to be maintained as peripheral to the mainstream of the discipline. It is interesting that it is predominantly in relation to women in organisations that issues of stereotyping and the appropriation of particular physical characteristics as part of labour ± the visible surface of bodies ± has come more to the fore. The tradition of ethnographic industrial sociology mainly researched manufacturing workers, where the dominant white male body would have been the norm, and which became invisible through its very ubiquity. The gradual percolation of feminist thought into the discipline and a growing emphasis on service occupations are likely to have brought the body more into focus. In Hochschild's (1983) pathbreaking study of the èmotional labour' involved in the job of an air stewardess she talks of the control of expressions and the relationship to stress, but still it is defined in largely cognitive terms and not as the embodied experience of controlling emotions and appearance. Here, the problematic relates to the commodification of the body and emotions. Hochschild argues that the èmotional labour' that is a central part of much service work requires that manufactured emotions are displayed through the bodily medium. It is assumed that outside the capitalist use of these emotions/ displays the body would `naturally' show `genuine' emotions which would constitute the real, not manufactured, self of the individual. It is interesting that the body is seen as a vehicle through which the self can be expressed (or not), although Hochschild does consider some


23

corporeal consequences of this separation in the air stewardesses' experiences of distance from their own sexuality in private relationships. However, on the whole there is a separation of embodiment from identity which maintains the Cartesian tradition. THE ÀNATOMISING URGE' In pursuing my objective, to understand the way that assumptions about the human body have become incorporated into and shaped the development of organisation studies, I have taken the science of anatomy as a model. We now take for granted that scientific and medical knowledge of the body has been gained through anatomy: the practice of dissecting the dead human body in order to see what is hidden below the surface. However, anatomy developed slowly from about the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, disrupting many societal taboos before becoming accepted as an organised, `rational' discipline. At face value this seems ± historically and substantively ± far removed from the concerns of modern organisation theory. However, it is argued that anatomy can be seen as the predominant construction of the human body and as such its assumptions have become embedded in organisation studies. Furthermore, anatomy can be seen as the dominant model of knowledge production in the `western' intellectual tradition, and therefore also the pattern of the dominant modes of knowledge about organisations. Sawday (1995) has argued that the `culture of dissection' that gave birth to anatomy can be characterised by two tools or symbols. These are the scalpel and the mirror. The scalpel has had a key role in creating the human body as a place for invasive investigation, fragmentation and reorganisation. The mirror is a less obvious but still central tool. Dissection is part of a quest for knowledge not only about the body but also about what it is to be human. Pictures of anatomy theatres include the inscription `know thyself' and the title-page of Casserius's Tabulae Anatomicae (1627) (Figure 1.1) shows the seated figure of Anatomia, the personification of the science, holding a mirror. Sawday comments that this is à reminder of the self-knowledge gained through the reflective discipline of anatomy' (Sawday, 1995, p. 73). The book is organised around these two tools of anatomia. As well as being the tools used in the practice of the science, they are endowed with many threads of meaning which are significant to the development

24

Figure 1.1 Title-page from Julius Casserius, Tabulae Anatomicae (1627) Source: British Library.


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of the ànatomising urge'.4 These are inextricably linked and will both be explored. The first half of the book is centred around the symbol of the scalpel. It is concerned with anatomy as a paradigm of knowledge ± the ànatomising urge' ± which is described by Sawday. Here he links together the body and wider forms of knowledge, arguing that the ìncisive recomposition of the human body . . . entailed an equivalent refashioning of the means by which people made sense of the world around them' (Sawday, 1995, p. xi). With the ànatomising urge' came an impetus to split the body into its component parts and a desire to classify and define their structure and function in the minutest detail. This is a quite different mode of organising knowledge from that which preceded it, which Foucault (1970) argues was based on resemblance, analogy and similitudes. Dissection is not an end in itself but, as Sawday suggests: ànatomisation takes place so that, in lieu of a formerly complete ``body'', a new ``body'' of knowledge and understanding can be created. As the physical body is fragmented, so the body of understanding is held to be shaped and formed' (1995, p. 2). In relation to the body, anatomy can be said to have produced a uniquely organised body: a body that is organised by science and rationality rather than by nature. In the introduction to Modernity and Ambivalence (1991), Bauman teases out this `quest for order' which is built on division and difference: `To classify means to set apart, to segregate. It means first to postulate that the world consists of discrete and distinctive entities; then to postulate that each entity has a group of similar or adjacent entities with which it belongs, and with which ± together ± it is opposed to some other entities . . . To classify, in other words, is to give the world a structure' (1991, p. 1). This is the dualistic structure of knowledge that has already been debated above. The `slash' or oblique marks out the processes of division that create the two `sides' into categories presumed to be mutually exclusive and defined in opposition to each other. There is also a hierarchical division between the categories, where one is given superiority over the other (Plumwood, 1993). The ànatomising urge' (Sawday, 1995) has become incised deep into the heart of what is understood by both scientific method and philosophical rationality, the twin foundation stones of the `western' intellectual tradition. Thus Chapter 4 considers in more depth the characteristics and development of the ànatomising urge'. Chapter 5 relates this form of knowledge to the development of organisation studies as a discipline. It also examines how assumptions of the anatomised body have

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become embedded in some of the central concepts of the discipline, such as the elision between òrganisation' and òrganism', and the use of organic models applied to organisations. The second half of the book is organised around the other tool of anatomia: the mirror. Although the scalpel cuts to the bone, the mirror reflects back the `knowledge' of the dissected human subject, our own selves, which have been thus created. The anatomists' obsession with making visible the hidden secrets of the body is a model of a preoccupation with self-understanding, of creating Man (sic) as the central subject of knowledge, as Foucault describes it (1970, p. xxiv). This is a key feature of this epistemological tradition (Foucault, 1970; Bauman, 1991, p. 5). Thus the ànatomising urge' is characterised by an interconnection between the creation of divisions and categories, reordering knowledge, and (self-) identity. This formation of a preoccupation with the self-identity of mankind (sic), leads to two opposing trends. The ideal of identity that the ànatomising urge' focuses upon is one based on the wholeness and coherence of the self (as opposed to the fragmentation of the matter that is the body). And this coherent self is characterised by reason and rationality (again, in opposition to the association of the body to nature and animality). In the blossoming of the Enlightenment this was to lead to the call for individual political and civil rights, in so far as individuals possessed a capacity for the reasoning ability necessary to make moral and political judgements. This is based on an idea that right-thinking rational minds would reach some transcendent and universal objective truth and therefore intersubjective agreement on moral and political issues would not be a problem (Benhabib, 1992, p. 4). The second trend of this construction of identity is based on the same assumptions, but denies the rights as self-determining individuals of those who are not ìdentical'5 with the ideal of the rational individual. In effect, those whose identities are associated with the body, emotions or nature ± for example, women, the `lower' classes, people from other racial groups, people with mental or physical àbnormalities' ± are excluded because of assumptions based around the dualism of rational mind/irrational body. In relating these assumptions of the ànatomising urge' to organisation studies, I have chosen to focus on two consequences which stem from the dominant conceptualisations of the body and knowledge. The first centres around this marginalisation of those who are associated with `the body', which has been incorporated into the discipline. The


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second is the devaluating of human reproduction compared to the valuing of production in the construction of knowledge about organisations. I would argue that production is related to the replication of many copies of the same: the production of the identical. Human reproduction is associated with many subordinated and occluded categories: woman, the private sphere, nature, fluidity and, of course, the body. Replication, on the other hand, echoes the dominant features of the intellectual tradition. It invokes the machine metaphor, the production of the identical and the `clean' incisions of the scalpel into the corpse compared to the messy, fluid, noisy process of giving birth by a living body to a living body. Replication is also a valued aspect of scientific method: verification of the `truth' demands that it can be repeated over and over in the same way. Thus Chapters 6 and 7 develop a response to the `mirroring' characteristics of the ànatomising urge'. They consider how organisation theory replicates dominant forms of knowledge, writing out difference, marginalising (particular) bodies, focusing on `production' to the exclusion of `reproduction', and excluding all but a normalised identity. THEORISING THE BODY Thus it is not simply the divisions and differences which anatomy creates that are significant. What is important is where the cuts and incisions are made, and how the resulting parts are reorganised and reordered. Power, discipline and hierarchy play major roles in the `culture of dissection'. We need to ask significant questions. What knowledge is legitimised and valued? Whose identities predominate over others? We need to consider why there have been cuts between certain relations, categories, concepts and what power relations have been invested in them. We also need to consider what differences have been emphasised while others have been occluded. Who or what have been forced into sameness or marginalised as Other? These are questions that need to be borne in mind when considering the assumptions and consequences of the relationship between organisation studies and the human body. It will have become apparent from this introductory chapter that diverse threads and themes are being woven together. Even though the conventional linear progression of chapters following a line of argument has been used, there is also a sense in which there is a weft

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of themes that interleave this warp and constitute the material of this text. These are about the patterns of division and separation, boundaries and the creation of inside/outside, the critique of scientific and philosophical rationality, and the associated valuing of mind over body. Weaving can be seen as a challenge to the traditional methods and tools of the ànatomising urge'. Rather than being a method of division it is a means of creating and fabricating. It does not produce the identical, but rather can make unique patterns and pictures, from previously unassociated elements, in a similar way that patchwork brings together scraps which have been discarded from elsewhere. Weaving and patchwork have been closely associated with women's work and frequently been used as metaphors of interconnectivity and creativity within the feminist movement. Sadie Plant (1997, p. 24) has described how Freud characterised weaving as the only original female skill, and even then he debased it by arguing that it stemmed from the matting of the pubic hair to cover up women's lack or negativity! It is perhaps then as a subversive tool that feminists have reclaimed it.6 Weaving is a way of challenging traditional linearity. Linearity is another way of knowing that splits the world into manageable parts, especially dividing them into two and finding a straight path between them. It is also a key tool of academic writing. If we weave with the story of the minotaur we might fabricate something new that depicts the relationship of power between the straight line thread of the argument and the fabrication of weaving. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos and the lover of Theseus ± as is traditional, we define women by the relationships they have with men ± gave a woven thread to Theseus. This he used, drawn out into a straight line, to find his way out of the labyrinth. He was thus able to kill off the bull-headed minotaur, the monster who does not fit the scientific and rational world (Shildrick, 1996). Ariadne's thread of weaving and creation is appropriated by Theseus in pursuit of death, glory and re-entry into a male-dominated world. It is a cautionary tale that he then left her for further adventures! This illustrates both the possibilities but also the dangers of attempting to weave a different cloth from the traditional academic form. There are two main ways in which I am weaving together areas of difference. The first is in intertwining the recent social science literature on the body and embodiment with organisation theory. The second is in the epistemological approach, which seeks for an interconnectivity between theorists whose work is sometimes seen as incommensurable when considered along traditional lines of demarcation. Foucault and


29

Merleau-Ponty are both considered to be theorists of the body, and their work is woven together with that of feminist theorists such as Luce Irigaray. Foucault and Merleau-Ponty, although differing in many ways in their intellectual frameworks, are both interested in the nature of dualism, and in reconceptualising the world from a nondualistic perspective. Foucault challenges separations between society and individual, discourse and practice within what might be considered a post-structuralist perspective (although Foucault was anxious to avoid classification), Merleau-Ponty challenges the separation between mind and body, the world and our perceptions of it (within what might be characterised as an existential phenomenological tradition, although, again, his work is also a critique of the transcendentalism of Husserl). This, then, is a theoretical piece of work, and theory has traditionally been linked with the excision of the body and the pre-eminence of the most abstract mental work. `The body, then, if not irrational is non-rational. It can become an object of theory only through being disembodied. Theory remains a central and rational enterprise. Theory may admit the body but the theorist remains disembodied' (Morgan and Scott, 1993, p. 12; see also Bologh's (1990) discussion of Max Weber). Of course, this neglects the way that even the most abstract theorist cannot escape the corporeality of their own breaths, heartbeats and brain impulses, even if they manage without the muscle tension of sitting at a desk! So it may be argued that in theorising I continue to reproduce the devaluation of the body. I hope that I have shown in this chapter how assumptions and values are written into the `western' intellectual tradition and into organisation theory and seldom questioned or even recognised. Hyman argues that `those who glory in their pragmatism and insist that they are immune from theory are simply unaware of their own preconceptions and presuppositions' (1971, p. 2). Theory is not separate from practice: this is another division created by the ànatomising urge' (Marsden and Townley, 1996). Rather, theorising can be a subversive political act. This might be achieved through reconnecting threads cut by the ànatomising urge' and by reflecting the dominant back on to itself through the tools of recursion, repetition and mimicry. Theory is sometimes set up as a totalising narrative which attempts to give a complete explanation of a problem. From my epistemological position (given in Chapter 3), this piece of writing is another narrative. It is not intended to rival the ànatomising urge' for òbjectivity' and `truth'; rather it is located in historical and

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textual analysis. Totalising theory in the rational tradition is located in a realm of objective knowledge that is somehow transcendent from the person who knows and develops that theory. The argument of this book is located in a perspective that emphasises the embodied subjectivity of those who know and theorise. In this spirit, then, I want to place my own embodied identity within this piece of theory. Since `scientific' knowledge writes out the body and the identity of the person who knows as part of the hidden but none the less political use of rationality to give a seemingly objective and neutral gloss to inclusions and exclusions of knowledge, it is as a deliberately political act that I critique the absent-presence of the body in organisation theory. It is also a political act to rewrite myself into this introduction. This research has been shaped and prompted by commitment ± again, something that is seen to have no place in rational knowledge, and which is even despised as creating subjective and therefore `poor' knowledge/`bad' science. This is a commitment to feminism and to other political movements against the oppression of those who demand assimilation and deny difference. It can be a further divisive strategy to atomise these politics by classifying and defining them ± race, class, disability, sexuality, age . . . It is part of the ànatomising urge' to separate these from each other as if they could be located independently when the political movements and the identities of those involved intersect, overlap and are interdependent. Although I am committed to engaging with these subordinated perspectives, I also do not want to perform `cultural tourism' (Griffiths, 1995, p. 43). I need to recognise the perspective from which I write ± as a white, heterosexual woman, not proposing my own narrative as an alternative `truth', as this would be to act in the same way as traditional rationality. I want to acknowledge òther' positions but without consuming or appropriating them. This project has been built upon a whole embodied existence, inextricably combined with it. This involves the everyday mundanities of existence as well as events that have had a huge impact on my whole life, body and identity. During its formative stages, I spent five weeks of hell in London hospitals while my sister struggled for her breath and for the baby growing inside her. Although she eventually lost her lifelong battle with the limitations of her body, she gave life to the tiny, 25-week foetus of my nephew, now celebrating his third birthday. The pregnancy and birth of my own daughter in 1997 brought me embodied experience of the force of patriarchal society and medical authority that have long been part of my feminist consciousness.7


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I could have written these out, in classic academic style, and kept this text strictly in the comfort zone for both myself and the reader. But the whole piece of work centres on the way that, although these experiences took place in organisational and (highly) organised contexts, organisation theory itself pays very little attention to the issues they raise.8 Since these issues are significant ones of life and death, does this mean that theorising about organisations generally involves a complete disjuncture between personal identity and experience, and professional work? This, of course, echoes yet again the public/private and mind/body dualisms that are incorporated into the intellectual tradition. But feminism has raised the spectre of an interdependency and interweaving of these realms: the personal is the political. This is a challenge I would like to bring to organisation studies through this work.

2 Written on the Body: Social Theory and the Body If we were to render the savage world safe for Western, verbalizing man, we would have to bring the mysteries of the human body within the bounds of Western rationality. (Polhemus, 1975, p. 15) Part of the impetus for considering the relationship between organisation studies and the human body is the massive growth of literature about the body in the social sciences and humanities over the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. This not only encompasses the newly marked out territory of the `sociology of the body', but also work across anthropology (see, for example, Haraway, 1990b; Martin, 1994), psychology (Stam, 1998), geography (Ainley, 1998), cultural studies (Featherstone, 1991), art history (Callen, 1995) and feminist theory (Butler, 1990, 1993). In this chapter I want to draw together some relevant threads from this literature to form a brief historical, social and theoretical context for the present work. Through exploring some of the changing academic approaches to the body and some of the reasons for the increased interest in studying it, I hope to prepare the ground before developing a more specific methodological and epistemological framework for the text in the following chapter. I shall consider first how the nature of the body has been considered by the social sciences over time. There has been a somewhat ambivalent relationship between the social sciences and the body, but it is largely marked by a move from a naturalistic view of the body to a socially constructed perspective. Second, I shall consider some of the societal reasons for the explosion of academic interest in the body, look at some academic responses to these, and try to link them to some emerging themes and images around changing issues for organisations. Finally, I shall look at the work of a number of writers who have attempted to theorise the interconnected nature of the individual, the body and society. 32

Social Theory and the Body

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THE BODY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE: FROM BIOLOGICAL MATTER TO SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION The `natural' body and the social sciences The body had already been made the central concern of the biological discipline by around the beginning of the nineteenth century (Heilbron, 1995). This is linked to the objectification of the body through anatomy, following its detachment from the mind through the Cartesian tradition. In the construction of social science disciplines the nature/culture dichotomy also marked out a line of separation between `natural' and `social' science (although social scientists sought to elevate their side of this dualism to a more respectable position via their adoption of natural science methodology and rhetoric). Thus the study of the `natural' body was predominantly located in the natural sciences and not seen as being of relevant interest to social scientists. Sociology, for example, centres on the human actor, with their motives and reasons, which, given the prevailing Cartesian dualism, tends to construct an individual who is a bundle of cognitive processes rather than as an embodied subject (Williams and Bendelow, 1998, p. 10). Anthropology is somewhat different. Where there are language differences, and often considerable difficulties in access to a language (with perhaps no written forms and dictionaries), bodily expression becomes more `visible' and important. However the ways in which the bodies of people from different cultures have been defined and appropriated by the discipline suggests a more political reading. In the quotation from Polhemus (1975, p. 15) which heads the chapter, we can see that even though the body is paid more attention in anthropological studies, it remains the body as constructed through the lens of `western' science and rationality. This often means applying scientific principles to `tame' the body of the colonial subject, in the same way that the missionary and governmental presences from the west sought to control these `native' bodies and to teach the `natives' to be ashamed of their nakedness, bodily adornment and movements. Darwin's work has been influential in the social science approach to the body. It confirmed the body as part of the natural world, and therefore also subject to natural processes of inheritance and evolution (Turner, 1991, p. 3). In 1872, Darwin wrote The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, where he argues that there are universal facial expressions between people in different cultures and throughout the animal world. He proposes that these are transmitted between

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generations by inheritance. Obviously, this would fit closely with his totalising theory of evolution, since it would help to establish a common ancestry for all races. Darwin's methodology was to send questionnaires to missionaries and (British) government officials around the world to ask them whether the `natives' showed particular expressions. Therefore the question of the interpretation of the gestures and expressions is one that is very much open to critique. However, the potentially equalising notion of one line of descent for all humans (compared to previous racialised theories of inferior and superior lines of descent, often derived from particular interpretations of the Bible) was subverted into other forms of evolutionism that provided a `scientific' gloss to cultural stereotypes based on the features of the `natural' body. During the nineteenth century `physical anthropology' emphasised the importance of the body. The focus was on comparing measurements of parts of the body across groups and populations, and debating their social significance. There was a pretty clear political agenda in this, although partly obscured by the language of science and rationality. For example, craniology developed the study of the link between skull size and brain volume to notions of intelligence. The American craniologist, Samuel Morton, intent on proving a scientific ranking of races by measuring the cranial capacity of the skull, had collected over a thousand skulls by the time he died in 1851. His ranking of their measurement had whites at the top, native American Indians in the middle, and blacks at the bottom.1 In France, Gustave Le Bon felt he only needed to measure thirteen skulls in order to conclude in 1879 that women `represented the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult civilised man' (Le Bon, 1879, pp. 60±1). He used this research to argue that trying to educate women in the same way as men was misguided and dangerous. As well as indicating the cultural assumptions embedded in the so-called scientific study of the body, it also illustrates the political use of the connection between women, the body and nature discussed in the Introduction.2 It is a salutary lesson that these approaches to the body could even end up being used against Darwin. Physiognomy, which believed that from the study of the characteristics of the face one could gain objective knowledge of the person, was hugely popular. Lavater's On Physiognomy ran through eighteen editions from 1775 to 1885. The captain of the Beagle, a disciple of Lavater, was very reluctant to allow Darwin on the expedition to South America because he doubted whether anyone with Darwin's nose could have sufficient energy and determination


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for the voyage (Darwin's own account of it in 1887, vol. 1, pp. 59±60, Synnott, 1993)! By the end of the nineteenth century, anthropology had largely changed from measuring and classifying to listening and watching, although it is still possible to see in twentieth-century anthropological work interest in the body linked with a particular `western' perspective on knowledge and control, which was discussed briefly in the first chapter and which will be developed in Chapter 4. However, naturalistic perspectives on the body such as these have continued to be used to justify `social engineering' such as the eugenics movement based on the justification that qualities are fixed through `natural selection, so those individuals in society who do not possess the desired characteristics should not be allowed to reproduce. As the geneticist, Steve Jones, comments, the social philosopher Herbert Spencer used his version of Darwinism às a rationale for the excesses of nineteenth-century capitalism' and Galton's eugenics centred on `the survival of the richest' (Jones, 1993, p. 7). It is the same notion of the natural and inevitable body that was encapsulated in the state eugenics of Nazi Germany. For those whose body fitted with the ideal there was to be control, as illustrated in the first commandment of the Hitler Youth: `Your body belongs to your nation' (Kern, 1975, p. 233), and the medals given to women who produced sons to carry on Àryan' characteristics. For those whose bodies were seen as being defective there were to be the laws prohibiting interracial marriage, forced sterilisations and the `final solution' (Kern, 1975, p. 232). The links with the scientific study of the naturalistic body is illustrated by the request made by the professor of anatomy of the `Reich university' at Strasbourg to Himmler in 1942 for Jewish skeletons to use in the university collection as an example of an inferior race (ibid.). Armstrong (1987) argues that sociology has constantly fought off encroachments by biology on to its disciplinary territory. Some biologists have discussed human behaviour as an extension of animal behaviour and as a phenomenon which can be understood in the same way as that of animals. The popularity of the work of Desmond Morris ± from naked ape to manwatching [sic], sexwatching and babywatching ± indicates the powerful nature of these sorts of argument. In the 1970s, sociobiology became influential as a way of establishing a biological basis for all human behaviour. It was popularised through E. O. Wilson's 1975 book on the subject, which aimed to `codify sociobiology into a branch of evolutionary biology' (Lewontin and Rose, 1984) and had a vision of neurobiologists and sociobiologists as the new leaders of a planned society of the future. Sociobiology puts an

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academic gloss of genetic determinism on neoconservative ideologies, such as positing a biological theory for women's subordinate position in society.3 Here, women's unique abilities to bear children have been used as a means of imprisoning them in the body, by defining them as being purely biological and close to `nature'. Such a position reinforces the status quo since it claims it is `natural' and therefore inevitable. Thus we can see that the presentation of the combination `science' of biology and society can be a political tool which seeks to justify certain power relations by appealing to a discourse of objectivity and neutrality based on a `natural' body. Changing bodies: the historical and social construction of the body The naturalistic view of the body and the Darwinian tradition are not the only perspectives of the body in the social sciences. The work of Mauss (1973) on `techniques of the body' was perhaps the earliest conceptualisation of the body and its actions as learned behaviour which becomes habitual, differing over time and between cultures (he argues that manners, walking and digging styles differ even between France and Britain). He produces many examples of differences and makes some attempts to classify them. Mauss describes bodies and the `techniques' they develop as ``physico-psycho-sociological assemblages of series of actions'' (1973, p. 85). This indicates his conceptualisation of the interconnectivity of both the embodied subject and the need for an interdisciplinary study of the body. The paper ± originally presented to a meeting of the SocieÂteÂ Psychologie in 1934 ± is something of a manifesto for the socially constructed body, and as such has had a significant impact far beyond its length and scope might suggest. Many aspects of the socially constructed body have been demonstrated by ethnographic research since Mauss's paper. One such study (Bateson and Mead, 1942; Mead and Macgregor, 1951) analyses photographs of the different bodily development and bodily socialisation of Balinese and North American infants. However, as Polhemus (1975, p. 19) comments, anthropologists have sometimes merely collected data that illustrates the diversity of the body, rather than theorising about it. Despite the social constructionist framework, some work maintains a scientistic approach by assiduously measuring body differences (ibid., p. 20). Another problem with the development of social approaches to the body is that they often leave the assumptions of the naturalistic body intact, merely overlaying them with a social body, or trying to


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denigrate them as insignificant. In other words, they do not challenge the dualistic nature of knowledge constructed about the body, as discussed in the Introduction. This can be seen in some of the work around the gendered body, which has provided one of the main stimuli for developing a more social understanding of the body. In the `second wave' of feminism in the 1970s, the assumptions about women's biological destiny began to be questioned fundamentally. Early theories about women's subordination tried to substitute social explanations for the traditional biologically-based ones. However, feminism often found other ways of discussing gender that left the conventional understanding of the body unchallenged. A distinction was made by theorists between `sex' which related to the biological basis of the body, and the idea of ìnnate sex differences' and `gender' which referred to the social structures and cultural values overlaying these differences and into which children are socialised (Rubin, 1975). In doing this, feminist theorists followed the same sort of pattern as other social scientists. They sought to put biological reasons for women's subordination to one side and move forwards emphasising the other side of the science/ culture dualism ± that is, towards social reasons for women's oppression. The female body was left as being natural and inevitable, and therefore still the rightful province of the natural sciences. But a critique of the assumptions of a biological reality underpinning social categories began to be developed through the 1980s. By 1990, Jacobus et al. could argue, when introducing an edited collection of papers focusing on the multitude of ways that (female) bodies are socially constructed: `We cannot speak of the female body as if it were an invariant presence through history. There is no fixed, experiential base which provides continuity across the centuries' (Jacobus et al., 1990, p. 4). Not only has the biological been questioned and seen as pertinent to sociological understanding, but these critiques have been turned back on to biology ± and other sciences ± to show that they themselves are constructed via a socially and linguistically shaped view of the world. Women historians and scientists have shown that cultural stereotypes about men and women are significant in shaping scientific theories (see, for example, Bleier, 1984; Birke, 1986; Jordanova, 1989; Keller, 1985). There is a wealth of material that can be characterised as social constructionist ± too much to summarise adequately. It incorporates quite diverse positions on the nature of the body. As Shilling observes, it is an umbrella term which suggests a common ground in opposing a view of the body as simply being a biological entity, but otherwise

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social constructionist theories differ on how much of a social product the body is, and whether it has any material foundation (1993, p. 70). CORPORATE BODIES AND PLASTIC BODIES During the academic movement from the naturalistic to the socially constructed body, `western' societies' relationship to and construction of the body have also altered. The assumptions about `the body' which solidified from biological science into the ànatomising urge' are being disrupted by contemporary societal and technological changes. The marriage of `new' technologies (for example, cosmetic surgery, genetic engineering and information and virtual reality technologies) and the consumer culture emphasis on choice highlight the potential for reshaping the body. The construction of the body seems to have moved from the structured, bounded body of anatomy to the plastic, hybrid body of the cyborg or the shapeshifter in the `Star Trek' spinoff, `Deep Space 9'. The desire to cut beneath the skin to find out the hidden make-up of the body-parts seems to have shifted to what is made visible, presented and re-presented on the surface. The upsurge of academic interest in the body is in part a response to these changes. In this section I shall look at the two elements of the ànatomising urge' ± the scalpel and the mirror ± in relation to these changing constructions of the body and their relationship to images of organisations. As will be discussed further in Chapter 5, organisations within organisation theory have predominantly been seen as definite, bounded entities. Yet they are also part of our cultural understandings of the world around us, and as such have a place in our imaginations (compare images of organisations in the novels of Dickens and Kafka). Thus one of the vehicles for looking at these changes will be that of popular culture, which indicates interconnections between society, the body and organisations that are only beginning to be explored in academic literature (see, for example, Hassard and Holliday, 1998; Hassard et al., 2000). There are two main ways in which these technologies are said to reshape the body, making it more fluid. The first is through the disruption of the lived experience of the physical body and its relationship to space and time, and is usually related to information and communication technologies, virtual reality, video conferencing and the Internet. The second is in enabling the physical reconstruction or reorganisation of the body, through genetic engineering, cosmetic,


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plastic and transsexual surgery, and the `new reproductive technologies'. They are both tied in to notions of the relationship between the body and the identity of the individual. In the first of these reconstitutions of the body, computer and virtual reality technologies are argued to produce disruption or even transcendence of somatic knowledge of place, space and time. In other words, they conquer the physical limitations of the body, where it is able to be `present' in only one place and in one time zone. This is related to a presumed change in the lived experience of being-in-theworld, rather than to scientific conceptions of location with their òbjective' measurements. Giddens discusses this theme in Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), where he argues that large modern organisations are predicated on this `disembedding' of time and space, through the now necessary ability to co-ordinate the activities of many people in different times and spaces other than through their immediate location. (This is interesting, since one of the original rationales for the `manufactory' was to bring together these activities for greater control of time and space, exactly through their being located in the same place (Thompson, 1967; Marglin, 1974; Berg, 1994).) However, it is arguable that if one were to take an historical perspective, this would not be as novel as it first appears. It could be seen as a continuation of a long history of `technologies' that have been used to communicate over a distance and to collapse the time differences involved (from mail to the telephone), to organise dispersed information (for example, the genesis of the `form' itself ± see McLean and Hoskin, 1998), or to gain a relative perspective on the interrelationship of time, distance and position, from the clock and map to the chronometer (Sabel, 1996). It could even be argued that people have projected `virtual' selves in the past. For example, sailors in the eighteenth century had clocks that were set for the time àt home'. These new technologies also promise a replacement of the material world with artificially created `virtual' worlds. This includes a `total sensory immersion in the artificial environment' (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995a, p. 3), where the body and senses themselves experience the created world through the technology of èyephones', `datagloves' and `datasuits' (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995, p. 6): `VR is a computer-generated visual, audible and tactile multi-media experience . . . [it] aims to surround the human body with an artificial sensorium of sight, sound and touch' (ibid., p. 6). In the second reconstitution of the body, there is again the argument that the physical body can be reshaped and its limitations transcended via technology. For example, genetic engineering, at least in its

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popularised version, promises the potential to choose and manipulate the features and personality of children before they are even conceived. These sorts of technologies can be seen as liberating people from feeling that they are trapped in the `wrong body' via sex-change operations. They can also disrupt the bodily signifiers of `race' (one thinks of Michael Jackson) and disability (by the use of artificial limbs, eyes, and plastic surgery, for example, although prosthetics also have a long history). While these technologies reshape the body, making it more malleable, `better', and less structured into a fixed ordering, they can also be seen as the logical extension of the Cartesian dream. Technological developments `point towards the possibilities of post-bodied and posthuman forms of existence' (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995, p. 2). The ultimate `post-human body' is not a body at all, but a mind or subjectivity released from the constraints of the physical body. This is the vision held up by Demi Moore's character in the film Disclosure, from the novel by Michael Crichton (1994), when she speaks of the company's vision: `What we're selling is freedom. We offer in new technology what religion and revolution have promised but never delivered: freedom from the physical body. Freedom from race and gender, from nationality and personality, from place and time. Communicating by cellular 'phone and handheld computer, PDA and built-in fax modem we can relate to each other as pure consciousness'. These technologies are also seen as opening up the possibilities of new sorts of organisations and communities. The freeing of people from their physical bodies and visible signifiers has been argued to create communities that would not have been possible in geographical terms. Thus Whittle (1996) has described how a cyberspace `transsexual' community was mobilised over the murder of Brandon Teena, a female-to-male transgendered person in Nebraska. Whittle argues that the Internet provides a space where, ironically, transgendered people do not have to live out the `virtual identities' they have to put on to `pass' ± to perform `some notion of feminine or masculine ``realness'' ' (ibid., p. 4), which is expected of them when their bodies are present as visible signifiers of gender. Rather, he argues, in cyberspace they can escape the problems of `passing' and present their `real' identities, which are dislocated from their physical body. Yet, in many ways, the dream of escape from the physical body turns out to be an illusion. The lived body resists and reminds the would-be transcendental ego of its constant and inevitable presence. While the mind is surfing the Net, finding its transcendental ego identity in


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cyberspace, the physical body develops eyestrain, repetitive strain injury, aching limbs and poor posture. At the very least there are the periodic needs to eat, drink and excrete. The physical denigration of the body is illustrated in popular caricatures of the `computer nerd', who is seen as unattractive and unhealthy (Lupton, 1995). Virtual reality technologies also extract their physical price in a cluster of symptoms known collectively as àlternate world syndrome' ± dizziness, disorientation, and headaches (Heim, 1995, p. 67). Attempts to mould the body to fit some ideal or conception of identity are often fraught with the experience of bodily pain and even injury. Whittle cites a transsexual newsletter which describes in graphic detail the pain and permanent disfigurement that female to male transsexuals suffer in an attempt to gain the ultimate signifier of the male body: the phallus (Green and Wilchins, 1996, p. 1, in Whittle, 1996, p. 6). Even going through all this, they only ever gain a penis which they cannot `get up'. The erect and powerful phallus remains elusive. In what I think is an extraordinary piece of writing, Sobchack (1995) describes what it is like to be a `cyborg' woman through the amputation of her left leg above the knee, from cancer, and its replacement with a prosthetic limb. Her lived experience is one of pain, phantom sensations, the screwing in of the new leg, the loss of weight involved, and the intense exercise needed to learn to move as a cyborg. She contrasts this with `techno-science transcendence', `the self-exterminating impulses of the discourses of disembodiment suggested by Baudrillard's porno-graphy of the body on the one hand and the Mondo 2000/ Wired ± let's download into the datascape and beat the meat4 ± subculture on the other' (1995, pp. 207, 209). Thus there are a number of sources of anxiety and disquiet around the disruption of the body produced through these technologies and discourses, which often echoes the hatred of the early anatomists. Whereas the original taboo centred mainly, although not exclusively, around religious beliefs about resurrection, modern criticism is predominantly related to the capitalist context, where body parts are exchanged or patented as part of the cash nexus. Indeed, the continued fragmentation of the body, either literally as in the technologies which physically reshape the body, or figuratively in the information and virtuality technologies, evoke the ànatomising urge' very strongly. In relation to this, it is worth looking at some aspects of the film Disclosure in more detail. Although the organisation in question sells the Cartesian dream of disembodiment quoted above, the firm's survival

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in its capitalist context depends on the successful material production of those computer chips which enables this dream to be put into practice. In a way that is probably now typical of multinational companies, it has relocated its production to a place where labour is cheaper, regulations are minimal or more favourable to organisations than in its native USA. In other words, where the worker's body is mere body to be used and exploited. The very technologies the company makes are also used to manage the `disembedding' of time and space that this has caused. The manager, played by Demi Moore, has ordered the lowering of costs in the production of the chips, which means that they are not of a standard that enables the virtual technologies she has been eulogising to work. In an interesting twist to the conventional thriller, she and the hero, Michael Douglas, meet each other in cyberspace as she completely erases the records of her actions, which would be so disastrous for the reputation of the company, while he manages to get access to these through the more `conventional' technologies of the telephone and fax machine. Thus it is clear that the disembodied nature of the records poses a threat to the material object of the firm ± the production of computer chips in `real time' and space. This film illustrates how in the modern organisation the disembedding mechanisms can cause uncertainty and anxiety, often because the traditional managerial assumptions about control and visibility have been sliced apart. Another source of anxiety concerns fluidity. For example, AIDS is a particularly cogent symbol of the `panic' about the breakdown of the body's boundaries. It links together images of invasion of the body by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), together with the fear of death through contamination by ùnclean' body fluids (Kroker and Kroker, 1988). In `western' societies, the male bounded, contained body is predominantly seen as being superior to the female, `leaky' body. Denigration of `leakiness' is also seen in the imagery of the computer virus and the lack of structure of the Internet itself, compared to the `penetrating' power of the (male) computer hackers (Lupton, 1995). The `cyborg', the hybrid between human and machine, became a major symbol in late-twentieth-century society and culture. It embodies these anxieties in the different ways it has been conceptualised. One side of the cyborg dreams of fluidity, multiplicities and the blurring of boundaries between self and other. This is one that derives particularly from feminist readings of technology (Bordo, 1993, p. 225; Haraway, 1990a). The other ± the one most dominant in popular culture such as


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science fiction films ± is derived from the image of the male body (although it is not necessarily male in all its forms). It is aggressive, strong, bounded, protected but penetrating, contained within itself and its identity even when it is able to change physical shape. It is the image portrayed in Terminator and Robocop (Lupton, 1995). Thus I would like to conclude this brief examination of some of the issues surrounding the relationship between technology and the body, with a cyborg from what is commonly acknowledged to be the first cyberpunk novel: Neuromancer by William Gibson (1993). Molly is one of the book's two central characters. She is a `street samurai', a postmodern `heavy', sent to pick up Case, the other main character. He is a burnt out `cyberspace cowboy' who `jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix' (ibid., p. 12). He is employed to thieve, `required to penetrate the bright walls of corporate systems, opening windows into rich fields of data' (ibid.). When Case first sees Molly, he thinks she is wearing mirrored glasses. Then he realises that `the glasses were surgically inset, sealing her sockets' (ibid., p. 36). These mirrored lenses have extra-human powers, and can be turned into something almost like a computer screen for a reconfigured Case to see through these èyes' as a passive `rider' within her. As a cyborg she has been turned from a vulnerable female body into an engineered fighting and intelligence machine: `She held out her hands, palms up, the white fingers slightly spread, and with a barely audible click, ten double-edged, four-centimeter scalpel blades slid from their housings beneath the burgundy nails' (ibid., p. 37). She tells Case that she does not want to hurt him, although she does hurt people sometimes, but this is `just the way I'm wired' (ibid., p. 37). Molly is a cyborg who (which?) incorporates the scalpel and the mirror within her very body. If Anatomia is the Renaissance representation of the ànatomising urge', then Molly is its contemporary personification. A third anxiety relates to the close links between the body and selfidentity which is argued to be part of the modern `project of self' (Giddens, 1991; Shilling, 1993; Sennett, 1976). `With mass culture and consumerism came a new self, a more visible self and the body comes to symbolize overtly the status of the personal self' (Turner, 1996, p. 195). Not only the body, but also the self, have become commodities. The body image is used to achieve what Featherstone has described as the `marketable self' (1991, p. 171). The body is central to this self-directed `calculating hedonism' which produces pleasure, makes one feel attractive, gains positive attention from others

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and is ultimately felt to make one more lovable. The modern `western' conception of the subject is one that is whole, coherent and selfsufficient. If the body is seen to project to the òutside' world an image of that self, there will inevitably be a tension between the possibilities of reshaping the body to present the identity the person chooses, the dislocation between a whole and complete identity, and a body which is flexible, with interchangeable parts, potentially a hybrid with technology. As with the technologised body, the project of the body-self is related to the prevalent capitalist context. Although the projection of identity through the body is bound up with consumption, this cannot be severed so easily from the industrial processes of production and manufacture. It has been argued that `Mass consumption has been referred to as the necessary `òther'' of mass production (Alt, 1976, p. 71)' (Featherstone, 1991, p. 172). Yet workers had to be re-educated to consumption. Workers' bodies have long been disciplined, trained and controlled ± but by the needs of production. For example, through his notorious `sociological department', Henry Ford attempted to control any bodily excesses of his workers. His dominion extended to consumption of alcohol, drugs, gambling and any ìnappropriate' sexual relations outside of work space and time (Corbett, 1994). It was believed that bodily energy was dissipated through these activities, and therefore was not available for the employer's use (Burrell, 1984, 1992). But with the turn to mass consumption as àn aggressive device of corporate survival' (Ewen, 1976, p. 54), workers had to be encouraged to `spend, spend, spend'. The mass media, as well as Hollywood, had a starring role in this world of image. As Featherstone notes: Àdvertising thus helped to create a world in which individuals are made to become emotionally vulnerable, constantly monitoring themselves for bodily imperfections which could no longer be regarded as natural' (1991, p. 175). Thus, while the body of the worker had itself been a commodity to be used and exploited in production, the body had now become a commodity in a rather different way. It had come to stand for the whole lifestyle of individuals, their status and cultural capital, and, of course, their (financial) ability to consume. During the twentieth century, under the influences of mass consumption and the images of Hollywood, the body has become no longer a `natural' entity, living but a product one has to work at. Turner argues that `consumer culture requires not the suppression of desire, but its manufacture, extension and detail' (1996, p. 56). He compares this to the control of the body in


45

asceticism to indicate the extent to which the consuming body is formed by managing desire. The body is denied and controlled (for example, through diet and exercise) but in order ultimately to increase pleasure, rather than for spiritual betterment. Perhaps, in modern society, production and consumption have been collapsed into one mode, via the economy of the body: `We find a new mode of investment which presents itself no longer in the form of control by repression but that of control by stimulation. ``Get undressed ± but be slim, good looking, tanned!'' ' (Foucault, 1980, p. 57). But this manufacturing of the body image leads to all sorts of social dysfunctions which also create anxieties about the body. These include the disparagement of the elderly, the disabled and the òbese' or ùgly' person, or to bulimic and anorexic conditions ± the body simultaneously in and out of control. Also, the possibility to consume in order to achieve the bodily ideal is not equally available. As Featherstone writes, `for those who inhabit the dark side of consumer culture, consumption is limited to the consumption of images' (1991, p. 177). Bourdieu's work on the way bodies are socially produced through the learning and labouring acts of an individual from babyhood is useful in theorising how these inequalities are inscribed on the body. He suggests that bodily movements, posture, gestures and so on form a `habitus' of deep-seated and automatic `techniques of the body' which reproduce existing social structures. He links this to how the body is formed differentially according to the social location of the individual ± that is, the class-based material circumstances in which they are situated. The body is also shaped by the development of `taste' ± the lifestyle `choices' individuals make and preferences they acquire. However, the rhetoric of choice hides the material constraints that limit what is available to individuals, and which then shape these choices (Shilling, 1993, pp. 128±30). Consumption, then, as with technology, still retains the shape of the ànatomising urge'. It is centred around the inclusion and exclusion of certain bodies. And in its relationship to the `project of self ' can also be seen as fragmenting and dissecting the body, and cutting between the presented body image and the lived body, and the lived body and identity. Modern consumption is also related to the mirror, since `modern sensibility and subjectivity are focused on the body as a representation of the self, such that the body is in contemporary society a mirror of the soul' (Turner, 1994, p. xii). This itself can be argued to lead to a

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dysfunction of society described by Cooley (1964). This is the `looking glass self ' which cannot exist outside the gaze of others: Àll of us, actors and spectators alike, live surrounded by mirrors. In them, we seek reassurance of our capacity to captivate or impress others, anxiously searching out blemishes that might detract from the appearance we intend to project' (Lasch, 1979, p. 92). Indeed, the surface of the body may be said not to reflect out the ìnner person', whatever that entity might be, but merely reflects back the replicated images of the identical. In J. B. Priestley's English Journey published in 1933 he comments that women throughout the country dressed alike, under the influence of Hollywood fashion, whereas twenty years earlier there had been regional variation (Featherstone, 1991, p. 180). Falk analyses a phenomenon he calls `mimetic consumption' (1994, p. 121). This is the desire to possess and use the similar, and therefore to identify with the particular lifestyle, status or social identity associated with the object or service consumed. He argues that in modern consumption the individual pursuit of happiness is a process of self-building which is aimed at the pursuit of selfcompletion (Falk, 1994, p. 130): `The logics of modern consumption ± both introjective and distinctive ± are rooted much deeper in the existential conditions of individual self-construction involving an historically specific mode of the reproduction of lack ± and desire. More precisely, it is constituted by the reciprocal effects of the two moments of self-construction: the pursuit of separateness and distinction on the one hand, and the pursuit of introjective self-fulfilment on the other' (1994, p. 144). Thus `self-building is simultaneously an act of separation or an articulation of self boundaries in relation to the outside, being thus both an `àddition'' (complement) and a ``subtraction'' with an effect of lack' (ibid.). Consumption, then, like the cyborg figure, is aimed at completing the boundaries of one's self and one's body, of building a bounded, contained entity and identity. THEORIES OF THE BODY AND SOCIETY In the literature discussed above, social scientists have considered the body in relation to society. In this section I shall examine five key theorists who have attempted to produce theories of the relationship between individual, body and society, which try to encompass all three elements in an explanatory schema. These theorists are Mary Douglas, Bryan Turner, Arthur Frank, Pasi Falk, and Chris Shilling. For the


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purpose of this book it is most useful to consider these theories from the conceptualisation of the body that they construct. This forms a preliminary basis for the development of an epistemological approach to embodied subjectivity in Chapter 3. The work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger (1966) and Natural Symbols (1970) has had a huge influence on theorising the body, which has extended beyond her own disciplinary boundaries. Although there are other traditions of studying the body within anthropology, as Richard Fardon points out (Turner, 1992, pp. 250±1), it is Douglas's development of a theory of the links between the structure of a particular culture and its construction of the human body that has been taken up within sociological work. Here it has provided a useful antidote to the biological reductionist theories of the body, or the sociobiological ones that use biology to argue for a universal understanding of society. Key to Douglas's theory is her belief that `the human body is the most readily available image of a system' (1970, p. 17). In Natural Symbols (1970), Douglas argues that there are two bodies: the physical body of the individual and the social body of the community. The two interact with each other, so that `The social body constrains the way the physical body is perceived' (1970, p. 93). Thus the movement, gestures and body imagery are all interrelated to the form and beliefs of the social body. However, she goes much further than this straightforward social constructionist perspective to try to delineate a theory of how the physical body and the social body interact. Douglas argues that Mauss (1934) was looking for a general sociological theory of the body when he suggested that there was no such thing as natural behaviour. She criticises Hall's (1973 [1959]) thesis of The Silent Language and Levi-Strauss' theories for failing to link types of social structure to social variables. Since they do not do so, Douglas argues, their work falls back into a series of structured oppositions based on the dualism between culture and nature. This she ultimately links back to Mauss's denial of natural behaviour, since this sets up a relationship between culture and nature as part of the study of the body and society right from the outset. In contrast, Douglas posits that it is possible `to identify a natural tendency to express situations of a certain kind in an appropriate bodily style. In so far as it is unconscious, in so far as it is obeyed universally in all cultures, the tendency is natural' (1970, p. 97). Douglas suggests four different ways that the body is used to reflect society. The first is as an organ of communication. This is not simply in

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terms of speech and gesture, though, but also encompasses the communication of the metaphorical as it relates to a particular society. Thus, she argues, the conceptualisation of the relation of the head to the limbs will be a model of the central control system of society. Second, the body is a vehicle of life. The boundedness of society will be expressed in whether the body is seen as vulnerable in what it takes in through orifices, and whether its boundaries are seen to require protection. Third, images about the use of bodily wastes signify the extent of distinction between spirit and matter. If bodily wastes are recycled without qualms, the body is not seen as tainting the pure spirit. The fourth area of reflection about society is related to this, and concerns the extent to which life is seen primarily as spiritual and the body as irrelevant matter. It has to be noted that it is not easy to see why these four aspects should be specifically distinguished, and how they fit together to express a system. It would seem to me that these particular concerns reflect Douglas's conception of a society as a bounded entity, indeed, in the form of the organism: `The physical body can have universal meaning only as a system which responds to the social system, expressing it as a system. What it symbolises naturally is the relation of parts of an organism to the whole. Natural symbols can express the relation of an individual to his [sic] society at that general systemic level. The two bodies are the self and society: sometimes they are so near as to be almost merged; sometimes they are far apart. The tension between them allows the elaboration of meanings' (1970, p. 112). Douglas's main thesis is that `the body is a model which can stand for any bounded system. Its boundaries can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious. The body is a complex structure. The functions of its different parts and their relation afford a source of symbols for other complex systems' (1970, p. 115). Even though Douglas is concerned with the social construction of the body, her language reflects the ànatomising urge', with its imagery of structure, function and boundary maintenance. It is interesting to note the tenacity of this world view even where the explicit approach is one quite different from that of scientific rationality. Polhemus makes an observation which, while not specifically about Douglas's work, is pertinent to it: `We have tended to supply our own would-be objective definition of the boundaries of the body and its peripheral media; we should in the future be more sensitive to native definitions of the body as a system of meaning' (1975, p. 33). It is interesting to consider whether the images of invasion and containment, boundaries and structures that predominate in


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these studies say more about their `western' origin than they do about the cultures to which they relate. This point is reinforced when Douglas's work is compared to Martin's study of body imagery in North America. In Flexible Bodies (Martin, 1994) she argues that the imagery of the body has altered since the 1960s, from a militaristic language about the protection of the body from `foreign invaders' through the skin and good hygiene, to an equally militaristic language focusing on the body's defences through the immune system, where white blood cells exterminate anything are not recognised as part of `self'. Bryan Turner (1992, p. 51) characterises Douglas's work as not being about an anthropology of the body but rather one of the symbolism of risk where the body provides a metaphor for disorder or coherence. He also argues (1992, p. 250) that her interest in the body is one of discourse ± the body as a means of thinking about the world which neglects the phenomenological lived body. Shilling (1993) also takes this approach. He comments that `Douglas' work contains many valuable insights about the relationship between the social body and the individual body. However, at times it threatens to collapse these two bodies together by reducing the phenomenology of the individual body ± the ways in which people live, experience and perceive their bodies ± into the positions and categories made available by the social body' (1993, p. 73). If Douglas's work has been influential on recent literature on the body, that of sociologist Turner has been at the centre of the current upsurge of interest. Not only has he made the most extensive attempts to theorise the relationship between body and society, he is also personally very influential in the development of the area through the journal Theory, Culture and Society, its spin-off books on the body, and the newly developed journal Body and Society (started 1995). As Turner has explained (1992, p. 230), his interest in the body stemmed from his writings on the sociology of religion and medical sociology, because within both of these the body becomes problematised. In The Body and Society (1996, first published in 1984) Turner made what was the first attempt within sociology to provide a systematic theory of the body (although he argues that it is one of a trilogy of works on the body, with Religion and Social Theory (1983) and Medical Power and Social Knowledge (1987)). He proposes that the body is à problem of regulation' (1996, p. 107) for society. He draws on Parsons' use of Hobbes' concept of the problem of social order and social contract. He considers that society has four problems it has to solve to do with regulation of the body. These are `the reproduction of

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populations through time and their regulation in space, the restraint of desire as an interior body problem and the representation of bodies in social space as an issue concerning the surface of the body' (1996, p. 107). He puts forward a typology of these problems, a key writer who considered each of them, and a characteristic ìllness' associated with each dimension (this latter echoes the Parsonian idea of `the sick role' with its link between illness and society) (ibid., p. 108). Turner's theory has been highly influential in the field of work on the body, partly because of its synthetic quality, but it has also been the subject of much criticism. In particular, and not surprisingly given the Parsonian influence, it has been criticised as being a functionalist approach (Frank, 1991, p. 43; Shilling, 1993, p. 89). In an interview between Richard Fardon and Turner about Turner's work (Turner, 1992), Fardon's critique is based on the accusation that ` ``society'' is seen to respond to various needs, or requirements of human existence which are pre-cultural, pre-social and therefore natural' (ibid., p. 245). Turner defends himself by arguing that he put forward the typology as an heuristic device, which is also his original statement in The Body and Society (1996, p. 107). However, it is clear that it does suffer from the limitations of this approach. Fardon argues that this functionalism means Turner's approach to the body is ultimately foundationalist or essentialist, seeing the body as natural fact (1992, p. 251). Turner agrees that he does believe in a `shared ontology of embodiment' (1992, p. 252). Yet because his focus is on what tasks society performs on the individual body, he is also open to the criticism that he holds a `relatively disembodied view of the individual in society' (Shilling, 1993, p. 93). These criticisms taken together mean that Turner's theory is unable to deal with historical change, nor able to explain how and why different societies deal differently with these problems of the body (Shilling, 1993, p. 93). Turner's later work seeks to take a more phenomenological view of the body, perhaps in response to some of these criticisms. In the preface to Regulating Bodies (1992), he argues that he is trying to find some integration between structuralist, poststructuralist and phenomenological approaches, to `comprehend the historical evolution of the discourse about the body, to acknowledge how our perspectives on the body are the product of social constructions and to retain an appreciation for the phenomenological nature of the lived body' (1992, pp. 8±9). In one of the papers in this collection, `The Epistemology of the Hand', Turner seeks to bring these perspectives together by


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following Berger and Luckmann (1971) in linking a foundationalist ontology with a constructionist epistemology (Turner, 1992, p. 117). However, Turner does not deal with the different and potentially incompatible assumptions that underpin the social theories he uses in different places ± and he is a most prolific writer! ± to consider the body and society. Indeed, he prefers a strategy of èpistemological pragmatism' (1992, pp. 61, 239±42) to the theories he borrows ± using what seems appropriate to a particular level of analysis, interpreting them through his own lens without concern for their own contextualisation. Both Douglas's and Turner's work can be described as functionalist in orientation. Douglas's theory can be characterised as structural functionalism (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 49) as it draws heavily on the biological analogy of the organism which consists of structures which perform a function, with the parts relating to the whole through this schema in a way that characterises the ànatomising urge'. This is despite the fact that she is talking about cultural symbolism. Turner's typology can also be characterised as functionalist, this time following the approach of functional imperativism developed by the later Parsons (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 54). Both are examples of a sociology of regulation, in that they focus on social order and how this is maintained. The next two theories considered, those of Frank and Falk, attempt to break out of this functionalist paradigm. Frank proposes that his typology of body uses starts from the experience of the lived body. However, it is debatable how far he goes into a consideration of subjectivism. By drawing on Giddens' theory of structuration, Frank is unable to realise his goal of a fully phenomenological approach to the body, since Giddens' is a more structuralist than a process-related view (Turner, 1996, p. 25). Frank's theory of the body and society takes Turner's typology as its starting point. He accepts the criticisms of Turner's functionalism, yet argues that it can still be useful if one reconceptualises it as not only tasks a society must solve in relation to the individual, but also as four problems a body must solve in relation to society (1991, p. 45). In other words, this attempts to bring the phenomenological perspective back into the theory by starting from the experience of the embodied subject in a social context. This is seen as an action problem rather than a system problem (1991, p. 47), for `bodies alone have ``tasks'' ' (ibid., p. 48, original emphasis). Drawing on Giddens' structuration theory in order to conceptualise the relationship between body and society,

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Frank suggests that bodies exist among discourses (`cognitive mappings of the body's possibilities and limitations, which bodies experience as already there for their self-understanding' (ibid.)) and institutions (which have a specificity in time and space). He includes a third dimension, the corporeality of bodies ± the `flesh which is formed in the womb, transfigured (for better or worse) in its life, dies and decomposes' (ibid., p. 49). Frank proposes his own typology, which he describes as one of `body use in action' (ibid., p. 54). Here he makes an attempt to bring together a view of the body as being socially constructed as a corporeal, lived phenomena. In relation to this he concludes his paper with the statement that the body ìs not an entity, but the process of its own being' (1991, p. 96). However, the development of typologies, as Shilling points out, inevitably fails to bring a level of understanding that is processual: ìt gives us little explanation as to why people should choose to adopt particular relations to their bodies, how individuals are able to change between styles of body usage, or what wider historical conditions could influence their adoption of certain styles rather than others' (1993, p. 98). Pasi Falk's model of the body and society in The Consuming Body (1994) is highly complex and interrelated, forming a dense network of concepts and arguments which will necessarily be simplified in what follows. Falk's concern is to develop a theory of how bodily experience is related to a cultural Order (which he does not define very clearly, but links to Foucault's idea of the simultaneous operation of the practical and the discursive (Falk, 1994, p. 1)) and the construction of subjectivity. He conceptualises this through the way the boundaries of the self and the body are constituted ± through social categorisations acting simultaneously and inextricably with the sensual experience of the body ± by a reciprocal exchange of substances and concepts taken into the body, and substances and concepts also expelled or expressed from the body. This is a theory of both subjectivity and embodiment which is historically and culturally constituted. Falk's specific focus of attention is this reciprocal interchange of body and society within the modern period's emphasis on `consumption'. Consumption here encapsulates a range of meanings from eating to the material consumption of goods and on to the cultural consumption of images and representations (especially focusing on advertising and pornography). In this context Falk centres on the mouth as the main organ of consumption (eating) and expression (speech). This approach is located in a historical examination of how the `sensory


53

organization' (1994, p. 11) of the body has changed. Falk suggests that èating constitutes a receptive relationship to the outside world in terms of representations, and so does seeing ± though in different ways' (1994, p. 11). This relates to Douglas's work on pollution ± what is acceptable to be taken into the body and what is not. It also relates to Bourdieu's work on the formation of `taste' (see page 45 above). Thus the mouth is an intermediary between what is ìnside' and what is òutside', and it is also a `site of judgement' (ibid., p. 15). It is, moreover, bidirectional. Here Falk means the social exchange process of sharing. This can be seen in terms of sharing food in a meal, which is symbolic of both the material body and the creation of community (the root of the word `companion' means eating the same bread (ibid.)). Thus cultural representations are consumed along with the meal. Here Falk is also making a link with a central anthropological concept, `the gift', which has been used to encapsulate the social processes of reciprocity. Falk suggests that the pre-modern body was a (relatively) òpen' one, where boundaries between a fairly undeveloped self and society were open. Indeed, he suggests that here the individual body might be more conceptualised as a second ìnside', within the ìnside' of the community ± the collective body, which confronts the òutside' along with the community (ibid., p. 12). This can be illustrated through the communal bonds of the ritual meal. This body has been replaced with the much more `closed' modern body, which is derived from the ìdealized anatomical description of the Renaissance' body (1994, p. 25). Here the overdeveloped self is privatised, bounded from the òutside'. Shared meals have also become privatised within the family and shared eating òut', in restaurants, has become the focus of individualised choice, the expression of highly developed `taste' (the way Bourdieu defines this in relation to distinction expresses social distance and hierarchy rather than sharing) and is based on the capitalist exchange relationship of goods/services for money. The construction of ìnside' and òutside' are fundamental to Falk's theory of the body and society ± a `basic condition' his theory requires (1994, p. 11). He explains this in the following way: ìnsofar as the inside/outside difference and the mediation between these are conceived of in representational terms, the distinction involves already a notion of a subject which relates itself to the environment as culture (Order)' (1994, p. 12). This seems to me to be potentially problematical, since it places this difference as being present before its construction. This would suggest a pre-given body which already has this

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difference marked out in this way. This in itself would have problems, but is in any case an approach that Falk rejects. Indeed, as we have seen, in his thesis, inside and outside are not necessarily boundaries drawn around the individual body. Thus we are left with a particular set of differences that are representational but seem to exist externally to the historical and cultural processes that construct representations. Although Falk claims to start with the body as being both sensory and sensual, with corporeality, there is no discussion as to how this might be theorised and it seems to slip from sight rapidly under the pressure of the representational Order on which Falk tends to focus. The capitalisation of the term Òrder' seems to me to indicate that the sociology of regulation (of the body) underpins Falk's work as it does that of the other theorists discussed above. In The Body and Social Theory (1993), Chris Shilling is mainly concerned to analyse the àbsent presence' of the body in sociology (1993, p. 11) and to evaluate the literature that has developed on the body and society. However, he does explore what he describes as an outline theory of the body. His approach is via a critique of both the naturalistic (scientistic) and the social constructionist approaches to the body. He argues that both these approaches maintain the nature/ culture split with regard to the body; each taking one side of the dichotomy and dismissing the other. Thus he proposes a view of the body as àn unfinished biological and social phenomenon' (ibid., p. 12) and argues for à view of the mind and body as inextricably linked as a result of the mind's location within the body' (ibid., p. 13). Hence Shilling agrees with Turner (1992) when he argues for a foundationalist view of the body: `To begin to achieve an adequate analysis of the body we need to regard it as a material, physical and biological phenomenon which is irreducible to immediate social process or classifications'. Shilling draws on the work of Elias (1978) and Bourdieu, previously not used within the sociology of the body, as a way of overcoming the dualistic accounts he sees elsewhere. Shilling takes the view that in late modernity the body has become a `project which should be worked at and accomplished as part of an individual's self-identity' (1993, p. 3). This is the product of the `privatization of meaning' (ibid., p. 2) and the growing ability to control and change the body. From this viewpoint, he argues that death needs to be analysed as being centrally important to understanding the body in modern society. Such a perspective as this emphasises the body as process, and fits with the focus of both Elias and Bourdieu on the body as an unfinished entity (ibid., p. 127). Elias's (1978) work is concerned


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with identifying the historical processes involved in the regulation or `civilising' of the body. Bourdieu sees the body as `physical capital', which means it has become commodified but also has power and symbolic value. In particular, Bourdieu's work is concerned with the social reproduction of inequalities, and here his concept of `habitus' is significant since it encapsulates the way `body techniques' are formed in articulation with the social location of individuals. Shilling does, however, note several disadvantages of Bourdieu's work. These are that his theory is unable to deal with social and historical change; it does not include a phenomenological understanding of the `lived' body; and it has no account of gender or ethnicity. Shilling has two main criticisms of the literature on the body that he reviews. The first is that the social constructionist approach that characterises most of it does not have a material or physical account of the body because it has rejected biology and the essentialist view of the body. The second, related point, is that there is very little room in existing theories for considering the lived, sensual, phenomenological body. However, Shilling does not anywhere define what he means by a phenomenological account, and he does not refer to the philosophical tradition of phenomenology to locate his criticism. One senses a frustration that the written word ultimately cannot convey directly to the flesh the physical sensations of an other. In relation to his criticism of the dualism maintained by social constructionism, there are several problems with the way in which he reinvokes the biological body. He argues that the body has `species-specific capacities', although these change over the life cycle and the body is also open to social relationships and technical interventions that can change it. However, he argues that there are fundamental physical limitations that cannot be overcome, such as human beings not being able to fly and not being able to be in more than one place at a time. This, to my mind, does not take adequate account of differing social beliefs and constructions of the body. For example, in the witchcraft trials in western Europe, those accused of witchcraft could not rely on the defence of an alibi, since there was a common belief that while the physical body of the individual was in one place, its `familiar' could be elsewhere carrying out evil deeds. In addition, while Shilling writes about the lived body, he does not seem to take adequate account of anthropological studies which have illustrated how people use and experience their bodies very differently depending on their socialisation (see the discussion of Mauss on page 36 above). Any appeal to the biological body, in my view, also needs to consider that there is no description and `knowledge' of the

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material body within biological science which is itself not constructed through the language and lens of the `western' intellectual and scientific tradition. What Shilling inevitably falls into is speaking from a modern rationalistic, scientific perspective as if this were a `real', objective basis for understanding the body. CONCLUSIONS In this review of literature on the body I have tried to provide some contextualisation as to why there has been an explosion of interest in the body. In selecting some aspects of this body of literature to discuss, I have attempted to indicate an outline history of the study of the body, to try to show the diversity and wealth of material on the body, and how theorising about the body has itself altered over time. The debates in this chapter indicate the difficulties involved in any attempt to theorise about the body. Frequently they fall between using social constructionist arguments to demonstrate the historicity of the body, and then losing the materiality, or perhaps rather the corporeality, of a more phenomenological approach to the lived body. This illustrates the problem of cross-disciplinary dressing. Social constructionism is familiar ground to most social theorists. They are comfortable with either using it or criticising it, since it comes from within the same disciplinary field. Phenomenology comes from the field of philosophy. It has its own history, conflicts and debates (where are its borders with existentialism, structuralism and transcendentalism?). It was not developed to be linked to the social. (And on the whole not developed with more than a quick glance at the embodied subject.) Those theories that try to establish a schema for understanding the body in relation to individual and society seem to me to be based on a desire to develop a totalising theory that can encompass the parts within a whole, so that each of the parts has a function within the larger `body' of knowledge. A strong desire to organise, categorise and incise the field into classifications is apparent in these theories. This seems to be highly characteristic of the ànatomising urge'. Given these constraints, then, the above theories should be given due respect for tackling complex issues and not be criticised for not having reached a simple solution to all the problems of theorising the body. These epistemological problems and some attempt to develop a working approach for my own argument will be made in the next chapter.

3 Bodily Knowledge: An Approach to Èmbodied Subjectivity' . . . we should think in terms of transforming both the social relations of knowledge production and the type of knowledge produced. To do so requires that we tackle the fundamental questions of how and where knowledge is produced and by whom, and of what counts as knowledge. (Weedon, 1987, p. 7) . . . the perceiving mind is an incarnated mind. (Merleau-Ponty, 1989, p. 3)

INTRODUCTION There are two main parts to this chapter. The first is the development of a methodological framework to understand the political production of knowledge. This is a framework from which to examine the different threads of the ànatomising urge' and the influence of this form of knowledge and construction of the body on the development of organisation studies as an academic field. This methodological framework is largely based on Foucault's genealogical method. The second part of the chapter is the development of an epistemological framework to understand the formation of knowledge about organisations and its relationship to the body. It will be apparent from the argument of the book thus far that a close connection is perceived between theories about how one might know and understand the world, and theories about the nature of the person who knows, especially in respect to how the mind±body relationship is conceptualised. It has been argued here that the dominant and valued forms of knowledge, based on `western' science and rationality, are related to a conceptualisation of the individual `knower' which can be characterised as òbjectified disembodiment'. In other words, only the individual's mind (seen as transcendental and separate from the immanent 57

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body) is seen as being relevant to their knowledge about the world. The body is merely a passive container for the mind. Knowledge ± `true' knowledge ± itself is seen as being òbjective' and thus not associated with the (embodied) person who knows: it stands apart from the individual. The epistemological framework in this chapter sets out to suggest an alternative approach to knowledge ± knowledge of the world, of the self and of others ± which is thoroughly located in our embodied selves. It can be characterised as èmbodied subjectivity'. This framework draws mainly on the work of Merleau-Ponty (1962, 1973); Foucault (1970, 1977, 1980, 1982); Irigaray (1985a, 1985b, 1993); Young (1984, 1989); and Butler (1990, 1993). It illustrates that the ànatomising urge' is not, nor can it be, a totalising force or tradition of knowledge, despite the claims of science and rationality to universal knowledge. This epistemological framework forms the basic standpoint in the book from which the critique of the ànatomising urge' in organisation studies is made. It is hoped that it can be taken further in future work, to be operationalised in studies of embodiment and organisations, in order to further subvert the prevalence of òbjectified disembodiment' in the field. FOUCAULT AND THE GENEALOGICAL METHOD The work of Michel Foucault (1926±84) has had a powerful influence on organisation studies in recent years (for example, Burrell, 1988; McKinlay and Starkey, 1998). The main thrust of this influence has been around his conceptualisation of power, especially the notion of `discipline', and the connections seen with institutions, as evidenced in Discipline and Punish (1977). In this text, two aspects of Foucault's work which have not been so thoroughly developed in organisation studies will be considered. These are, first, his historical approach or genealogical method; and, second, his stress on the human body as the focus of social techniques and power. Before looking at the genealogical method in more detail, it is important to make some cautionary points about the use and discussion of Foucault's work. This work is subtle and complex. His writing style is dense, making much deliberate use of tropes (White, 1979). At times it can be ambiguous, impenetrable and contradictory (Sawicki, 1991). In reading English versions of Foucault's writings (as with those of Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray, discussed below) I am obviously subject to the difficulties inherent in any academic work that uses sources

An Approach to Èmbodied Subjectivity'

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in translation. Much academic effort has been expended in the debate on, and the attempt to elucidate, the meanings of Foucault's key works, and many commentators have taken it upon themselves to classify this work, dividing it into different `periods' and assessing the consistency of thought between different writings (Burrell, 1988; Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982). This is despite the fact that Foucault himself explicitly aimed to avoid this sort of academic categorisation.1 Given this background it would be naõÈve to suggest that it is unproblematic to interpret or use this work. For the purposes of this argument, I draw on related themes across Foucault's work which I choose to weave together. I will therefore not dwell on the differing interpretations that are made between, for example, Foucault's comments on discourse in his àrchaeological' and his `genealogical' periods. The objectives of this project centre around the sort of knowledge that is produced about organisations and organising. Specifically, the research questions assumptions about the human body that have been incorporated tacitly into the discipline, and which mean that the body itself is an àbsent presence': prevalent through images of the anatomised organism but almost entirely absent in relation to embodied identity and experience. Thus Foucault's concern to understand the conditions of knowledge production, a concern that underpins the diversity of his work, is also one that is central to this book. Foucault believed that, rather than there being objective and universal knowledge or `truth', there are only constructed truth claims. For Foucault, ` ``truth'' is a historical product and therefore no knowledge is absolute' (Hollway, 1989, p. 41). However, because it is constructed does not mean that it has no material effects. On the contrary: `the exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power' (Foucault, 1980, p. 52). Thus, for Foucault, knowledge formation is inextricably bound up with power: hence his common use of `power/knowledge' as a key concept. However, Foucault is unhappy with the way that power is generally conceptualised in social theory as `repressive, as emanating from the top downwards, either through governmental and social elites, state and/or class interests' (Fitzsimons, 1994, p. 124). Foucault indicates that the problem with this is that ìt allows power to be only ever thought in negative terms: refusal, delimitation, obstruction, censure. Power is that which says no' (1979, p. 53). Rather than this formulation, Foucault works from the need to understand how power `produces things . . . induces pleasure . . . forms knowledge . . . produces

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discourse' (1979, p. 36). In Foucault's theory, power is exercised (not possessed) in all social relations, and is analysed from the bottom up. From a feminist perspective, McNeil (1993, p. 169) notes it is important that this formulation is not taken at face value but, in order for it to be meaningful, the precise relationship of power and knowledge are investigated in any specific context. Thus it is imperative that we study how knowledge is produced, by and for whom, and how this knowledge becomes legitimised (Weedon, 1987, p. 7, chapter heading). It is this challenge I intend to take up in analysing the construction of discourses around organisation theory and the body. The focus Foucault puts on knowledge formation has sometimes been taken as a failure to engage adequately with practice. This reading of Foucault is exacerbated by his use of `discourse' as a central concept, which has led to the classification of him as a post-structuralist, and a critique that he focuses on language rather than materiality. This, to my mind, is a misreading of Foucault. In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), he talks of `no longer treating discourses as groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents or representations) but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak' (1972, p. 49). What he is concerned to do is to remove the assumptions that we have about how things are, to question how certain relationships, objects and definitions have come to seem as if they are natural and inevitable. In describing discursive formations, what Foucault at this point was to call the archaeological method was àlways in the plural; it operates in a great number of registers; it crosses interstices and gaps; it has its domains where unities are juxtaposed, separated, fix their crests, confront one another, and accentuate the whitespaces between one another' (1972, p. 157). As well as the discursive formations, the archaeological method is concerned to look at the non-discursive practices surrounding them, that might include, for example, àn institutional field, a set of events, practices, and political decisions, a sequence of economic processes' (ibid.). McNay (1992) argues that Foucault changes the emphasis of the relationship between the discursive and the non-discursive in his later `genealogical' method, but the important point is his challenge to the dualism of language and `reality', in that `the discursive and the material are linked together in a symbiotic relationship' (1992, p. 27). As Braidotti puts it: `What really interests Foucault is the materiality of ideas' ± the fact that they exist in an in-between space caught in a network of material and symbolic conditions, between the text and


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history, between theory and practice, and never in any of these poles' (Braidotti, 1994a, p. 126). Since organisation theory is the production of discourse or knowledge about organisations, work and workers, in Foucault's terms it is not simply the production of words about these objects, separate from and merely descriptive or reflective of them, but is also the construction of the objects themselves. The production of the knowledge simultaneously produces the object of that knowledge. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Taylor's `scientific management' which, using the privileged language of science and rationality, has shaped and continues to shape the contours of factory organisation in ways that are certainly not experienced as `neutral' or òbjective' in their power effects. However, even work that is not so directly connected into constructing the knowledge and practice of managers has a similarly material effect. Two effects of this that are central to this book are that organisations are constructed as entities which mimic the characteristics of organisms, and, second, that organisations are constructed using the language of the mind and of rationality both of which exclude the body and embodiment. Foucault's genealogical method, then, is à form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history' (Foucault, 1980, p. 117). However, it is important not to characterise Foucault's method as a traditional historical approach, since it is quite distinctive and different from conventional history. Indeed, he eschews the `naiveteÂ of chronologies' which search for the `secret origin' of a particular aspect of history (1972, p. 25). For history itself is a form of discourse with its own effects. He distinguishes his view of history as being èffective history' (following Nietzsche). Rather than looking for a comprehensive picture of continuous linear development, Foucault argues that `History becomes `èffective'' to the degree that it introduces discontinuity into our very being ± as it divides our emotions, dramatises our instincts, multiplies our body and sets it against itself. `Èffective'' history deprives the self of the reassuring stability of life and nature, and it will not permit itself to be transported by a voiceless obstinacy toward a millennial ending. It will uproot its traditional foundations and relentlessly disrupt its pretended continuity. This is because knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting' (Foucault, 1984, p. 88).

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Several comments can be drawn from this exposition of Foucault's view of history. The first is that, in view of the arguments developed here, Foucault's language has much in common with that of the ànatomising urge'. The wish to dismantle and the concern with discontinuities could be read as a desire to divide and categorise. Indeed, specifically referring to this metaphor among others, Barker comments that òften at the level of metaphor there are signs of Foucault's entrapment within theoretical perspectives that were the object of his genealogies' (1993, p. 75). However, in the context of Foucault's challenge to enlightenment thought, this perspective on knowledge is transformed into something much more transgressive. The reason Foucault wishes to cut up knowledge is because it is the `false unity' (McNay, 1994, p. 88), the `transcendental teleology' (Foucault, 1984, p. 89) of conventional history, that disguises the operations of power/knowledge. Because `the world we know is not this ultimately simple configuration where events are reduced to accentuate their essential traits, their final meaning, or their initial and final value. On the contrary, it is a profusion of entangled events' (ibid.). Thus Foucault wants to make us aware of the complexities, diversities and differences that are usually obscured by a totalising or singular discourse of history as a true representation of the past. In this, Foucault focuses on the body as an important subject for èffective history': `We believe, in any event, that the body obeys the exclusive laws of physiology and that it escapes the influence of history, but this too is false. The body is moulded by a great many distinct regimes; it is broken down by the rhythms of work, rest, and holidays; it is poisoned by food or values; it constructs resistances' (1984, p. 87). In fact, Foucault's work examines the influence of anatomy and biology for the development of the dominant intellectual tradition (as seen in The Birth of the Clinic (1973) and The Order of Things (1970)). He is highly critical of this intellectual tradition and his work seeks to illustrate the relations of power embedded in its supposedly neutral and rational discourses. Thus in his genealogical method he is looking for the field of relations around a discourse, but not accepting the conventional boundaries to any discourse that assume it to be a unity. Thus genealogy is distinct from history in that it does not seek to reconstruct the past, or rather, portray the illusion that this is what it does. Rather, it is directed towards finding traces of the present in the past (Burrell, 1988, p. 225) or, as Barker puts it, genealogical analysis is carried out òn the basis of a present question' (1998, p. 22).


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It is worth considering briefly one criticism that has been made of Foucault's method, by Fraser (1989), among others. This is that he claims to critique humanism, yet from what standpoint can he do so without the problem of cutting away his own ground from underneath him? I suggest that Foucault's point would be that there is no external standpoint from where he can conduct his critique, for that idea itself continues to ascribe to the view that there can be neutral and transcendent knowledge divorced from the person who knows. Thus Foucault's work is inevitably another example of the operation of power/knowledge: `the knower, far from being outside of all contexts, is produced by the practices he [sic] sets out to analyse' (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982, p. 166). Ìnternalist' and èxternalist' accounts of knowledge production are therefore based on a false distinction: in the one case, the development of constructs is reduced to a non-social sphere of texts, ideas and discourses, and in the other to extra-intellectual factors and structures' (Hoy, 1986, p. 10). To criticise Foucault for not producing an objective standpoint is to miss the point of the critique of the discourse of rationality and to ignore Foucault's explicit aim to examine the conditions of the production of knowledge. Other commentators, such as Dean (1994) and Hoy (1986), see this as a strength rather than a weakness of Foucault's thought. Dean comments that, `the history of the present is, above all, a new form of criticism, able to induce critical effects and new insights without grounding itself in a system of values exterior to the domain and object under analysis' (1994, p. 36). Hoy adds that genealogy is à plausible method of immanent social criticism, one that can work without presupposing an independent, utopian standpoint. As a genealogist Foucault is able to diagnose the organizing trends of our culture only because he, too, is subjected to them' (Hoy, 1986, pp. 13±14). In this text I also propose that I cannot stand outside the relations of power/knowledge which constitute the discourses of organisation theory. Indeed, one fear I have in centring this work on a descriptor such as the ànatomising urge' is that it also becomes a unitary, totalising discourse within which all aspects of the argument, all facets of organisation theory, are subsumed as if they were the same. This is also one of the difficulties of the image of weaving, since it can evoke the picture of disparate materials being drawn together and woven into a homogeneous cloth. What I would like to retain is some sense of the differences of texture and pattern of each of the fabrics within the present work. So perhaps patchwork is a more appropriate metaphor? But this uses fabrics made by others, whereas weaving uses a homespun thread.

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The problem this discussion highlights is that all attempts to construct discourse contain the òther' of their intention. Language is not innocent, nor can it be separated from the conditions, material and ideational, of its own making. This is something Foucault recognises, and the convolutions, recursions and inversions of his style of discourse are some attempt simultaneously to both catch and evade this point. Foucault's genealogy is focused on the reactivation of subjugated knowledges ± those pushed aside by that which has come to be accepted as `truth'. This is not to imply that these marginalised knowledges are superior in any way, but rather that there are other ways of thinking, doing and saying. As we have seen, Foucault does not believe it is possible for the theorist to speak from a position that is exterior to power/knowledge; thus, for him, àll the intellectual can do is focus on the possibility of transforming their own thought and perhaps the thought of others' (Barker, 1998, p. 31). Finally, to sum up the salient features of the methodological framework drawn from Foucault's work: first, there is the emphasis on conditions of knowledge production and the operation of power involved in this; and second, there is the method of studying power/ knowledge through considering `discursive formations' in the field of organisation studies. However, this is taken to include the interconnections between events, practices, institutions and language ± `the materiality of ideas' (Braidotti, 1994a, p. 126) ± not only the last of these. Third, there is the significance of history in understanding the conditions of knowledge production, not in the sense of reconstructing historical `truth', but rather using history in order to understand the `present question' (Barker, 1998, p. 22). ÈMBODIED SUBJECTIVITY': A FRAMEWORK In the Introduction and Chapter 1, I have discussed the prevalent use and assumptions embodied in the phrase `the body'. Here I want to start to develop an alternative view, centring on the lived embodied experience of the social subject. It seems to me that three elements need to be considered in developing a model of embodied subjectivity. First, there is a consideration of lived embodiment. This means that the materiality of human existence must be recovered from the Cartesian split between body and mind, and from the philosophical dualism between immanence and transcendence. However, understanding embodiment as material corporeality also needs to avoid falling into


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biological determinism or essentialism, which stem from scientific positivism and the prevalence of that approach to knowledge (of the body) I characterise as the ànatomising urge'. Second, there is the need to recognise a politics of the body, which emphasises that corporeal and material embodiment are themselves irreducibly intercorporeal and social. Third, there is a need to acknowledge the specificity of embodiment. This challenges the unitary idea of `the body' as a universal material object (yet a universal which tends to cloak the dominant norm of the white male body) and recognises a multiplicity of differences while also allowing that embodied experience is socially and culturally mediated. In what follows, a model of embodiment is constructed from the intersection of the work on body image by Schilder, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, Foucault's micropolitics of the body, and feminist theorising around the construction of bodily differences. None of these theories is taken uncritically. None is wholly immune from the objectification of the body, the privileging of the mind or the construction of a bodily norm that excludes different bodily identities from that of the white male. However, each has a different contribution to make to our understanding of embodiment and to the development of a means of theorising knowledge centred on corporeality in a way that is radically different from the disembodied assumptions of Cartesianism. Body images The conceptualisation of `body image' in the work of psychology and phenomenology (especially that of Schilder and Merleau-Ponty) is a way of describing the experience of embodiment so that `mind' and `body', or `body' and `self ' are not separated in the traditional Cartesian format. It also challenges conventional dualisms in that embodiment is seen as being simultaneously individual and social: a mode of `being-in-the-world' as expressed by Merleau-Ponty. Body image refers to our experience of our own bodies in space. It is related to the co-ordination of our body movements, bringing the parts of the body together into an integrated whole which anticipates and responds to other people, objects and our environment. The neurologist, Sir Henry Head, first introduced the expression `the postural model of the body' and drew attention to the functions of this body image in providing both stability and adaptability (Weiss, 1999, p. 9).

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Freud's concept of the ègo-ideal', as an idealised image of the self, can be seen as contributing to the development of subsequent work on body-image. Freud's ego-ideal is not purely a cognitive phenomenon (an unconscious projection), as Freud suggests that it should `be regarded as a mental projection of the surface of the body', a projection that is ùltimately derived from bodily sensations' (1961, p. 26). Freud also notes the social rather than individual nature of the egoideal: ìn addition to its individual side, this ideal has a social side; it is also the common ideal of a family, a class or a nation' (1957, p. 101). However, it is work by Schilder and Merleau-Ponty which develops the concept of the body image in such a way that it may be useful for a model of embodied subjectivity. Although both Merleau-Ponty and Schilder wrote much on notions of disturbed body image ± such phenomena as aphasia (loss of speech or understanding of language caused by brain damage) and phantom limbs (the continuing somatic experience of a body part that has actually been removed) ± their work has much to say about the experience of embodiment in everyday life. Merleau-Ponty and Schilder both emphasise that body image is not simply a mechanical response to the need to relate one's body to the demands of living in physical space. Both see body image as being closely related to the development of the self (discussed below in relation to the `mirror stage'), to past experiences and future projections, to fantasy and imagination, and to intersubjective relationships with other people and to society more broadly defined. In this way, body image can be seen as connecting the physiological, psychological and social aspects of personhood. It leads us to an appreciation of lived experience as embodiment in its fullest sense. Body image is developed as a child gradually becomes aware of his/ her body as an integrated experience, differentiated from an èxternal' world. Yet, paradoxically, it is the experience of seeing one's body `from the outside', in the mirror, that facilitates this awareness of the body `from the inside'. In this `mirror stage', Merleau-Ponty argues that the child has to solve the spatial problems involved in the recognition of the mirror image as being of him/herself but not in fact being the self. Thus there is the experience of distance, even of alienation, between the self and the mirror image, yet at the same time this sense of distance about one's own body image also facilitates the ability to be able to identify with others who are also at a distance from one's experience of self. Thus, for Merleau-Ponty, the mirror stage is not only a subjective experience but also, and significantly, an intersubjective one. Merleau-Ponty's account of the mirror stage thus provides a


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way of understanding Schilder's statements of how `the body image is a social phenomenon' and that `there exists a deep community between one's own body-image and the body-images of others' (Schilder, 1978, p. 217). Because body image is developed in relation to self and others, social representations and psychological projections, it is multiple and processual. In Schilder's view, constant interaction between the body images of different people make it difficult to distinguish rigidly between body images. Through his work, a picture is built up of a process of construction/destruction/reconstruction of body image, although Schilder also stresses that we aim to keep our body image (at least partially) constant. Weiss (1999) further develops an approach to the multiplicity of body image. She argues that `the multiplicity of body images that we possess, rather than signifying a fragmented or dispersed identity, is, paradoxically, precisely what helps us to develop a coherent sense of self. More specifically, insofar as these multiple body images are themselves generated out of the variety of situations in which we find ourselves, they enable us to develop fluid and flexible responses to them. Moreover, I would add, it is the ongoing exchange that occurs between body images, an exchange that unfolds at the very moment that one body image imperceptibly gives way to another, which provides us with a sense of intercorporeal continuity, a continuity that is reinforced through our concrete relations with others' (Weiss, 1999, p. 167). Here Weiss is pointing to a complex interplay between a desire to maintain structure and coherence, but also the fluidity and multiplicity of our corporeal experience and relationships with others. Weiss uses the notion of multiple body images to argue that the obsession of the anorexic person with having a thin body is related to a too fixed and static body image, rather than in a failure to have an accurate or stable enough body image, as is often assumed. The problem is instead one of not being able to deal with multiplicity, fluidity and ambiguity. This understanding of body image as fluid and multiple is thus a view of the body that is quite different from the emphasis of anatomy and scientific rationality. However, the centrality of maintaining coherence, structure and boundary through processes such as àbjection' (Kristeva, 1982) to the construction of our `western' sense of selves, is one that is not limited to the anorexic body image. The prevalence of these processes will be discussed in more detail in Chap-

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ter 5, as a social process rather than as a universal or natural feature of body image or subjectivity. Neither Schilder nor Merleau-Ponty pays much attention to the social and political consequences of the interaction between body image, subjectivity and social influences. Weiss develops the concept of body image in such a way as to consider these issues, starting from the insights given by Fanon's account of the corporeal experience of being black in Black Skin White Masks (1967). Fanon argues that black men and women (although he does not address the specifically gendered experience of black women's embodiment) face constant conflict in their attempt to create their own coherent body schema from the construction of them by an imposed `historico-racial schema' (1967, p. 111). Through this structured social schema Fanon describes himself as constructed as `The Black Man', which makes him `responsible at the same time for my body, my race, for my ancestors' (1967, p. 112).2 Thus black people learn to internalise the `myth of the negro', where they are perceived as `savages, brutes, illiterates'. The consequence of this is a feeling of `shame and self-contempt. Nausea' (1967, p. 116), so that he experiences his own body, `his own blackness as the not-self, as that which resists all attempts to achieve corporeal closure' (Weiss, 1999, p. 29). There is a profound alienation from his own body, which Weiss argues is because of the fixity or overdetermination of one part or aspect of the body, in this case skin-colour (ibid.). Weiss (1999) makes what I see as an extremely important point when she argues that: `Without an adequate understanding of the crucial role that the body image plays in reflecting and sustaining individual, social, and political inequalities, there is a danger that positive social and political changes will not address the individual's own corporeal existence in the intimate manner necessary to move successfully towards the eradication of sexism, racism, classism, ageism and ethnocentrism' (1999, p. 10). This is of central concern to the development of an epistemological framework for my argument and one that will be returned to in detail in the final section of this chapter. Phenomenology of the body Some aspects of Merleau-Ponty's work have been discussed in relation to the concept of `body image'. However, his significance is more farreaching than this and his phenomenology of the body can be seen as the most comprehensive basis for an alternative perspective on the body and knowledge to the ànatomising urge'. Indeed, Williams and


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Bendelow argue that òf all the figures in the history of western thought, it is perhaps the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty who has done the most to overturn the Cartesian dualist legacies of the past' (1998, p. 51). Exploring Merleau-Ponty's work in more detail enables further development of the conceptualisation of èmbodied subjectivity'. In critiquing Cartesian dualism, Merleau-Ponty3 also formulated phenomenology in a quite different way from those of other phenomenological philosophers such as Husserl. Husserl saw the important work of phenomenology as describing the structures of consciousness that are the universal, absolute meanings constituted by the `transcendental ego'. He bracketed off (epocheÂ) the world, or the objects of consciousness.4 In relation to the subject, Merleau-Ponty disagrees fundamentally with this approach, seeing rather `lived experience' as being central to phenomenology. Merleau-Ponty sees phenomenology as a radical philosophy which should àlert us, for example, to the fact that ideas are never absolutely pure thoughts but rather, cultural objects necessarily linked to acts of expression whose source is the phenomenal body itself as already primordially expressive' (Langer, 1989, p. xv, my emphasis). Although Husserl would argue that his approach was not intended to deny the world of objects, MerleauPonty saw this phenomenological reduction as remaining within the terms of the Cartesian cogito, where that which thinks is entirely separate from the material world and the body, that which is merely extended. For Merleau-Ponty, `to be a body is to be tied to a certain world' (1962, p. 148) for perception of the world is always embodied perception, since `the perceiving mind is an incarnated mind' (1989, p. 3). Unlike Descartes' dream of a consciousness and therefore a knowledge that is divorced from the individual subject, which is timeless and universal, Merleau-Ponty argues that there can be no perception in general, because the body is not separate from the world. This is an especially important point in relation to the present argument. It indicates a view of the world that is different from the dominant perspective within the `western' intellectual tradition, which insists on creating incisions between mind and body, individual and the world, scientific knowledge and lived experience, which then lead to the pattern of dualisms already discussed in the Introduction. MerleauPonty's conceptualisation of the relationship is rather one of connectivity and symbiosis. Langer gives us a succinct explanation of Merleau-Ponty's embodied epistemology compared to either Cartesian idealist or positivist philosophies. In doing so, she also encapsulates his position on the

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relationship of the embodied subject to knowledge of the world: Èxistential philosophy . . . rejects the Platonic±Cartesian±Hegelian ideal of eternal truth or absolute knowledge on the one hand and, on the other, the positivistic levelling which insists on objectivity and calculation. Contending that both approaches are abstract and inadequate for an understanding of our being-in-the-world, existential philosophy seeks to awaken us to an awareness of our fundamental involvement in a natural±cultural±historical milieu. It stresses that we are not neutral observers but rather, situated participants in an ongoing, open-ended, socio-historical drama. It claims that truth comes into being in our concrete co-existence with others and cannot be severed from language and history' (Langer, 1989, p. ix). In many ways this resonates with Foucault's approach to history and discourse, discussed above. Another way in which Merleau-Ponty's thought defies dualisms is through his conceptualising the body as `reversible'. This emphasises how the body is both sentient and sensible, sees and is seen, hears and is heard, touches and is touched. These interconnections are intrinsic to the body-subject, which has an active, embodied, habitual relation to the world of which it is always already a part (his use of the phrase `being-in-the-world' encapsulates this position). In his last major work, the uncompleted The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty designates the unity of this body-subject which defies dualisms as `flesh'. This is neither idea nor matter, subject nor object. Since it is `reversible' there is no meaning that is not embodied, nor any matter that is not meaningful ± a direct critique of the Cartesian position. This also means that there is no òutside'. This is a radical suggestion, which is useful in conceptualising an òther' to conventional philosophy. Within this book it can also be seen as providing a counterpoint to the creation and maintenance of boundaries, which is one facet of the ànatomising urge'. Merleau-Ponty argues that there is no separate `mental' realm distinct from bodily action ± intelligence, perception, purpose and so on are all embodied actions. This contrasts to the Cartesian position which `defines perception as an inner representation of an outer world of given objects, thus giving rise to the subject/object dualism and all the problems this involves' (Williams and Bendelow, 1998, p. 52). Merleau-Ponty points this out in relation to the embodied act of seeing: `For there to be perception, that is, the apprehension of an existence, it is absolutely necessary that the object not be completely given to the look which rests on it, that aspects intended but not possessed in the present perception be kept in reserve. A seeing which


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would take place from a certain point of view and which would give us, for example, all the sides of a cube at once is pure contradiction in terms; for, in order to be visible all together, the sides of a wooden cube would have to be transparent, that is, would cease to be the sides of a wooden cube' (1967, pp. 212±13). However, it seems to me that this is exactly what the ànatomising urge' attempts to do ± it tries to render the body visible, inside and out, thus attempting to deny the impossibility the body gives of seeing everything at once, of knowing an unencumbered `truth' by fragmenting it, killing it and turning it into an object rather than a subject. Merleau-Ponty recognises the historical and social bases of embodied actions. He discusses the concept of `habit' ± acquired and socialised skills, gestures and techniques ± and says that they are derived from a social `habitus'. In The Phenomenology of Perception he provides some examples of culturally variable forms of affect and expression (1962, p. 189; Crossley, 1995, p. 53). In addition, Merleau-Ponty ìdentifies social, embodied action with the production of meaning. Meaning is not produced by a transcendental or constituting consciousness but by an engaged body-subject' (Crossley, 1996, p. 101). The development of the habits, routines and regimes of the bodysubject is an intersubjective process. It requires communication between body-subjects and thus becomes involved in language and symbolic processes. Again, these are not distinct processes, but, rather, are intertwined with each other. Thus Merleau-Ponty argues: Ìf I am only a cogito, I am absolutely alone; if I am only mechanical meat, I cannot be alone because the concept has lost all meaning' (Dillon, 1988, p. 128). Thus intersubjectivity can only be achieved through an embodied subjectivity, never through the transcendental Cartesian cogito. Merleau-Ponty's intersubjectivity recognises that the body of the self is separate from the body of the other person, and therefore there is a difference in the way each experiences his/her own body and that of the other person. Thus a person cannot feel the same pain as the other, cannot share the same space, and the death of one does not presuppose the death of the other. This embodied ontology allows the possibility of brutality and dehumanisation of the other, but it is also, argues Merleau-Ponty, the only possible basis for human exchange and love across the space that separates people (Dillon, 1988, pp. 128±9). However, Merleau-Ponty recognises that Cartesianism is not simply the dominant philosophical tradition, but that it has also had a con-

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siderable impact on how we develop understanding of our selves as subjects and as bodies. `Since the living body has ceased to be the visible expression of our being-in-the-world and become instead a machine, subjectivity lost its anchor and became a disembodied consciousness surveying the world. Perception of others and co-existence with them became impossible. Since the body of the other, like our own, had been converted into an automaton, we could at best infer the existence of another consciousness which, like ours, was disembodied (and hence lacking particularity). But this meant constituting the other consciousness ± thus reducing it to the status of an object in our world. Solipsism was unavoidable and the consciousness of the scientist became the universal constituting subject for whom the entire world lay spread out. In short, intersubjectivity and perception collapsed into solitary thought: the self dissolved into the transcendental subject' (Langer, 1989, pp. 16±17). In other words, the pure universal consciousness so valued in the Cartesian world view cannot adequately conceive of difference, only of the same, and the same eventually collapses into the self-same: solipsism. This normalisation of the identical will be further discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. Social bodies Before turning to the work of Foucault on the body ± widely seen as the most significant theoretical influence on the burgeoning interest in the body in social theory ± the relationship between Merleau-Ponty and Foucault's theories should be considered, since they have often been considered to have incompatible approaches to embodiment. Turner, developing his own theoretical perspective on the body, has said that `these two traditions ± structuralist5 and phenomenologist ± need not face us necessarily with an exclusionary theoretical choice' (1992, p. 95). However, his means of combining them is one of èpistemological pragmatism' (1992, pp. 61, 239±42). Crossley (1994, 1995, 1996) has produced a more theoretically sound account of the relationship between the two. Crossley's work on intersubjectivity does not gloss over the differences between Foucault and Merleau-Ponty, but creates a space where each can be used to inform and develop the other. The main aspects of their different perspectives on the body can now be looked at, utilising Crossley's approach to a common theoretical space. One of the relevant debates about the body has been whether it is the ìnscribed body' (associated with Foucault) or the `lived body' (asso-


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ciated with Merleau-Ponty). Crossley argues that we do not have to choose ± either between views of the body or between the two theorists, since they are two sides of the same coin, instead of being completely incommensurable.6 He suggests that both Foucault and MerleauPonty see the body as being `both active and acted upon (by other bodies) . . . The body as a mastered and self-aware being is . . . formed in this interstice' (1996, p. 114). Foucault tends to be weaker on seeing the active body, and Merleau-Ponty tends to be weaker on seeing it as acted upon. In terms of the former he argues that Foucault's focus on resistance depends on the active body: ìt is because body-power (as a spatial phenomenon) harnesses the action of those whom it subjects, that those subjects are in a position to resist' (1996, p. 107). As he comments, Merleau-Ponty and Foucault are united in their articulation of the neglect of the body in philosophy and in their opposition to the idea of the body as mere object. The differences between MerleauPonty and Foucault, according to Crossley (1994, 1996), are ones of emphasis, and not of incommensurability. I find his argument persuasive. He suggests that Merleau-Ponty understands historical behaviour or `habitus' in relation to existential functions, as ways of `being-inthe-world', whereas Foucault sees them in terms of being political functions. He also suggests that there is a difference in their temporal focus which tends to produce differences of emphasis. Merleau-Ponty is interested in the constitution of the body-subject on a day-to-day basis, while Foucault considers a much longer time-frame. It may be that Crossley underplays the differences between the two theorists, but it can certainly be seen from this discussion that, by bringing together some aspects of their work, a rich theoretical approach to the conceptualisation of èmbodied subjectivity' can be attained. We now turn to look at Foucault's contribution to an understanding of embodiment in more detail. Foucault sees the human body in a radically non-essentialist way. He argues that `nothing in man [sic] ± not even his body ± is sufficiently stable to serve as a basis for self-recognition or understanding other men' (Foucault, 1984, pp. 87±8). Thus there is no biological entity that determines the nature of the individual, and there is certainly no connection between ànatomy' and `destiny'. Rather, the body is `the inscribed surface of events' and thus `totally imprinted by history' (Foucault, 1984, p. 83). This is a power that is productive as well as potentially repressive, thus pleasure can produce power effects as much as pain, and probably more effectively. Indeed, the operation of the `microphysics of power' can be seen as clearly in Foucault's History of

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Sexuality (1981) as it can in Discipline and Punish (1977). Foucault characterises these operations of power on the body as `biopower', of which there are two main axes: the anatomo-politics of the individual body and the biopolitics of the social body. One of these poles ± the first to be formed, it seems ± centred on the body as a machine: its disciplining, the optimisation of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness and its docility, its integration into systems of efficient and economic controls, all of this was ensured by the procedures of power that characterised the disciplines: an anatomo-politics of the human body. The second, formed somewhat later, focused on the speciesbody, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that cause these to vary. Their supervision was effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls: a biopolitics of the population. (Foucault, 1981, p. 139) The relevance of these ideas to organisation theory is clearly apparent. Certainly, disciplinary power, the production of docile bodies trained through the continuous performance of physical routines and techniques (`dressage'), is central to the capitalist labour process. Some aspects of this have been brought out in a paper by Jackson and Carter (1998). However, the important departure in Foucault's work is the internalisation of this physical discipline, so that there is not the separate Cartesian body and mind ± the two are bound up together: the operation of power simultaneously producing subjectivity. This is seen in `panopticism' through the self-discipline of `the gaze' (Discipline and Punish, 1977). These arguments are developed and extended in The History of Sexuality (1981) and the later work on `technologies of the self' (1988). Here, notions of the `confession', whereby the characteristics of the self are spoken aloud and compared to a normalised version of the self and the body, are significant. The contemporary operation of the Christian pattern can be seen in psychoanalysis, sex counselling (and its DIY versions in manuals and videos), child-rearing advice and expertise,7 and health and hygiene advice (even advertisements can create an internalised feeling that one òught' to lead one's life in a particular way). Townley (1994) has applied these insights in relation to human resource management techniques, although with much more emphasis on the production of


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subjectivity than on the body. Burrell's (1984, 1988) work contributes an application of Foucauldian understanding of the control of the body to organisation theory, although he does not develop an explicit theoretical approach to the body. It could be argued that so far work in organisation theory that has taken the body as its subject, has taken it for its object, since the focus has been on the body as an object of control. Where the work of Foucault has been drawn upon, it too has been emphasised in such a way as to reinforce this perspective. However, the present work does not try to do any more than briefly sketch out a possible approach for organisation studies to take to a phenomenological view of bodies, or rather embodiment. Èmbodiment' suggests an emphasis on the lived, active body-subject rather than the `body' as inert matter ± an object. What I have chosen to focus on, perhaps as a precursor to work on a phenomenology of the body in organisations, is the history of the discipline as one that has systematically written out the experience of the body. It is not surprising that this accusation of treating the body as an object of control can be made of Foucauldian organisation theory, since it is also frequently made of Foucault himself. For example, Turner (1996, pp. 73±4) argues that there are contradictions in Foucault's treatment of the body. He says that sometimes he treats it as if it were a `real' object, continuous over time and culture ± for example, in the effects of population growth on scientific thought, or the effect of penology on the body. At other times he argues that the body is constructed by discourse. Shilling also criticises Foucault's approach to the body, classifying him as part of the social constructionist tradition, for seeing the body as a product of discourses. He says that this, despite Foucault's wish to see the body as an historical construct, means that the body becomes à transhistorical and cross-cultural unified phenomena' (1997, p. 79). This is because what Shilling means by discourse is limited to language and classificatory systems, which he argues are not important in other cultures or historical periods that are not so `logocentric' (here he invokes Elias). However, as we have seen, Foucault's use of discourse is much broader than this, and is centred on material effects and the differences of different historical and cultural traditions. Shilling also argues that Foucault's epistemological view of the body means that the material body disappears. He argues that `the physical, material body can never be grasped by the Foucauldian approach as its existence is permanently deferred behind the grids of meaning imposed by discourse' (ibid.). Again, I feel that this is a partial reading of Foucault. I cannot agree

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that Foucault fails to show the lived power that marks and shapes sensory experiences, and would take the execution of the regicide and the dressage of the body in Discipline and Punish (1977) as examples of this par excellence. Bodies and differences One pertinent criticism that can be made of both Foucault and Merleau-Ponty is that they fail to go far enough, or perhaps to be specific enough, in their recognition that there are multiple bodies that are historically and socially constituted.8 The final section of this chapter looks at the contribution feminist theory has made to understanding embodied subjectivity in a way that does not continue to treat the body-subject as a `non-gendered' generic individual, as Merleau-Ponty and Foucault tend to do. Although gender may seem to be just an optional add-on to the idea of èmbodied subjectivity', certainly given the attitudes of most (male) philosophers and social theorists, it illustrates the last vestiges of Cartesianism in their thinking. For, as has already been discussed in the Introduction, the female is associated with the body to the exclusion of their participation in any of the spheres that philosophers have deemed to be of the most value: the mind (as split from the body via the Cartesian cogito), thus the transcendental subjectivity still apparent in Kant, Hegel, the idealist strand of Weber's thought, and the phenomenology of Husserl. With their exclusion in multiple discourses of the `western' intellectual tradition, women have also been excluded materially from political and social rights as reasoned citizens, and from the worlds of science and knowledge. From this it will become apparent that the failure of MerleauPonty and Foucault to consider the specificity of the gendered body is a fundamental critique of their own positions in reconceptualising `western' thought. Some feminist writers have dismissed them out of hand because of this omission, where others have sought to develop their work in such a way that it can be used to inform both feminist scholarship and practice. In relation to the development of a feminist phenomenology of the body, I will discuss some aspects of the work of Iris Marion Young. I will also briefly consider the relevance of the writings of Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler in developing a feminist critique of the `western' intellectual tradition and an approach to embodied subjectivity. Young has tried explicitly to develop and extend Merleau-Ponty's work on embodiment in relation to the lived experience of women.


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Two papers are of particular interest: `Throwing Like A Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility and Spatiality' (1989 [1980]), and `Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation' (1984). In the first, Young implicitly criticises Merleau-Ponty's understanding of transcendence and immanence, while in the second this critique is more explicitly developed. In her paper `Throwing Like A Girl' (1989 [1980]), Iris Marion Young seeks a theoretical path through the difficulties of acknowledging that there are differences between the genders in physical comportment and movement (illustrated by the differences seen in girls and boys throwing and catching a ball)9 and yet not reducing these to ahistorical biological essentialism or anatomical determinism. She develops an understanding of the lived experience of female embodied subjectivity. In doing this she describes how the typical (untrained) woman's body is conducted in sports activities. A woman's movements are less fluid and directed, less extended and responsive, and use only a part rather than the whole body compared to those of a typical (untrained) man (1989, p. 57). She also notes that women do not expand their bodies into the physical space available to them, and that female existence is experienced as being more confining and enclosed. Merleau-Ponty, in contradistinction to the dominant trend of philosophers before him, posits the body as the transcendental being-foritself, the place previously reserved for consciousness. In this, the `transcendence of the lived body . . . is a transcendence which moves out from the body in its immanence in an open and unbroken directness upon the world in action. The lived body as transcendence is pure fluid action' (Young, 1989, p. 59). But the female lived bodily experience is one of hesitation, of not quite trusting the capacity of her body. Young argues that àccording to Merleau-Ponty, for the body to exist as a transcendent presence to the world and the immediate enactment of intentions, it cannot exist as an object' (1989, p. 61). However, she maintains that women often live their bodies as things that are like other things in the world ± objects ± and thus remain (at least partially) in immanence, inhibited and distanced from them. Young holds that women's experiences of comportment, movement and spatiality are common, to greater or lesser degrees, to women in contemporary urban societies because `women in sexist society are physically handicapped' (1989, p. 65). There are innumerable ways in which culture and socialisation produce the objectification of the female body, from the games and toys that girls (are encouraged to) play with, the cautions

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not to hurt themselves or to dirty clothes, and to present themselves in a `ladylike' manner. Women are subject to the constant `gaze' of patriarchal society and the fear of spatial and bodily invasion. Young's work is significant in showing how embodiment is differently gendered. However, Weiss has criticised her for maintaining implicitly the valuing of transcendence (associated with the mind in Cartesianism) over immanence (associated with the body in Cartesianism). Weiss argues that even though `Merleau-Ponty departs from the Cartesian tradition by claiming that the body is transcendent rather than immanent, yet he continues to understand transcendence in Cartesian terms, that is, as freely motivated, intentional activity' (1999, p. 45). Young, too, reinforces this hierarchical relationship, since she tends to see the self-conscious focus of the girl in throwing as being immanent, since it interrupts the transcendent flow of intentional activity (ibid.). Weiss suggests that this creates a false dichotomy between men and women's actions, since both `have a socially-referred character insofar as they arise in response to a social situation' (ibid.). Young's account therefore tends to emphasise the self-reference of women towards their bodies as an individual problem rather than bringing out the full force of the societal basis of the objectification of women's bodies (Weiss, 1999, p. 47). To some extent, these criticisms can be seen as being overcome in the second paper, on pregnant embodiment. Here, Young argues that the experience of the pregnant woman challenges the implicit assumptions of phenomenologists of a unified subject, and the sharp distinctions that are made between transcendence and immanence (1984, p. 46). She describes this process as `split subjectivity', a subjectivity that is decentred, so that the woman experiences `myself in the mode of not being myself ' (1984, p. 48). This experience is particularly produced through the sensations of the foetus moving. In a mode of being drastically other than that described here as the ànatomising urge', pregnancy affronts conventional dualisms and boundaries. `Pregnancy challenges the integration of my body experience by rendering fluid the boundary between what is within, myself, and what is outside, separate. I experience my insides as the space of another, yet my own body' (1984, p. 49). Further, the experience of pregnancy is that one can be focused on one's body ± for example, the flutterings or kicking of the foetus on one's inside ± whilst simultaneously focused on what one is trying to achieve ± for example, working. Phenomenology has tended to see these two aspects of lived experience as being separate. For example, Leder's book The Absent Body (1990) is premised on the


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argument that the lived body is characterised by the body itself being absent to our attention, unless we are in pain, in which case it is seen as being focused completely on the body. In this mode, he argues that the Cartesian dualism is consistent with our phenomenological experience. Again, the question needs to be asked about upon whose embodiment these theories are based. I turn now to the work of Luce Irigaray for a further exploration of the critique of the exclusion of women's experience in the `western' intellectual tradition and an approach to challenging this which disrupts the operation of both scalpel and mirror. Irigaray's thought is diverse. Her `philosophical' works engage with, mimic and subvert the ideas of the major `western' philosophers. She has also conducted empirical work on the symbolic and linguistic structures of those with senile dementia and mental illnesses, and is a practising psychoanalyst. Whitford has characterised her work as `philosophy examining its own foundations and its own presuppositions' (1991, p. 2). Whitford is useful in elucidating Irigaray's critique of phenomenology: `The categories with which we describe our experience are derived from a collective and shared discourse which we have inherited, and it is essential to understand our inheritance critically. Even such apparently basic understandings as those of space and time may be masculine in their construction. Categories construct the symbolic division between male and female. The phenomenological account of the lived body and the lived world needs to be complemented by the awareness that there is an interaction between the lived experience, the imaginary, and the discursive and social construction of both. Although Irigaray is sympathetic to certain phenomenologists (particularly Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas), because they do stress language, the body, and ethics, she points out that in each case, their philosophy reproduces in one form or another the morphology or imperatives of the male body' (1991, p. 152, emphasis added). Thus, despite her sympathy with the work of Merleau-Ponty, Irigaray criticises him for his `labyrinthine solipsism' (1993, p. 157). She notes that `without the other, and above all the other of sexual difference, isn't it impossible to find a way out of this description of the visible, doubled with that of the tactile of the touching hands?' (ibid.). This is central to the critique that Irigaray makes of `western' philosophy, although perhaps to suggest that there is a thread through it is to reduce the diversity and complexity of her work to the linear. Irigaray's critique of `western' philosophy brings us back to the ànatomising urge', with its tools of scalpel and mirror. Irigaray is

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concerned with boundaries, especially the one cut between ìnside' and òutside'. `When Irigaray sets out to reread the history of philosophy, she asks how its borders are secured: what must be excluded from the domain of philosophy for philosophy itself to proceed, and how is it that the excluded come to constitute negatively a philosophical enterprise that takes itself to be self-grounding and self-constituting?' (Butler, 1993, p. 37). She argues that `western' thought is `phallogocentric', and founded on the production of the `feminine' as its constitutive outside. She also characterises it as a `spectral economy'. Since the feminine is totally outside it, that which is included is based on the operation of the `mirror, most often hidden, that allows the logos, the subject, to reduplicate itself, to reflect itself by itself' (1985b, p. 75). Irigaray argues that there is only one sex ± the masculine, and one discourse ± the philosophical logos. The domination of these come from their power to reduce all others to the economy of the Same (1985b, p. 74). Thus women are `this sex which is not one', for `women can never be understood on the model of a ``subject'' within the conventional representational systems of Western culture precisely because they constitute the fetish of representation and, hence, the unrepresentable as such. Women can never ``be'', according to this ontology of substances, precisely because they are the relation of difference, the excluded, by which that domain marks itself off. Women are also a ``difference'' that cannot be understood as the simple negation or `Òther'' of the always-already-masculine subject . . . they are neither the subject nor its Other, but a difference from the economy of binary opposition, itself a ruse for a monologic elaboration of the masculine' (Butler, 1990, p. 18). But within this system women are the `duplicating mirror' for the masculine, which allows the logos, the subject to reproduce itself (Irigaray, 1985b, p. 75). Within this phallogocentric order, Irigaray argues, it is not sufficient that women demand a redistribution of power, since this leaves in place the power structure itself. Instead, she suggests that `mimicry' might be more subversive, by `convert[ing] a form of subordination into an affirmation', `to make ``visible'', by an effect of playful repetition, what was supposed to remain invisible: the cover-up of a possible operation of the feminine in language' (1985b, p. 76). Thus replication may be turned back on itself in order to show the mechanisms which produce the assembly line of identical images. Similarly, Judith Butler argues that: `Gender should not be construed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time,


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instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts', thus it is à construction that regularly conceals its genesis' (1990, p. 140). But, as with Irigaray's mimicry, by a `parodic repetition' (ibid., p. 141) of the performativity which is gender, it is revealed as a `regulatory fiction' (ibid.). Butler suggests that this false relationship between simulacrum and òriginal' can be expressed through such gender transgressions as butch/femme and transvestite performances. A subversive reversal of the conflation between replication and reproduction can be illustrated through Angela Carter's The Passion of the New Eve (1982). Here, the male subject, Evelyn, is surgically reconstructed as a woman and becomes pregnant, thus retelling the story of Eve, but simultaneously parodying the incisions between male and female, disrupting the assumptions of the body derived from the ànatomising urge'. CONCLUSION To summarise, then, the first purpose of this chapter has been to draw on the work of key social and feminist theorists in order to propose a methodology which echoes that of Foucault's genealogy. In this it seeks to understand the conditions of the production of knowledge, with regard to this limited objective of how the body of knowledge that is organisation theory has developed a particular discursive formation which implies the human body as a coherent biological organism, but which excludes the recognition of the experience of embodied subjectivity for individuals within organisations and ignores the bodies of researchers within the discipline of organisation theory. To this end the text considers a number of historical discursive formations. The aim is not to reconstruct the past nor to derive a unity of narrative that explains the origins of this aspect of disciplinary formation, but rather, following Foucault in `seeking the present in the past'. The second aim of this chapter has been to construct a theoretical approach to a gendered and embodied subjectivity in opposition to the split subject with its supposedly neutered and neutral cogito and its separate (sometimes feminised) inert body of Cartesian legacy. The remainder of the book will use the method and epistemological framework developed here to try to understand some aspects of organisation theory and its relation to the human body. From the focus of this chapter on genealogy and embodied subjectivity we move to a very different mode of knowledge and construction of the human body: those which I argue are based upon the pattern of

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anatomy. The next chapter looks at the characteristics of this ànatomising urge'. It argues that the creation of division, boundaries, hierarchies and thus organisation is central to the `western' mode of knowledge. It shows how this is related to a way of knowing and constructing the body that is based on death, the penetration and invasion of the body with the scalpel, and the division of the body into fixed structures and parts. This creates a standardised and anonymised model of the body. I suggest that two valued aspects of knowledge creation, analysis and rationality, are closely associated with the ànatomising urge'. This mode of knowledge stresses that knowledge and its objects are to be split into their component parts before they can be studied, it also elevates knowledge that is presumed to come from the mind over and above the body and emotions, hence the value placed on òbjectivity' rather than `subjectivity'.

4 The Scalpel: An Introduction to the Ànatomising Urge' Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:We murder to dissect. William Wordsworth (Thomas, 1971, p. 34) Faith is a fine invention When gentlemen can see, But microscopes are prudent In an emergency. Emily Dickinson (Reeves, 1985, p. 12) In Chapter 1 I argued that the practice of anatomy has both significantly shaped the dominant `western' conceptions of the body and has acted as a pattern for the main mode of knowledge. In this it has become institutionalised and valued as a model of knowledge, particularly in scientific method and philosophical rationality. The practice of anatomy has become a taken-for-granted part of science and medicine, as well as a practice that marks out the professional understanding of the body from the lay one. But it is much more broadly influential as the basis of the intellectual tradition. In this, although much of the material in this chapter is historically-based, the ànatomising urge' is of contemporary significance. While it may be founded on the death of the body, as a mode of knowledge it is alive and well. In this chapter I want to explore this argument in more detail, thus providing the context for applying it to organisation theory in Chapter 5. In the first section I shall explore the social and institutional development of anatomy, then turn to the ways in which practices of anatomy have constructed the human body. Following this I shall look at anatomy as a model for the development of a valued form of knowledge ± the ànatomising urge'. Here I shall be considering the influential part that Descartes has played in bringing together a theory of knowledge and a theory of the body, wider issues in the develop83

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ment of science and rationality, and finally looking at the place of òrganisation' in this tradition of knowledge. The diverse issues brought together in this chapter are linked through the use of Foucault's concept of the `discursive formation': the coalescence of the material, institutional, cultural and symbolic. In organising the material of this and other chapters, it is interesting to reflect on how deeply embedded the ànatomising urge' is in the academic form. I found it impossible to escape from the need to cut up the body of the material, and rearrange it in sections that together form a reorganised body of knowledge. The use of terms that invoke anatomising the body are very common in academic parlance. In one article on how anatomy became respectable I found the author stating that she was going to òpen up epistemological and social connections between dissection and the effective deployment of a technical anatomical vocabulary' (Lawrence, 1995, p. 201, my emphasis). `Have a stab at it' suggests an amateur attempt at anatomy, while an ìncisive point' evokes the professionally performed dissection. Many terms that indicate approbation of academic research ± such as `penetrating' ± suggest the work of anatomy, especially in seeking the `truth' below the surface. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANATOMY The science of anatomy and the culture of death The development of anatomy cannot simply be seen as the progress of an objective scientific discipline accumulating greater knowledge of the human body; rather, it created a particular understanding of the body and a new form of knowledge about the body: `The body anatomized as corpse upon the stage of the dissecting table is as much a piece of created fiction as it is discovered fact. The body observed on the stage of the dissecting table belongs as much to the realm of art as it does to science' (Romanyshyn, 1989, p. 119). As Romanyshyn argues: `we invent the body and the nature which suit our world' (1989, p. 111). Thus the anatomised body was part of a complex web of changing social, spiritual and cultural meanings (Turner, 1990, p. 11; Sawday, 1995). The first known dissection took place about 500b c by a Greek, Alcmaen, who described the nerves of the eye and the tube between the mouth and the ear (rediscovered 2000 years later and named by

The Ànatomising Urge'

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Eustachi, a doctor and anatomist in Rome). Leonardo da Vinci (1452± 1519) also carried out over thirty human dissections, but he was denounced by Pope Leo X for these, forbidden access to Rome's hospitals, and his work on anatomy remained unpublished. Dissection had long been forbidden by the Church, but there was a marginalised tradition of anatomy. From the thirteenth century, in continental Europe, corpses were occasionally dissected in order to ascertain the causes of epidemic diseases and confirm cases of poisoning. Dissection for scientific purposes was much rarer, because of the societal and religious taboos surrounding it. One exception was Mondino at Bologna,1 whose Anathomia was written in 1316. He dissected corpses to see for himself whether the textual accounts of Galen (a d 129±199) and other authorities were accurate. He read from the text, while an assistant dissected the body and demonstrators pointed to the structures described (Sinclair, 1997, p. 44). But, generally, scientific knowledge of the body was passed down through the authority of the text. The main authority was Galen's On the Conduct of Anatomy. However, Galen never carried out a dissection on a human corpse, using only monkeys and possibly marine animals (Turner, 1992, p. 202). Renaissance science in the main relied on observation and the classification of surface features. Sawday (1995, pp. 39±40) argues that the influx of Greek scholars, the recovery of the original Galenic writings and the extension of the Greco-Arabic tradition of scholarship after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 caused a tension within medical knowledge. On the one hand there was better access to the original work of the historical authorities, but on the other there was the extension of a tradition of testing out textual knowledge with the experience of the body. The humanist scholars first associated with the ànatomical Renaissance' were Gunther of Andernach in Paris, John Caius in Cambridge and Vesalius in Padua. The latter carried out his own dissections in lectures, bucking the trend for professors to read out their lectures while demonstrators carried out the dissections, as tradition had indicated the superiority of the text over the manual craft and direct observation of practical anatomy. His own anatomy textbook, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, was published in 1543. This was significant in its willingness to question the work of Galen and in publishing the results of his own experiments. Even so, dissection was not generally accepted as a legitimate scientific technique until the nineteenth century (Lupton, 1994, p. 45), as it not only disrupted the physical body but also disarticulated beliefs

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around life and death, the nature of the soul, and the fear of the bodily interior (Lupton, 1994, p. 45; Sawday, 1995). The body `was seen not only as a ``little world'' (microcosm) but also as a reflection and model of human society . . . If the members and organs of the microcosm were dispersed, disturbing the order of the world, would not the ``body politic'' fall apart as well?' (Pouchelle, 1990, p. 83). More than this, intervening in the body might be seen as interfering in God's creation. Richard Turner makes the pertinent connection, which illustrates the ambivalences around the body and especially around body fluids, that `to cut open a body was to draw blood both sacred and profane ± the blood of Christ, but also the blood of menstrual flow' (1995, p. 197). Initially, anatomy was closely bound up with criminal investigation, execution and public dissection. The infamous `murder act' of 1752 in England could be seen as part of this process of cultural location, instituting `penal dissection' where, as an alternative to the body being gibbeted, the dead body would be taken to the surgeons and anatomised. It was intended to evoke horror in the viewing public at the violation of the body and the denial of burial. As well as prolonging the execution, it symbolised the criminal's transgression against and separation from the body of society. Where there was a belief in resurrection, the anatomised criminal had suffered a double death, with them being separated from any future spiritual society as well. There had been public dismemberments before, but Foucault argues that the point of departure was that it was now linked to the idea of a greater public good in keeping with the rational philosophy of punishment (1977, p. 48). Dirty work is often associated with those who have dealings with the dead, and those who murder and cause death are often vilified (see Ackroyd and Crowdy, 1990, on workers in abattoirs). Anatomists had to obtain corpses on which to work, and as the discipline grew, so did the requirement for fresh dead bodies. An act of the London town council in 1694 provided for corpses for anatomy from new sources of supply: foundlings that had died; infants stifled at birth; those found dead in the street; those who died violent deaths; and suicides ± wherever there were no relatives to claim the bodies and reimburse the town for its costs (Sawday, 1995, p. 58). But it was not only for scientific research that corpses were required. As medical training moved from an apprenticeship system to one based around collective teaching methods, and practical anatomy became central to the curriculum, there was a corresponding rise in the need for corpses for dissection


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by both private and hospital medical schools. Thus a free market developed in corpses. In 1746 William Hunter introduced to London the `Paris manner' of allocating a corpse to each student. There were only a small number of corpses available in Britain through legal routes, so grave-robbing was rife. The general public became deeply suspicious of grave robbers and the representatives of the anatomists: with some good reason. If the hanging proved inefficient and a body began to revive, anatomists would often commit murder themselves because of the body's value to science. In 1828 the bodies of people murdered by Burke and Hare were found in Dr Knox's private anatomy school in Edinburgh (Sinclair, 1997). This fear of the anatomists sometimes inspired riots at gallows (Lawrence, 1995, p. 199). The Ìrish Giant', Charles Byrne, was so horrified at the prospect of his body being stolen by science that he attempted to bribe his family and his local undertakers to prevent his corpse being sold for anatomisation but rather to bury it at sea. Both parties agreed, but after his death they reneged and his body was indeed sold for dissection. It still occupies centre place in the collection of the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London, a reminder of the murky history of science. A parliamentary select committee was appointed to look into the unhappy situation surrounding anatomy. Giving evidence, the surgeon and anatomist of Guy's Hospital, Sir Astley Cooper, stated `there is no person, let his situation in life be what it may, whom if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain' (Richardson, 1989, p. 63). In 1832, a regulatory Anatomy Act was passed. This provided for the legal supply of corpses, by appropriating the dead bodies of the poor and destitute. The Act particularly benefited hospital medical schools since, while there was to be allocation of bodies to both hospitals and private schools, hospitals could also obtain them illegally from their own mortuaries and made deals with parish authorities where they exchanged hospital beds for the sick in return for the dead bodies (Sinclair, 1997, p. 57). Here bodies of people who were not protected by their relatives ± or their relatives' money ± were made available to anatomists. Thus the dissected body was most usually the marginalised body of society: the criminal, the prisoner, the poor and destitute who died in workhouses or charitable institutes. The trade in bodies and body parts is alive and well today. In 1994 a scandal arose around Copenhagen University's forensic laboratories charging members of the public to look at corpses (Sawday, 1995). In Sinclair's 1997 study of medical students, one of the anatomy demon-

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strators commented: Ùp till five years ago we used to have good specimens, fresh from the post-mortem room; we slipped them £5. Then the Sunday Times got hold of it and, because there was no permission from the relatives, it was stopped' (1997, p. 175).2 The commodification of body parts has joined other aspects of the `new international division of labour', giving the phrase a somewhat different connotation. A trade exists where people in developing countries can sell their organs to `western' medicine, having had parts such as kidneys, eyes and pieces of skin removed while still alive (Lupton, 1994, p. 48). Thus the early anatomists anonymised themselves in their diagrams for fear of the public outcry against their transgressive invasion. Valverde's picture of 1556 of the self-flayed body (see Figure 4.1) is of central relevance here, because it shows the need to hide the identity of the anatomist from the public, who saw anatomisation as an anathema. In this picture the dissected corpse participates in its own dismemberment, eagerly holding up its own skin to display the secrets beneath. But this also indicates to us the simultaneous fascination and repulsion of dissection ± the desire to know what lies under the skin, but also the fear of it being one's own skin. To see ourselves from the inside is a profoundly disturbing activity, because to observe our insides ± intestines and other organs ± often heralds death and disorder (Sawday, 1995). The other side of the fear and horror invoked by dissection, is the fascination with it as demonstrated in the popularity of the anatomical `theatres' that gained fashionable success throughout seventeenth-century Europe. In many ways anatomy theatres are an institutionalisation of the ànatomising urge'. They show the widespread nature of the new mode of knowledge and understanding of the body, not restricted to a small number of scientists but made available to the general public. Public dissections were initially performed in churches, but later acquired their own specialised buildings. Particularly after Vesalius, these were arranged in a circular or semi-circular fashion, having tiered seats and with the dissection taking place centre stage. The anatomy was a theatrical spectacle, combining education and entertainment. Sinclair notes that tickets for the annual public anatomy in Padua in 1497 were sold before those for the plays (1997, p. 48). These public demonstrations were `ritualistic expressions of often contradictory layers of meaning' (Sawday, 1995, p. 63) involving a confrontation between the living and the dead, the symbolic power of scientific knowledge over the individual, the representation of society's progress

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Figure 4.1 Valverde, self-flayed figure, from Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (1556) Source:

Wellcome Institute Library, London.

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where the criminal is subordinated to the good of the community, and the structural coherence of the universe. In understanding the cultural nature of this process of fragmentation of the body and its subsequent reordering into a more coherent and manageable whole, it is useful to look at more recent accounts of the practice of anatomy. These indicate that, as Kuhn argued, scientific work is not `the given' of experience but rather `the collected with difficulty' (1970, p. 126). In their classic ethnographic study of how medical students become doctors, Becker and his colleagues describe the (practical) difficulties facing the student in the anatomy class: Aside from the difficulties of learning to recognise and name the thousands of structures of the body, their function and clinical significance, students of gross anatomy have certain technical problems. There is so much variation from the `normal' in cadavers that identification of structures is often difficult. A part may be missing, oddly placed or so distorted by use during life that it bears little resemblance to the idealized diagrams of the textbook. A student may also destroy the very structure he [sic] is trying to study. If peripheral nerves and blood vessels are to be preserved, initial skinning and reflection of subcutaneous fat must be done with great care. It is a laborious process. Even on deeper levels of dissection, if the student is not careful he will accidentally cut muscles, nerves, or blood vessels. If he cuts more than one such structure, he is faced with an identificatory problem. For example, a student ordinarily recognizes a muscle by its position in relation to adjacent structures, or by tracing it out to its junction with other structures ± its origin and insertion. (1961, p. 83) The description of the problems of anatomy in this study considers neither the emotional and psychological experience of the students in having to relate to corpses, nor the disjunctures between what is found in the dead body and what is found in the textbooks, except where it causes difficulties to students who are trying to become qualified. In other words, it appears to take for granted the assumptions of the medical school and students in prioritising the passing of exams, and of learning the amount of material required. However, the dissection also has significant symbolic status in marking out the medical world from the lay one (Sinclair, 1997, p. 170). Other studies show how it is a `rite of passage' for students, giving them what is often their first encounter with death, and an initially emotive experience to


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which they have to become accustomed (Sinclair, 1997; Hafferty, 1991; Druce and Johnson, 1994). In this discussion of the changing relationship between society and the science of anatomy, we can see the complexity of the relationships surrounding the management of the human body in different time periods. It is not simply that the `body' is disciplined by social forces. Society itself is being (re)organised simultaneously through the cultural construction of what is understood by the human body. Anatomy, professions and institutions As we enter the twenty-first century, the practice of surgery is firmly incorporated into the medical profession; indeed, surgeons are accorded the highest status. But, as with the science of anatomy, its practice in medicine was also once regarded with suspicion. The separation of surgery and anatomy from the mainstream of the medical profession can be illustrated by the work of the eighteenthcentury French anatomist-surgeon, Rene Croissant de Garengeot (1688±1759). He was Master of Arts and Surgery, Royal demonstrator at the Academie de Chirurgie in Paris and Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He trained a generation of French and English dissectors. In his Splanchnologie, ou l'anatomie des visceres (1728) he defended his art in terms of its practical, manual skills, where `the work of the hand' is sensitive and intelligent. This is in relation to medicine, which had been separated off from surgery since the time of Hippocrates. Garengeot lamented that the separation between the two had widened because of specialisation, and that knowledge coming from direct experience of the body, manual skills and close observation had become subordinated to the `theoretical' physicians. This had been aided in France by institutional factors: when the University of Paris was founded in 1140, surgeons were not admitted, whereas physicians were incorporated into the Faculty of Arts, later forming their own autonomous faculty: `physicians could now give themselves up to lofty speculations propounded disembodiedly in universities' (Stafford, 1991, p. 52). Garengeot argued that this separation was not only the case in France, but was widespread. Historically, in England, medicine was founded on the guild system. There were three quite separate, all-male, corporations: the Royal College of Physicians ± the learned profession, since only university graduates could attain entry; the Society of Apothecaries, the trade part of medicine ± originally shopkeepers who had separated from the

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Mystery of Grocers; and the Royal College of Surgeons. The last was the craft end of the profession. Surgeons had joined barbers as a guild in 1540, breaking away to form their own association in 1745. Surgeons and apothecaries ± usually combined as practitioners outside London ± learned their profession through apprenticeship. However, medicine was not regulated and there were many other sources of treatment ± hospitals, charities, quacks. A large part of medicine was probably practised by women, completely outside the formal professions and their settings, based on tradition and experience (Sinclair, 1997, pp. 39±41). During the nineteenth century the profession changed considerably. Anatomy came to be of central importance to the training of doctors in the teaching hospitals that grew up in the eighteenth century. This indicated the breakdown of the traditional master-and-apprentice system of medicine. Hospital surgeons could earn a fat fee for teaching, so would take on multiple students (Sinclair, 1997). In Britain this private teaching system was common, while in France there was a rise of more bureaucratic institutions (see Foucault, 1970). One of the methods of teaching was through the lecture, enabling multiple students to be taught at a time. This was essentially an extension of the demonstrations given in the anatomy theatres of the previous century. New anatomy theatres were built at St. Thomas' Hospital in 1813 and St. Bartholomew's in 1822. During this period hospital medical education seems to have taken over from private teaching. Sinclair (1997) makes some useful points about the organisation of this new form of medical teaching. He argues that anatomy was central to the new professionalisation of medical teaching as opposed to the older method of apprenticeship training. Since students were now taught in large groups, the form of the anatomy theatre came into its own in a pedagogic sense in medicine as it had in science (although the public were still allowed into lectures, as they had attended the anatomy theatre as public spectacles). Sinclair also links this to the Chrestomathic principle of Bentham. This is related to his panopticon, but was a form of schoolroom designed for the greatest efficiency of the teacher. Like the panopticon, it facilitated the visibility of students to the master. Sinclair points out that the reverse principle of the panopticon had already been highly significant in the well-developed form of the anatomy theatre ± that is, that all can see the spectacle of dissection laid out in front of them (1997, p. 60). Thus the anatomy theatre could be said to be the forerunner of both lecture and operating theatres.


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The construction of the anatomised body The practices of eighteenth-century anatomy transformed the body into detachable pieces. Medical men dissected the body into smaller units that were subsequently renamed and classified. These òrgans without bodies', to use the words of Rosi Braidotti, came to replace the body as a unity (Braidotti, 1989). Since the late nineteenth century, medical research has gone well beyond the organs. (Oudshoorn, 1994, p. 4) And then there is the very different body seen in terms of science and medicine, a body measured, analyzed, probed, treated, incised, dissected. It is the body as object of physical investigation and explanation, a body that we understand well enough in our minds, but a body wholly alien to the particular one that we experience in our daily life. (R. Turner, 1995, p. 192) Part of the emphasis on visibility of the interior of the body also relates to the requirement to represent the structures of the body in clear, visible ways. This is, of course, explicitly said to be for pedagogic reasons, but it is also a fundamental part of the cultural construction of the anatomical body as the dominant understanding of the body in `western' societies. Romanyshyn argues that the portrayal of the body has moved from the `pantomimic' body of medieval art, where `gestures are inseparable from the emotional situation and the story they enact' (1989, p. 108), to the ànatomical' body of our technological society. The `pantomimic' body can be illustrated through such forms of art as the detail of Joseph offering his gift at the temple, as portrayed on the bronze doors of St Michael's at Hildesheim, Germany, dating from about 1015 (Romanyshyn, 1989, p. 106). To the modern eye this picture looks peculiar, since the arm with which he is offering the gift seems to be stunted and out of proportion with the rest of his body. However, Romanyshyn argues that this is because the figure is represented as being at one with the emotional situation he is involved in: here it is the act of giving into which the emotional intensity of the picture is invested. This is quite a different representational framework from the one that derives from the practice of anatomy, and from Alberti's development of perspective. These two devices led to a standardised portrayal of the body, where each body is portrayed in the same way, and understood to have the same underlying structures and functions.

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Romanyshyn argues that this ànatomised' body is ìmmutable, anonymous', à body of technical functioning' (1989, p. 114). In seeking to understand this functioning, from the interior, Romanyshyn suggests that we fragment and dismember the body, creating a distance between it and ourselves. This argument also applies to the body as portrayed in science. The body is dismembered in two ways: cut off from its context; and imagined as being fragmented within itself. The body, in Romanyshyn's account, has also become an interior space; a collection of òrgans which define the mechanisms of life' (1989, p. 128). It is this interior space that has to be mapped to tell us about the outside, and is part of the process of universalising the anatomised body, because these fragmented elements become anonymous. He cites Van den Berg as commenting that these inner dimensions are `manufactured': they ònly come into existence through dissection . . . They acquire their shape when the dissecting knife penetrates the body' (1978, pp. 79±80). Indeed, the fragmented, anatomical body on display `rests upon a disruption of the human body's ongoing relations with the world' (1989, p. 132). The work of Leonardo da Vinci illustrates the intersection between anatomy, art and mechanism. Leonardo began anatomical investigations in 1485 in Milan (Petherbridge, 1997, p. 44). He was interested in how the body worked and invented ingenious ways to represent the dissected body so that the complexity and functioning could be represented and understood as systems. He would inject wax into dissected body parts to preserve and isolate the different forms. The diagrams he produced used the principles of perspective and geometry he had also studied, and he invented `thread' drawings showing muscles as single lines, to better illustrate how they worked. Leonardo also looked for connections between his interest in the human body and his fascination with engineering principles and mechanical inventions: `he constantly drew analogies between the (hidden) forms of the body and principles in physics, particularly hydrodynamics in relation to the movement of the blood' (Petherbridge, 1997, p. 48). He described the body as `this machine of ours' (R. Turner, 1995, p. 198). Petherbridge argues that Leonardo's interest in the anatomy of the body came from his view of the human body as the `measure of all things'. He saw the body as a microcosm of the physical world, describing it as the `terrestrial machine' (1997, p. 44). Sawday argues that the period 1540±1640 was that of the discovery of the Vesalian body as opposed to the later invention of the Harveian or Cartesian body. At this point, the body was a geographical territory,


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which required an explorer's skill. The belief that guided the followers of Vesalius was that the body expressed in miniature the divine workmanship of God, and therefore corresponded to the macrocosm (1995, p. 23). The project of mapping the body was anticipated with boundless optimism ± the task of the scientist was to travel within to force the body to reveal its secrets. Once uncovered, the body-landscape could be harnessed to the service of its òwner'. Thus, in the seventeenth century, the body became established as being ùseful'. Sawday argues that in this there is an intersection between the language of colonialism and the language of science, which depends on the conceptualisation of the body as property. Just as land could be seen as property and exploited, so too could the body, and its features became mirrored with systems of production, distribution and consumption, in perpetual movement. The woman's body, in particular, is ripe for this exploitation/property metaphor. In both the art and literature of the time, and in the symbolic portrayal of anatomy, the discourses of knowledge ± discovery, exploitation, sex ± can be seen as flowing into each other (Sawday, 1995). During the Enlightenment, the body was reconstituted as a machine; a reinvention of a body which fitted with the world view that developed from the Copernican revolution. Romanyshyn comments that to see the Earth in motion around the Sun, Copernicus had to `forget the evidence of his sensuous body' (1989, p. 135). This is the beginning of the reconceptualisation of the body as machine, prefigured by da Vinci. In the same way that the movement of the planets becomes understood as a mechanistic process, so too do the elements of the human body: in 1628, William Harvey3 announced that the blood is circulated around the body through the pumping motion of the heart. Thereafter the major conceptualisation of the organ is that the heart is a pump. And, indeed, twentieth-century surgeons have developed the ability to replace the heart entirely with an electrical pump (see Sunday Times 29 October 1995). The body is seen as a mechanism endowed with functions that provide its raison d'eÃtre. Whereas the geographic body was a static landscape without dynamic interconnections, the machine body was dynamic, with the parts interconnected ± but they operated according to the laws of mechanics and the body did not need an intellect of its own. Thus the body became objectified, a focus of intense curiosity, but entirely divorced from the world of the speaking and thinking subject. The division between Cartesian subject and corporeal object ± between an Ì' that thinks and an ìt' in which `we' reside ± became absolute.

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Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory The development of the machine image dramatically transformed the attitude of investigators towards the body's interior, and towards their own tasks of investigation. They no longer stood before the body as though it was a mysterious continent. It has become, instead, a system, a design, a mechanically organised structure, whose rules of operation, though still complex, could, with the aid of reason, be comprehended in the most minute detail. (Sawday, 1995, p. 31)

In this way, fear of the body and particularly its dysfunctions, could partly be offset against the belief that it worked to a rational set of laws. Anatomy also provided the representation of the body machine as a system of interchangeable, standardised parts. Description and measurement are the key to this world view, and the further development of knowledge was particularly founded on making more of the world visible to the human eye, and thus to the mind. In anatomy we see the movement to practical dissection replacing the authority of the text: in this, the scalpel is essential to penetrating beneath the surface and rendering visible that which is usually hidden. Perhaps indicative of this is Descartes' work on optics in his philosophical essays of 1637.4 In 1801, Bichat, the prominent French biologist, linked dissection and the enlightenment of seeing below the surface with one's own eyes: Òpen up a few corpses: you will dissipate at once the darkness that observation alone could not dissipate' (1801, p. xcix, in Foucault, 1973, p. 146). The significance of the visual is a theme of continuity from Renaissance natural history, which was based on the detailed observation and description of animals and plants. At this point there is an emphasis on the structures of things as observed, with the qualities of the inner being deduced from observing the outer. Anatomy is the process of taking this observation and categorisation within the body. A variety of technologies have been developed in order to aid this process of visualisation, from Kepler's compound microscope of 1611 to present-day electronic and laser imaging techniques (Stafford, 1991, p. 24). The predominance of the visual assumes a directly transparent relationship between what we see and the `reality' of the world. But sometimes a value is put on seeing with one's own eyes because of suspicion about intervening technologies ± neither Harvey nor Bichat used a microscope! Despite the emphasis on anatomy as truth and enlightenment, there still remains the other, shadowy side of the anatomised body. Romany-


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shyn argues that this still exists as `the unconscious side of our technological age made visible' (1989, p. 148). Romanyshyn traces some of these shadows to particular marginalised bodies. There is the body of the witch ± the feminine body associated with sexuality, the flesh and the devil. It is suppressed, punished and burned, but cannot be completely silenced. Romanyshyn advances the idea that the `discovery' of the anatomised body was an essentially masculine project, and the witch may be part of the repression and subjugation of the feminine. Then here is the body of madness, which is seen as animality not yet tamed by the powers of reason: ìn shutting away this animal body, we take another step toward the body's mechanisation. The madman and madwoman in their cells are the shadows of the workers in their factories' (1989, p. 153). There is also the powerful myth of Frankenstein ± `the frightening shadow of the abandoned body' (1989, p. 160). This is the body of the man-made monster that would master Nature. It is manmade in the sense of being created entirely without the feminine. Another shadow related to that of Frankenstein is the robot or industrial worker run wild; the controlled body that might at any moment break free of its forced labour. Finally, there are the hysterical body, studied by Freud (the inevitable breakdown of the body forced to deny desire); and the anorexic body (which mocks our ideal of `mind over body' (1989, p. 173)). Although, to some extent, Romanyshyn sees that the feminine body has been `charged with the burden of remembering what the culturalpsychological dream of refashioning the body would forget', he also sees that the construction of the female body as associated with `Nature' has allowed both `the scientific subjugation of nature and the cultural subordination of women to proceed hand in hand' (1989, pp. 219±20). The pornographic display of the female body is very much the anatomised, abandoned body. It is a way for the male observer to be a voyeur, to look but to keep a distance from the female body.5 Sawday recounts various occasions where male and female criminals were executed, but the anatomists chose only the females to dissect (1995, pp. 60±1). Although no general characteristic can be deduced from this, Sawday also argues that the fascination with dissection `corresponds to an attraction to certain ill-defined things at the outer limits of life and death, sexuality and pain' (1995, p. 43), and is therefore akin to pornography. It would seem but a short step from the male investigation of the female interior to the commercial pornographic exploitation of this hidden `knowledge' ± and in the `harder' versions of pornography the violent disarticulation of `soft' (female) flesh

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becomes explicit, in the worship of parts that is integral to the ànatomising urge'. Fragments continue to have cultural significance into the modern age, which Nochlin (1994) sees as being marked by the transformative event of the French Revolution. This, she believes, `constituted the fragment as a positive rather than a negative trope' (1994, p. 8). The guillotine also seems to move the scalpel into public life in a way that further depersonalises the act of fragmenting the body and distancing the individual who carries out the cutting. Indeed, the guillotine was designed to technologise execution, making it standardised and efficient. Nochlin details how various artists have used fragments of the body in their work: `The dispersed fragments are then reconjoined at the will of the artist in arrangements both horrific and elegant . . . The mood of these works shockingly combines the objectivity of science ± the cool, clinical observation of the dissecting table ± with the paroxysm of romantic melodrama' (1994, p. 22). She argues that in the `joining up of unrelated fragments in a pictorial totality' modernity is not only associated with a metaphorical or actual fragmentation, but also à will to totalization' (1994, p. 53). Yet Nochlin herself eschews a totalising `theory of the fragment in relation to the concept of modernity' (1994, p. 56), but emphasises that it is a model of difference. Thus the body is constructed through art and culture, as well as through the lens of science. As we have seen the connections are finely interwoven, less isolated from one another than disciplinary ordering might lead one to expect. As well as the body being used as a metaphor for social and institutional organisation (as will be discussed in the next chapter), the body itself has also often been constructed as an industrial organisation. Frederick Gates, the director of the Rockefeller Foundation, explained to Rockefeller that the body is àn infinite number of microscopic cells. Each one of these cells is a small chemical laboratory, into which its own appropriate raw material is constantly being introduced . . . The great organs of the body . . . are great local manufacturing centers formed of groups of cells in infinite number, manufacturing the same sorts of products, just as industries of the same kind are often grouped in specific districts' (Brown, 1980, p. 120). The institutional power, as well as the linguistic, embedded in this example is significant. The funding of a number of scientific and educational foundations, including those of Ford and Kellogg, as well as the Rockefeller, was from industry. The source of much of this money was from the petrochemical industry. Walker (1993) argues


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that this led to the èncouragement' of the strengthening of allopathic6 medicine based on the treatment of illness using mass-produced pharmaceutical remedies ± which in turn used the products of the petrochemical industry. Allopathic medicine was also to become institutionalised through the rationalisation of the profession in such bodies as the American Medical Association (AMA) (ibid.). The way that the body was constructed within allopathic medicine echoed the Cartesian split. It was based on a reductionist theory of the person: the body was sick, therefore the body ± or rather the affected part ± was treated without any need to consider the emotions or mental state of the individual.7 Indeed, the first code of practice of the American Medical Association stressed that the patient's view was not relevant and should not be consulted! As Walker comments, this approach fitted well with the material theories of engineering associated with large-scale industry: `From the beginning, the support of scientific medical research by industry meant that the responsibility for disease was placed within the internal biological structure of the individual organism. In terms of illness, at least, the individual became separated from their environment and the industrial process' (Walker, 1993, pp. 9±10). This approach to the body may seem to be a foregone conclusion given the discussions above, but there did exist alongside allopathic medicine a very different view of the body. Homeopathic medicine approaches the person as a whole, not just the body, and the person in context too. Of ancient origin, it continued to coexist with allopathic medicine until the early twentieth century combination of industry, capital, state and the institutionalisation of scientific medicine combined to marginalise and defame it.8 The image of the body portrayed to Rockefeller indicates the modern version of the anatomised body. As the quotation from Oudshoorn (1994, p. 4) at the head of this section indicates, the ànatomising urge' has penetrated even further into the body, reducing it to smaller and smaller fragments, well beyond the organs. Although the idea of `genes' was originally proposed by Mendel in the 1860s, and rediscovered in the 1900s, it is the `discovery' of DNA in 1953 that has precipitated a new upsurge of reduction of the body. There is no space to go into this fascinating construction of the body in detail, except to note that it re-institutionalises the main elements of the ànatomising urge' and has gained a firm foothold in the popular imagination (Nelkin and Lindee, 1995). It facilitates the use of genetic determination as a major explanation of many social issues, obscuring cultural and political factors. It has also been drawn on for images in

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business and organisation studies, especially at the managerial end of the spectrum.9 THE ÀNATOMISING URGE' As I discussed in the first chapter, Sawday, in his book The Body Emblazoned (1995), argues that the growing dominance of dissection as the major form of knowledge of the body is by no means an isolated development. He links anatomy to a much wider societal movement in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. `To deploy a phrase such as the ``culture of dissection'' is to suggest a network of practices, social structures, and rituals surrounding this production of fragmented bodies, which sits uneasily alongside our image (derived from Burckhardt) of the European Renaissance as the age of the construction of individuality ± a unified sense of selfhood. But the ``scientific revolution'' of the European Renaissance encouraged the seemingly endless partitioning of the world and all that it contained' (1995, p. 2). Within this `culture of dissection' the body provides the pattern of division, categorisation and a new order. As we have already seen above, it is also a mode of knowledge that is built upon death and the marginalised bodies of those whom society rejects. In the remainder of this chapter I want to outline some of the ways in which this pattern of knowledge became institutionalised and continues to dominate much of intellectual life. Not surprisingly, the ànatomising urge' became incorporated into the natural sciences, and hence into modern biology, thus continuing to shape the constructions of the `western' body. Also, partly through the pervasive influence and valuing of `science' and partly through its incorporation into philosophical rationalism and a much broader conceptualisation of rationality, elements of this mode of knowledge shaped the development of the social `sciences', which created their own disciplinary boundaries by taking the natural sciences as a pattern and yet distinguishing themselves from them. Through these routes, not entirely linear, since historically and intellectually they do contain resistance and reversals, the ànatomising urge' has come to shape the discipline of organisation theory, including its ambivalent relationship to the human body. Through the rest of this chapter, one of the themes I particularly wish to emphasise is the significance of the concept of òrganisation' as a way of looking at, understanding and controlling the world in the ànatomising urge'.


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Descartes I begin the discussion of the ànatomising urge' with Descartes who, it is argued, is of paramount importance to understanding the development of `western' science. Along with his formation of a coherent Method of Scientific Inquiry based on the fundamental principle of human Reason, his thought has also significantly shaped the reorganisation of the modern conception of the human body. Descartes' view of the body, like that of da Vinci, is as a machine, as he described in La description du corps humain (written in 1648 but not published in his lifetime for fear of the Church's reaction). He uses the analogy of a watch to draw a distinction between the living and the dead body: the difference being that the `spring' of the dead body is relaxed and broken. In other words, the difference is that of mechanism. As Romanyshyn comments, `With Descartes we have the description of [reflex] action which is divided within itself. It is an action which gives evidence of a split between the person and the body. It is the action of a depersonalized body, the abandoned body, an anonymous body' (1989, p. 139). With the separation of the person and the body also comes a split between the body and the situation. Descartes draws on the example of the reflex action of an eye-blink, which happens even if the movement of a hand towards the face is that of a friend and not an enemy. Thus `the reflex is an action which is indifferent to place' (1989, p. 141). Along with this we get the development of behavioural theories of learning which depend on this conditioned reflex that is `the way of inscribing the memory within the body regardless of its situation' (1989, p. 142). Descartes was interested in anatomy and attended the public anatomy `theatres', where he searched for the source of the soul, looked at animal hearts and studied the development of the human foetus. Bodies for anatomy classes were usually dissected from the bowels upward because this was the area which putrefied first. The brain was left to last. Descartes' search for the soul led him to the pineal gland and the perceived need to dissect a head first before the rest of the body was touched, but this was seen by his contemporaries as being wasteful and expensive. There are two ways in which Descartes' thought is enduringly significant to the `western' construction of the body and the development of the ànatomising urge'. First, in instituting a mechanical view of the body's inner workings, and, second, in splitting mind and body, Descartes provides a body that is structured. To him ànatomy is only

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biological mechanics', and the body is an òrganised body' (Carter, 1983, pp. 100±1). In a letter of 1645 to Mesland, Descartes makes it clear that he believes the reason for the life of a body is because it possesses organs, which are made up of `particules' of matter. It is the interrelationship of these parts that gives the living body its disposition to receive a soul ± like a machine which only works when its parts are connected together in a particular way (Carter, 1983, pp. 99±100). To him, each person has the capacity to control his or her bodily impulses through `spiritual mechanics' (Carter, 1983, p. 111). Thus there is the further separation of emotions and passions, which are to be controlled through Reason. This is also central to the development of the rational person and to organisation theory (Bologh, 1990; Fineman, 1993). To Descartes, the greater the degree of organisation or ordering ± and the more complex the machine ± the further down the path of evolution or progress is the entity (Carter, 1983, p. 193). It is interesting that Descartes is only concerned with bodily fluids from the perspective that they `permit coagulating and rarification, so that the finer parts can form masses of relatively heavier matter' (Carter, 1983, p. 198). In other words, he held a very structured view of the body, which also fits with the denigration of body fluids ± often associated with the female body ± in `western' constructions of the body. Descartes had set the stage for the development of the rational self by splitting off the `res extensa' (that which is matter) from `res cogito' (that which thinks). He comes to this position through a method of scepticism. He considers all the attributes of the human and concludes that all could be illusory, including the body, except for thought or reason. This is the only quality that is necessary. He divides off from the mind all that could be associated with the body ± perception, sensitivity, motion, growth and decay. This created the potential for the being who separates thought from action, and is thus able to reflect on his/her own self. Man can now make himself an object of his own study [sic] (Foucault, 1970). The possibility of objective knowledge of the world ± that which is independent of the subject who knows it ± becomes addictive. Everywhere this knowledge is to be brought together and ordered, leading to the age of the great taxonomies and encyclopaedias. Descartes was so sure that science was progression that he thought in time one person would be able to gather together all that could be known of the world (Romanyshyn, 1989, p. 180). These principles through which Descartes conceptualises the body are fundamental to his philosophical method. Together they have had


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a far-reaching effect on the `western' intellectual tradition which still bears their marks. In the Discourse on Method Descartes reveals his interest in how we can develop a method of reasoning about the world. The key to understanding was the recognition that mathematics gave us the secret of the universe. Building on this insight he goes on to develop his four rules of logic: The first was never to accept anything as true if I had not evident knowledge of its being so; that is, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to embrace in my judgement only what presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it. The second, to divide each problem I examined into as many parts as was feasible, and was requisite for its better solution. The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly way; beginning with the simplest objects, those most apt to be known, and ascending little by little, in steps as it were, to the knowledge of the most complex; and establishing an order in throught even when the objects had no natural priority one to another. And the last, to make throughout such complete enumerations and such general surveys that I might be sure of leaving nothing out. (Descartes, 1954 [1637], pp. 20±1) This is a complex epistemological system, but Cartesianism (along with Bacon's experimentalism in Novum Organum of 1620) forms a central part of the `western' scientific tradition and is worth analysing in more detail, because it is important in the forming of the `culture of dissection'. What we see here is metaphysical realism, in the sense that reality has an objective structure unaffected by human understanding. It is a form of objectivism too when taken with the belief that this reality is accessible to human knowledge. It also assumes epistemological individualism, because humans gain knowledge of the world as individuals not as socially constituted groups. There is a clear rationalist bias here, as knowledge is gained through reason, and when this reasoning is based upon the senses (especially that of sight) it leads to empiricism. There is a universalistic assumption here too, as reason is available to all human beings (though decidedly not to animals) should they wish to conquer the impediments of value bias. Simple components are seen as providing the basis upon which knowledge develops in what is a variant of foundationalism. Therefore wholes are understood through the analysis of the parts ± which also assumes a functional relationship

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between the two which relies on systems, centralised control, and a hierarchy of functions. From my point of view, it is noticeable that the Cartesian Method relies upon division of the world into small, understandable components. For Descartes, reason proceeds by splitting the whole into the parts. Thus he splits the mind from the body because the use of rationality by the mind internally allows the mind to look outside the body at external matter. This, then, forms the belief that realism, objectivity and truth stem from observation and rational thought. Self-consciousness is the property of the mind and not the body. It is superior to the thought of which animals are capable, because they have no soul, nor any capacity for reason. Animals are machines not blessed with a soul and are therefore automata. It is the possession of mind rather than a body that Descartes sees as being crucial to his Method. In order to develop the powers of pure Reason one must escape the visceral and the irrational, and seek Reason. Thus the fragmenting of the world is accompanied by arranging those parts into a hierarchy and the formation of dualisms, the central one of which is the mind/body split. The scientific revolution At this point, knowledge is gathered and classified, but has not yet taken the shape of the machine ± it is not so far separated into organs which interrelate. The connections between categories are enumerated through superficial resemblances rather than through a system of functionality such as that derived from the development of anatomy (see Foucault, 1970). The work of Bacon and Newton has also been influential to the development of this structured, mechanised universe.10 For Bacon, the purpose of science is àn understanding of the patterns in which matter is organised in accordance with mechanical laws' (Lloyd, 1984, p. 10), and furthermore, the significance of these laws is that they permit Man [sic] to control nature ± the aim of this knowledge is ultimately power. In Newton's world view, too, the soul is an immaterial entity, while the body is made up of matter. Matter is governed by the laws of motion, attraction and gravity, and is essentially passive in response to these laws. Mind, on the other hand, is active and capable of being a direct and causal agent (Rogers, 1979). Again, we see the nascent idea of the rational self, which has the necessary `distance' to examine and control its own material nature as well as that which surrounds and is now perceived as being separate from the individual.


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The machine has been seen as a defining metaphor of modernism (Gergen, 1992). The object under study becomes a bounded whole, a unitary entity. Parts are defined in relation to the overall purpose of the whole, emphasising function and structure, and obscuring difference and contradiction. The better the parts are specified and understood, the more complete the knowledge of the whole object, and therefore the more complete the power over it. The machine has remained a central metaphor for constructing the body, although the form of the machine has itself changed over time. The phrase `cybernetics' was coined in 1948 by Norbert Weiner to describe a new science that combined the human body, the mind and machines through communications theory and control theory. Here we see `the image of the body becomes less one of an engineered body with the key tasks being the transfer and conservation of energy, but more of a communications network based upon the accurate reproduction and exchange of signals in time and space' (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995a, p. 2). Weiner linked four stages of the development of automata with models of the human body: a mythic Golemic age which associates the body as a malleable, magical, clay figure; the age of clocks (the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), which has the body as a clockwork mechanism; the age of steam (late eighteenth century and nineteenth century), where the body is seen as being an engine needing the input of energy to function; and the (twentieth-century) age of communication and control, where the body is seen as being an electronic information processor (Tomas, 1995, p. 23). The `pure' information processor of the cybernetic body still owes much to the Cartesian split, where reason is to be privileged over the matter of the body. As Tomas argues persuasively, it paved the way for researchers, such as Clynes and Kline in 1960, to envisage a `self-regulating man-machine', where the limitations of the physical body could be overcome for the purposes of space travel. From here it is just a short step to the post-human body which is in fact a post-bodied human (see Ansell Pearson, 1997)! In contrast to other historians who have seen the scientific culture of England in the eighteenth century as being rather barren after the Newtonian developments, Jacob argues that `the mechanical philosophy was grafted onto the interests of its audience in a way that helped to lay the foundations of an industrial mentality' (1987, p. 135). A commentator on Matthew Bolton suggests that his successful perfection of the steam engine was achieved because `his factory was one huge laboratory of applied mechanics' (Hill, 1969, p. 252). In other words, we begin to see some signs of the coalescence between

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the organisation of the mechanical body and the development of the organisation of mechanical production. But the relationship between the rationalised body and rational organisation had already been formed within the writings of Bacon. Although Francis Bacon (1561±1626) is seen as being a pioneer in scientific methodology, particularly in empiricism, several commentators (for example, Martin, 1993; Woolhouse, 1988) stress that in many ways he was more of a politician than a `pure' scientist. He worked his way up from being a barrister, through Attorney-General to the position of Lord Chancellor. One of his greatest concerns was authority and control in knowledge production (he essentially wished to maintain the status quo of the monarch's power, in accordance with his role within the state). His solution was àn institutional one, with hierarchically organised structures for information-gathering, assessment, and command' (Martin, 1993, p. 77). In his posthumously published New Atlantis, his vision of scientific organisation is set out in the form of `Solomon's House' ± a royal institution with a hierarchical division of labour among the `Brethren' who are state officials. They obtain scientific information from books, travel and experiments, collect this together so it can be assessed as legitimate, or not, by committees ± a plan for the `systematic and collaborative' pursuit of knowledge (Woolhouse, 1988, p. 14). Bacon characterised his method of scientific work as `mechanical' (Woolhouse, 1988, p. 23) the by-word of the times; and took his organisational inspiration for how this was to be achieved from the bureaucratic state institutions ± the body politic ± of England. Rationality and the ànatomising urge' As will have become apparent from what has gone before, the mode of knowing associated with anatomy is based on the premise of reason and rationality. This mode of knowledge is not simply historical nor narrowly related to the construction of the body, which, of course, changes over time. It has become a valued way of knowing and through the tradition of rationality in `western' knowledge has become the dominant mode of knowledge which is still maintained. It has a central place in organisation theory. The definition of rationality is associated with the use of judgement using reason. Thus it is closely related to that development of `western' thought commonly known as the Enlightenment which emphasises the definitive quality of being human as the ability to reason. This way of


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looking at the world is obviously shaped by Cartesian thought and the scientific revolution. `Rationality' is also related to `ratiocination', `ratio' and `ration'. The term links political and calculative judgements, both made through supposedly objective means. Thus rationality also refers to the allocation of portions and proportions through the use of reason. In the context of the discussion to follow, I would like to suggest that there is a clear link between rationality and the organising of the fragments cut up by the ànatomising urge'. Indeed, rationality is a form of organisation given by the ànatomising urge'. There are many different interpretations of `rationality', and what follows is a short selection and summary of some elements of `western' philosophical thought that link rationality and the development of knowledge as an ànatomising urge'. I have chosen to concentrate on what has been written about the work of these philosophers by social scientists, mainly through secondary sources on the history of social theory and organisation theory. It seems to me that rather than trying to present an àccurate' understanding of these philosophical schemes ± always a contentious activity and an impossible task in this space ± it is more useful to see how they have been interpreted within the social sciences, and hence influenced the development of organisation theory. What is offered here is just one interpretative narrative. In The Rise of Social Theory (1995), Heilbron described how the characteristics of rationalism changed between the time of Descartes and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: It was no longer metaphysical or speculative rationalism though it did remain a form of rationalism because its starting point was reason and the existence of universal or `natural' principles. It no longer involved abstract systems, nor did it focus on empirical research and scientific explanations. The major theoretical problem of this form of rationalism was how to reconcile the diversity of the phenomena with the belief in universal principles . . .The answer they developed was that rational principles and procedures would have to be used for constructing new forms of ordering and classification. (1995, p. 55) The main form for this rational ordering was in the encyclopaedia, widely seen as the symbol of the French Enlightenment. Thus rationality becomes centrally about organisation and the allocation of a form of order.

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Ànalysis' became an increasingly important concept in the eighteenth century. Heilbron suggests that this is foregrounded as the main method of rational enquiry, its principles being derived from mathematics and logic. Condillac (1714±80) regarded analysis as the universal method for all knowledge. Analysis derives from the practice and metaphor of anatomy: Ànalyses began with the dissection of an object into smaller units (``decomposition''), which was followed by the rearrangement or restructuring of these elements (``composition''). According to Condillac, both of these procedures were characterised by ``simplicity'', ``precision'' and `òbviousness'' ' (Heilbron, 1995, p. 56). Heilbron says that Condillac was not concerned with following a scientific method, but with determining what was rational and reasonable ± since he believed this mirrored how the mind worked (ibid.). So, already by the late eighteenth century we have in place rationality, order, organisation and analysis. It is a significant indicator of the power of the Cartesian split that, despite their considerable differences, the dualism became incorporated not only into empiricism and the scientific method, but also into German idealism and thus that strand of the `western' intellectual tradition. Kant (1724±1804) is a central figure in the Enlightenment. Following Descartes, Kant defined reason as being an independent faculty set in opposition to nature. In his study of the relationship between rationality and masculinity, Seidler comments that disdain for sexuality and bodily life is written into a Cartesian tradition which seeks to identify the self with the mind and reason. We supposedly only have an inner relationship with our reason which is also the source of our freedom and autonomy. Echoing a long Christian tradition, the body is treated as a prison that serves to trap the mind or the soul. We learn to treat the body instrumentally as if it were a machine that has to be trained. But since the body is part of nature it is governed by laws that are external. Similarly, emotions and feelings are supposedly located in our bodies. As Kant develops it they are sources of unfreedom and determination which seek to influence our behaviour externally. We have to minimise their influence as we identify ourselves with reason alone. (1994, p. xi) Hegel (1770±1831) also derived his influential philosophy ± Marx described himself as his pupil ± from rational principles. `Completely


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rejecting Kant's caveat about the subjective nature of reason, Hegel declares that the truths of reason are necessary, nonarbitrary, and final. Through reason, the mind can dissect the apparent world such as to lay bare its reason' (Robinson, 1995, p. 284, emphasis added). Hegel is also concerned for passion ± `nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion' (Hegel, 1953, p. 29) ± and freedom, not surprising for writing at the height of Romanticism. However, he is predominantly concerned with `consciousness': ònce the soul has expressed the ability to distinguish between itself and the objects of the external world it may be said to have ``consciousness'' and to be ``mind'' ' (Robinson, 1995, p. 286). Thus `renewing the ageless dichotomy, he dismissed matter as the passive victim of natural laws and asserted spirit as the only free force in the universe' (ibid., p. 287). Robinson highlights aspects such as `consciousness raising', `self-awareness' and `self-actualisation' in modern life which he argues stem from the Hegelian tradition (ibid., p. 286). These are aspects that can be seen as being significant in developments of the Human Relations school of thought, and theories of motivation, which similarly concentrate on the mental aspects of peoples' attitude and experience of work. Kant's thought has also helped to set the terms for the work of both Durkheim and Weber, two social theorists who have been influential in organisation theory (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980). `Both Durkheim and Weber draw from a rationalist framework that was prepared by Kant. Weber came to recognise in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism how easy it was for a particular form of reason to become unreasonable, as within the Protestant ethic, work became an end in itself ' (Seidler, 1994, p. xiii). `Durkheim's early work sets out a positivist vision in which we learn to treat social facts as things and to explore the ways that people's behaviour is governed by social laws (ibid., p. 8).' As far as Durkheim was concerned: `for man freedom consists in deliverance from blind, unthinking, physical forces' (1974, p. 72). Thus rationality is found to be central in both positivism and idealism. It is an interesting thought that perhaps one of the twentieth century's greatest challenges to rationality, Freudian thought, has not had much of an impact on organisation theory.11 Freud argues that rationality is an impossible ideal, and that what is denied will return in our dreams and fantasies.12 The links between rationality and organisation theory will be explored further in the next chapter.

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The ànatomising urge': organisation, discipline and ambivalence In looking at the early development of anatomy, Sawday (1995) argues that in this period the culture of dissection was embedded in all forms of culture, and not just in science. He argues that later, in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a deep incision was made between the `two cultures' of science and the arts ± `the autonomy of reason was proclaimed' (1995, p. 265). But the power of reason, science and the ànatomising urge' has remained an integral part of the development of `western' knowledge, including the social or human sciences, despite their separation into disciplines and perhaps everincreasing differentiation into sub-fields. In this section I want to look at how the emphasis on classification, ordering and rationality became institutionalised into the organisation of separated disciplines of knowledge rather than maintaining the more nebulous interrelationships of `Renaissance man'. It has already been argued in Chapter 1 that `discipline' is a key concept linking the ànatomising urge' to institutional structures. Knowledge was not segmented into specialised subject areas until around 1800, when physics, chemistry and biology emerged as distinct endeavours (Heilbron, 1995). In terms of content, biology distinguished itself from chemistry and physics, since living creatures could not be reduced to these forces, but were characterised by the òrganisation' of bodies. A changing institutional context reflected the move from a monistic ontology and epistemology with a belief in `the great chain of being' and the interconnectedness and unity of knowledge and nature, to the dualistic and differentiated conceptions of the ànatomising urge' (Heilbron, 1995, pp. 146±7). Compared to the earlier, more fluid, organisation of academies, learned societies, including the salons (Schiebinger, 1989) and the Freemasons (Jacob, 1987) there was developed a more formal and structured organisation of the universities, clinics (Foucault, 1970) and professional bodies. The natural sciences were highly successful in professionalising, becoming disciplined and respected (partly through the exclusion of women and their association with the body and a greater emphasis on the valued activity of the mind and consciousness). Later, particularly under the influence of Auguste Comte, the social sciences were to try to emulate this success. This is seen in both the organisation of the institutions and the organisation of the knowledge, the latter through the scientization of social theory (for example, Condorcet's mathematization ± see Heilbron, 1995, p. 190; Foucault, 1970). It is perhaps


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significant that Heilbron suggests that, rather than original thought, Comte's contribution was through `systematiz[ing] existing ideas' (1995, p. 199), since his greatest influence was in constructing the field of sociology as a separate endeavour from that of biology. Comte's work in differentiating social from natural sciences was both to draw on biology as a model ± especially in how biology had distinguished itself from chemistry and physics ± and to separate the social from the biological. The resulting ambivalent relationship has remained influential, as will be seen in the next chapter. Comte sought to differentiate the sciences according to their complexity. Thus, with physics and chemistry, the laws of mechanics were the simplest and applied to animate and inanimate bodies, but with biology these laws were more complicated, since they were applied to living creatures and were less general. With social phenomena, the laws were the most complicated and applied only to human societies. He argued that a new system of thought on societies needed to be worked out and that, as a secondary task, industrialists needed to organise society (Heilbron, 1995, p. 225).13 Armstrong (1987) discusses the sometimes fraught relationship between biology and sociology, with the latter defending its boundaries through a mixture of confrontation and accommodation. Biological theories might be adapted for sociology, but they must be demarcated as being different, or they are likely to be denigrated within the discipline (1987, p. 60). There is a relationship between this boundary maintenance and the denigration of the body in `western' thought. This is discussed by both Turner (1996) and Shilling (1993) as part of their development of a distinct sociology of the body. There is also a relationship between biology and sociology in terms of the form of knowledge they typically embody ± or perhaps the characteristics still present in ghost form from their formation as disciplines (referring back to Heilbron's comment). This is an argument that is made by Foucault in The Order of Things (1970). It is in what Foucault describes as the modern episteme,14 from the late eighteenth century, that the development of anatomy as a pattern of knowledge has come into its full power as the ànatomising urge'. According to Foucault, the modern episteme focuses on an new object of knowledge: `Man' [sic]. This is why there is the development of the new `sciences of man' ± the social sciences, but also modern biology and medicine. Thus sociology, biology and medicine (and for that matter psychology) all would seem to have their grounding in a similar cognitive space. Hence it can be seen that the sociological concern

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with the potentially threatening frontiers of biology [and the body] is not a part of a struggle between alternative knowledges but a limited jockeying for a position on a stage whose limits and fundamental organization is already fixed' (Armstrong, 1987, p. 63). They are also related through the characteristics of the mode of knowledge they embody. In The Order of Things, Foucault connects the development of anatomy with a new way of relating to and categorising `Life'. Instead of the classical taxonomy where there is a great natural order based on the external description of things from the simplest and most inert to the most complex and living: this space has now been dissociated and as it were opened up in depth. Instead of a unitary field of visibility and order, whose elements have a distinctive value in relation to each other, we have a series of oppositions, of which the two terms are never on the same level' (1970, p. 268). As Plumwood (1993) argues, the resultant dualisms such as the Cartesian mind/body split are not only significant in `western' knowledge because they lead to a conceptual divide between concepts and structures which are related in much more complex ways, but because they impose a hierarchical relationship between the two entities set in opposition to each other. Through this means we have the active privileging of the mind over the body, of culture over nature, of male over female, and so on. This encourages the exclusion and silencing of the subordinated category. The use of the incisive `slash' or oblique allows the formation of a certain form of knowledge that is dominant and valued, while other forms are subjugated. It is this metaphor of the scalpel and its incision that clearly marks off the sciences (and the social sciences, which set out to emulate the success of the natural sciences) as it highlights the importance of penetration and revelation which science still sees as being key virtues. Bauman (1991) has also described the form of knowledge based on categorising and dividing as being characteristic of modernity.15 He explores particularly how the desire to order and classify leads to inclusion and exclusion. He considers how the creation and maintenance of boundaries has political effects, most clearly seen in genocide and eugenics. Securing supremacy for a designed, artificial order is a two-pronged task. It demands unity and integrity of the realm and security of its borders. Both sides of the task converge on one effort ± that of separating the ìnside' from the òutside' . . . Hence the two-pronged task merges into one: that of making the boundary of the òrganic'


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structure sharp and clearly marked, which means èxcluding the middle', suppressing or exterminating everything ambiguous, everything that sits astride the barricade and thus compromises the vital distinction between inside and outside. Building and keeping order means making friends and fighting enemies. First and foremost, however, it means purging ambivalence. (Bauman, 1991, p. 24)16 Organisation theory, similarly, has emphasised certainty by creating boundaries and separating entities and functions, as will be discussed in the following chapter. What I have tried to do in this chapter has been to outline the characteristics of the ànatomising urge', but also and most importantly to indicate how it is incorporated into a dense network of relationships and structures that constitute the modern `western' world. The ànatomising urge' is embedded in language, in practices and processes of everyday life as well as academic knowledge. It is institutionalised in the structures and organisations of society, and, indeed, the notion of òrganisation' is a fundamental part of the ànatomising urge'. The next chapter argues that organisation theory, both in its creation as a distinct field of knowledge and in the mainstream aspects of its content, is closely linked to the ànatomising urge'.

5 Under the Knife: Anatomising Organisation Theory For us, it is the structure of our bodies and of their organs that is the essential, a structure whose stability is for us the image of the stability of our psychic identity. The fluids in our bodies but circulate refurbishment throughout the structure; their seepings into it and evaporations or discharges from it are neither regulated by our public codes nor valued in our politico-economic discourse. For the Sambia of Papua-New Guinea, it is the fluids that are the essential. The body is perceived essentially as a conduit for fluids ± for blood, milk, semen. Body fluids are drawn from without, from couplings with other bodies, from couplings with other organism-conduits in outside nature. Among the Sambia, the transmissions of fluid from one body-conduit to another are metered out as social transactions. (Lingis, 1994, p. xi) In an Open University programme on `cell structure and function' there is an incredibly detailed demonstration of how a rat's kidney is prepared for biological study. Luckily (for my sensibilities, at least) the initial stages of killing and dissecting the rat to obtain its kidney are omitted (see Birke, 1994; Hubbard and Birke, 1995). However, everything that follows this is premised on death and fragmentation. The kidney is first of all sliced into paper thin pieces. One piece is then put through a large number of processes to `fix' it, so that the structures will stay in place and not merge, and `stain' it, so that these structures can be differentiated under the microscope. The whole process is acknowledged to be `denaturing'; it is also extremely dextrous work. Finally, the fragment, bearing no resemblance to an organ, let alone an animal, is attached to a microscope slide and the `true' scientific work of examining its parts can begin. I found this film intriguing, both in what it says about the biological study of `life' and as a comparison to the work that organisation theorists frequently carry out on organisations. This is a theme that 114

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pervades this chapter. Just as with the fragment of the rat's kidney, I felt that, in looking at the relationship between organisation theory and the ànatomising urge', the body itself kept slipping away, leaving only denatured pieces. As with the biological study of the kidney, organisation theory depends on anatomy. In this case also, it is sliced up into its constituent parts, the life taken out of it, dissected using the tools of rationality and analysis. However, I have used a quotation from Lingis's Foreign Bodies (1994) as the heading of this chapter because it reminds us that there are other ways of understanding and conceptualising the body than the dominant scientific one of modern `western' societies. The conjunction of anatomy as a way of constructing the human body and the ànatomising urge' as a mode of knowledge that is constructed as òbjective' and scientific in such a way that the knowledge stemming from it seems natural and inevitable is very powerful. It means that we take the dominant construction of the body for granted, assume that this is how it is because of the power of `western' science as a universal truth claim, rather than a cultural construction. In this chapter I want to examine how the ànatomising urge' has significantly shaped organisation studies. Historical material is used here to draw out some of the hidden connections between the body and organisation as a concept and the construction of bodies and organisations as institutions, but the chapter is not intended to be chronological, in the sense of providing a total history of the ànatomising urge' from its origin to the present. There are multiple threads of narrative through history and this is just one possibility. Once again, it is important to stress that I am not simply looking at the ànatomising urge' as a linguistic device, or metaphor for a certain kind of knowledge. On the one hand, I want to interweave an understanding of the discursive, material and institutional as all being connected. On the other, I do not wish to present the ànatomising urge' as a totalising phenomenon. So while I examine the ànatomising urge' in relation to organisation studies I am conscious of this and try to express how there is contradiction and resistance to it, and within it, from the outset. There are two main themes I want to consider. The first is the development of a cluster of meanings around òrgans', òrganism' and òrganisation', which ties together the concept of òrganisation' with the structured and ordered body of anatomy and biology. Through the development of nineteenth-century social and political theory, these ideas have become incorporated into organisation theory. Within this I look at three aspects: the concept of òrganisation' around the start of

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the nineteenth century; the use of the terms òrganic' and `mechanical' in the sciences through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century; and the huge effect of theories of evolution, of which Darwin's work is a prime but not the sole example. These aspects coalesce around the conflation between òrganism' and òrganisation', one of the biological metaphors that has been influential in organisation theory (Morgan, 1986, p. 39). The second major theme I consider is the significance of division, order and boundary both in the creation of organisation studies as a distinct field of academic endeavour and in the construction of its subject: the organisation. This overlaps with the first theme and its emphasis on the implicit organism/organisation relationship. In understanding the processes involved in this boundary creation and maintenance, the concept of àbjection' provides a useful link between the organised human body and the structuring of the body of knowledge that constitutes organisation studies. The durability of these boundary processes is indicated by looking at more recent work in the field which emphasises a fluidity of borders. This applies within organisation studies and in its relationship to other disciplines. It is also related to a blurring of the traditional bounded form of the òrganisation' as the object of study of the discipline. I conclude that, despite a growing body of work on the `postmodern organisation', the boundaries of the structured entities of discipline and organisation have remained largely intact. ORGANS, ORGANISMS AND ORGANISATION The idea of òrganisation' stems from that of òrgan'. It derives directly from the structured view of the body discussed in the previous chapter. The Oxford English Dictionary defines òrgan' as à distinct part of an animal or plant body, adapted for a particular function'. Common textbook definitions of òrganisation' similarly emphasise a definite structure and function. For example, òrganizations are social entities that are goal-directed, deliberately structured activity systems with an identifiable boundary' (Daft, 1989, pp. 9±10). As I argued in Chapter 4, the significance of ordering was embedded into the Enlightenment concepts of knowledge and reason, so the growing importance of òrganisation' as a structuring concept is not surprising. Hoskin argues (as do Foucault, 1970, 1973; Figlio, 1976; and Pickstone, 1981) that àround 1800, the term `òrganisation'' discovered its


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modern power as [a] key explanatory metaphor, both in biology and the sciences of man' (1995, p. 145). In France there was vehement dissent in biology around the physiological apparatus and processes for sensitivity and irritability within an organism. Figlio argues that divergent views in these debates were eventually reconciled by the use of the term òrganisation'. The work of men such as Cuvier (1769± 1832) and Bichat (1771±1802), which emphasised the importance of òrganisation', triumphed in the development of a dominant paradigm in biology. Cuvier brought together the fields of anatomy and natural history (the classification of species). Unlike earlier classificationists, and directly because of his practice of anatomy, Cuvier systematically compared the internal organisation of organisms rather than their external features. It is this distinction that led Foucault to regard him as central to the making of modern biology (Foucault, 1970; Heilbron, 1995, p. 139). Similarly, Pickstone (1981) suggests that Bichat's work was formulated in such a way as to `fit' with the sociopolitical language of the time and the bureaucratic institutions being developed in the Directorate. His particular way of looking at the body was as a `set of parallel sub-systems, variously subordinated' (1981, p. 118). His focus was on classifying the tissues that make up the organs. Of particular importance to Bichat's conception of biology are the membranes, since these delineate the edges of similar parts ± in other words, they form boundaries within the organism. Bichat's organisation of the body finds resonance within the `highly structured, bureaucratic medical school, itself part of the new executive apparatus of the Directory. In this sunset of the Enlightenment, scientific rationalism finally attained political influence, and was embodied in a series of parallel administrative, educational and military systems, extending and rationalising the bureaucracy of the ancien regime' (Pickstone, 1981, p. 127). In postRevolutionary France, universities, hospitals and state bureaucracy grew rapidly (Foucault, 1973; Pickstone, 1981). Heilbron argues that the Revolution had a radical effect in opening up the possibility for the formation of new institutions, once the monopolistic position of the guilds had been broken (1995, p. 119). At around the same time in England there was a period of institutional consolidation through the Industrial Revolution, which was to produce the more usual subject matter of organisation studies: that of business corporations (Harrison, 1984). Thus the concept of òrganisation' is important as a metaphor and as a means of ordering knowledge and the body, but it is also important in its institutional and political forms. The language and concepts of biology and social and political thought are mutually

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reinforcing, rather than social science being simply derivative of biology. In many ways the coalescence of these aspects of social and political life illustrate Turner's argument regarding the major organisational responses to `the need for cultural management of . . . embodiment' (Turner, 1990, p. 3), so that `civilization is brought about by the denial of the human emotions which come to be defined as irrational. The subordination of the flesh required an intellectualisation of life through the development of natural sciences, the regulation of bodies in the interests of industrial efficiency and finally the rise of a money system whereby the value of all actions could be rationally calculated' (Turner, 1990, p. 4). Returning to Directorate France, Foucault, in The Birth of the Clinic (1973), argues that the connection between the organising of the body into regular, reproducible and visible features was worked out essentially through the institutionalisation of the hospital in this period. Initially, the hospital was developed as a place where the poor could be treated; those who could afford it were treated individually and privately in their own homes. But the progress of `scientific' medicine required consistent and large-scale experimentation and observation: `There is boundary, form, and meaning only if interrogation and examination are connected with each other, defining at the level of fundamental structures the ``meeting place'' of doctor and patient' (1973, p. 111). This clinical gaze sought to `see, to isolate features, to recognise those that are identical and those that are different, to regroup them, to classify them by species or families' (1973, p. 89). The institutional achievement of these objectives was brought about slowly and hedged around by arguments about the greater good of society, since it disrupted the moral relationships between doctor and patient, society and the poor. Bichat's physiology of the body was also to find a parallel in the political thought of Saint-Simon (1760±1825), described as `the prophet of organization' (Pickstone, 1981, p. 123). Both `tended to see the operations of wholes as bundles of separate functions carried out by constituents; at each level of organisation the analysis could be repeated' (Pickstone, 1981, p. 123). Saint-Simon stressed stability, albeit one achieved through the functions of science and industrialism rather than religion and traditional authority (Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980, p. 16). It is interesting that in presenting Saint-Simon as one of the forerunners of organisation theory, Clegg and Dunkerley describe his as à basically organic view of society' (1980, p. 17, emphasis


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added), thus underlining the assumption of the organism as an organised, structured and hierarchical one. These ideas of structure, function and boundary, then, are common to both biology's examination of the body and the idea of òrganisation' itself. The bounded nature of the body comes to be constructed through biological theory. What it contains in the way of `structures' becomes conceptualised as patterned, ordered and `natural'. While there are the germs of this organised body in the theories of organisation held by such influential figures as Saint-Simon, Weber and Taylor, the twentieth century has seen the greatest development of the principle of separation, through rigid structures and functions within the organisation. The `mind' controls the `body' in the rise of large-scale capitalist organisation, which uses workers' bodies as though they were mindless, and controls the body and the organisation through the principle of rationality. But management practices such as Taylorism and Fordism have only put into practice the existing ingredients of Cartesian rationalism and the organised body. In some senses at least, biology and organisation theory draw on a common pool of corporeality. However, it would seem that as each attempts to create a distinctive theoretical or disciplinary object, the body itself becomes fragmented within itself and cut off from its context. Particularly through the adoption of the concept of òrganisation', the body becomes objectified as distinct from the `lived body' (Williams and Bendelow, 1998). `The body' in natural and social science has been separated off as a material entity from the embodied subject. Òrganic' in social theory The connection between biology and organisation theory can be further seen in the use of the òrganic' metaphor. In relation to organisation theory this is perhaps most developed in the work of Burns and Stalker (1961). In their study of various industries, most notably electronics, they tried to understand what features of an organisation and its management style were the most appropriate for responding to changes in its environment. They characterised organisational forms from `mechanistic' (with typical bureaucratic features) to òrganic' (more flexible and open), arguing that the more organic firms were more successful in adapting to the changing needs of products and markets. The concept of òrganic' obviously relates the organisation back again to the organism (although a fairly basic organism, as can be

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seen from Morgan's comment that `they created a form of organization having more in common with that of an amoeba than a machine' (1986, p. 51)). The comparison draws on several concepts developed in biology, sometimes derived straight from the natural sciences, and sometimes through the development of their use within social and political theory. Of particular interest for organisation theory have been the related concepts of evolution, adaptation, equilibrium and systems. In relating these concepts back to their relationship to other disciplines it becomes clear that metaphors are not simply rhetorical devices, but have histories. It is worth tracing some of the hidden history of these terms in more detail to better understand how the ànatomising urge' continues to underpin them. But before considering some of the connections between organisation theory and the organism, it is important to emphasise the point about the history and political consequences of metaphor in relation to the highly influential work of Gareth Morgan. In Images of Organization (1986), Morgan uses eight metaphors to look at organisations from different perspectives, with the first two metaphors being the mechanical and the organic. One of the problems with Morgan's work on metaphors is that he has simply taken them as a tool, or rather a lens, through which to organise a particular perspective. For him, each metaphor is as valid as any other, and each has different consequences, but the reader can pick and choose his or her own standpoint from a number presented, or any other of their own devising. Yet the metaphors he draws on already have their own history. As I will try to demonstrate, the mechanical and organic metaphors have already shaped social theory and been shaped by it (see Cazal and Inns, 1998, p. 191). They have also been the subject of contestation and usage for different political ends. I would argue that these histories cannot be ignored. Other commentators on the use of metaphor in organisation analysis have also drawn attention to the underlying assumption that metaphor is à rational, reductionist tool' (Cazal and Inns, 1998, p. 184) ± and, as we shall see, one wielded in a similar way to that of the scalpel ± whereas in literature and psychoanalysis, for example, metaphor is seen as part of the inherent ambiguity and instability of language and meaning. Cazal and Inns (1998) follow Freud, Saussure, and especially Lacan, in pointing to metaphor as caught up with `the relations, connections and links between terms and concepts in a linguistic system' (ibid.). Although metaphors are transferred between different contexts, they remain part of a web of social and individual meanings


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(Cazal and Inns, 1998, p. 188). This complexity and ambiguity is quite different from the individualistic and instrumental way that work such as Morgan's detaches them from their social and historical contexts. Specifically in relation to considering the notions of the body that are embedded in them, at least three of Morgan's metaphors are relevant: the mechanical, the organic, and the brain. Morgan's use of these metaphors continues the tradition of subordinating and dividing the body through the reconceptualising of the mind of the author and the textuality of (organisation) theory. The òrganic' metaphor of organisations is seen as being separated from the `mechanical' one, and both are distinguished from `the brain' as a metaphor. In several senses this tricotomy itself is reflective of the failure to see that all three have a common root in the body. The organic does draw upon the image of the adaptive organism in the environment literature, but fails to refer to the way the mechanical imagery of the scalpel is part and parcel of this representation of the organism. The metaphor of the brain as separate from the organic simply reinforces the Cartesian mind/body dualism. In other words, the structure of Morgan's chapters masks rather than highlights the full impact of the human body as metaphor in the discipline of organisation studies. This criticism of Morgan rests on the articulation of the many different ways in which the body has been organised, and is therefore an attempt to locate the bodily metaphors that he uses in an historical and cultural context. His application of a metaphorical perspective to organisation studies is ahistorical, because it fails to appreciate the turmoil that lay behind the success and failure of successive metaphors of the body as science developed. In the previous chapter I argued that the early anatomists and the work of Descartes instituted a view of the body-as-machine. In other words, the organic and the mechanical became conflated. At the time when anatomy began to grow in importance and when Descartes' work became so influential, machines and mechanisation were highly valued. They offered the opportunity to control nature and overcome the limitations of the human body. Thus comparing the body and its workings to machines provides a means of understanding but is also a discourse that enables there to be a belief that there is a greater degree of control over what was previously a `dark continent', the insides of which could only be guessed at by viewing the surface. Sawday (1995) comments how there was a shift during the seventeenth century from metaphors of the body which see it as treasonable, rebellious and secretive, to ones of mechanism, where there is at least

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some illusion of the sovereign individual ruling over his/her own body. With anatomy and the triumph of mechanics (Sawday, 1995, p. 37), a body-image is constructed centring on the relationship between parts, each of which has its own function governed by laws rather than chance, and is thus ultimately open to manipulation. Moving into the sphere of social and political theory, Adam Smith (in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759) compared society to both an organism and a machine in the same paragraph, with no distinction between the two (Rosen, 1998, p. 1). The crux of both of Smith's comparisons is to show how the parts of society interact to make a whole. Yet, Rosen argues, by the end of the eighteenth century the terms `mechanical' and òrganic' had become separated, which he illustrates with reference to the work of Herder, Kant and Schiller. Rosen suggests that central to the disconnection between notions of mechanical and organic is the changing emphasis on the idea of growth and development as being the primary functions of an organism. The sense that change and development were necessary to the organism fitted well with the classic Enlightenment theme of progress. Here writers emphasised that societies became more mature over time, as did the organism, with all this implied in terms of becoming more completely formed and ultimately more civilised. Herder's contribution to the understanding of organic was to see it as a stable and selfsustaining unity, having inner balance or equilibrium. This balance is achieved by each part being able to realise its own distinctive nature. In relation to the use of the metaphor to describe society, the values of liberty and equality incorporated into the picture become quite clear and `machine' as applied to society became a pejorative term. Mechanical was seen as being lifeless, while the organic was living. Kant continued and made more explicit this separation between mechanical and organic. He particularly drew out the distinction that organisms are actively self-organising, self-reproducing and self-repairing compared to mechanisms, which are not. Russett (1966, p. 150) has argued that `the pattern of Western intellectual model building down through the centuries can, indeed, be interpreted as a ceaseless oscillation between mechanism and organism'. However, although `mechanism' and òrganism' have been turned into antonyms, certain basic characteristics remain in common, and these are significant both in `western' constructions of the human body and in the development of theories of organisation. That is, both are based on the concept of a bounded entity, which consists of parts that together form a whole. The notion of òrganisation' still forms the


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basis of the two terms, even where they are being contrasted. Kant's main distinction between them centres on the organism containing within itself its own purpose, whereas the purpose of the mechanism comes from outside itself. So, in drawing these comparisons, the drawing of boundaries between inside and outside is highly significant. Kant believes that what is most characteristic of organic beings is that they are organised (Rosen, 1998, p. 17; Kant, Critique of Judgement, 1790). They are also self-producing. This is significant in relation to the argument about the ànatomising urge', since it emphasises the view of reproduction that is about the production of the identical ± `self ' rather than òther'-producing. Thus it is about replication. This can be characterised as a mechanical reproduction and is thus quite ironic, given that Kant is attempting to move away from any similarity with the machine. This theme of the ànatomising urge' will be more fully developed in the next two chapters. Rosen (1998) comments that Kant's arguments had a significant impact on subsequent writers in the German Idealist and Romantic traditions. It is with Schiller and the development of Romanticism that the organic notion of society came to be more valued and held up against a negative view of a mechanical society. Àccording to Schiller, the growth of empirical knowledge, the division of labour and the separation of ranks all mean that, in the modern world, man has become specialized and divided, with the result that the ``totality of the species'' (Totalitat der Gattung) becomes impossible to recover from its ``fragments'' (Bruchstucke), the individual members' (Rosen, 1998, pp. 19±20). In what Schiller himself wrote on this in Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), the critique of the ànatomising urge' can be seen through the language he uses: Ònce the increase of empirical knowledge, and more exact modes of thought, made sharper divisions between the sciences inevitable, and once the increasingly intricate clockwork of the states necessitated a more rigorous separation of ranks and occupations, then the inner connection of human nature was severed too, and a disastrous conflict set its harmonious powers at variance' (1967, pp. 33±5, my emphasis). The development of the Romantic1 movement as a critique of the authorities of the eighteenth century is significant in the changing notions of organic and mechanical presented here: Romanticism was first and foremost a movement of liberation ± liberation from religious tradition, from political absolutism, from a

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hierarchical social system and from a universe conceived on the model of the exact sciences. Reason and scientific laws, the Romantics felt, might allow man [sic] to control his environment, but they formed a sieve through which the living breathing individual slipped, leaving behind only the dead matter of generality. (Josipovici, 1979, p. 180) The aim was to recover the uniqueness of the individual. Within Romanticism there was also a potentially contradictory thread that emphasised the merging of objects, so there were no clear boundaries (Gouldner, 1975, p. 328). This aspect of Romanticism is a distinct reversal of the values of the ànatomising urge' but, as has been discussed, both in Chapter 4 and above, this is tempered by the continuing importance of the concept of òrganisation' and the uniqueness of the individual. Part of the comparison between the organic and the societal centres around the concept of èvolution'. This also illustrates the complexity of the relationship between ideas in the natural and social sciences. In his study of Darwin's Metaphor (1985), Young contextualises Darwin's work within a history of thought about èvolution', `progress' and `survival of the fittest', and argues that `Darwinism was an extension of laissez-faire economic theory from social science to biology' (Young, 1985, p. 3). Darwin was highly influenced in his work by that of Malthus, who wrote about the struggle for existence where nature could not support the total possible human population. Malthus, in his turn, wrote the Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) specifically in response to the supreme belief of thinkers such as Godwin and Condorcet that human reason would triumph over the constraints of the Earth, and man would be able to transcend nature, birth and death (and presumably the body as well).2 However, while Darwin's theory gave the biggest boost to the idea of evolution through its empirical detail, there is a complex cluster of related concepts and theories. In terms of the relationship to the social sciences, Lamarckian evolution is also highly influential.3 This centred on the idea of an inherent tendency to progression in nature. It also saw modifications of the species as achieved through individuals striving for change with these changes then subsequently inherited. There was a huge popularisation and broad spectrum of use of all of these ideas. Indeed, they have become incorporated into assumptions about the relationship between organism and environment or individuals, organisations and societies, although now separated from the context of their original theories.


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Èvolution' took on the meaning of a necessary and rational development from rudimentary to mature organs (Williams, 1983, pp. 120±3). The relevance for social and organisation theory is that the extension of evolutionary thinking led to an emphasis on the relationship (frequently of conflict) between the organism and its environment, and between organisms competing for the same resources. The notion of àdaptation', that those organisms which survive ± through `natural selection' ± have adapted to their environment, is also a prevalent one. And the common background of liberal economic theory provides a link with the conception of èquilibrium', the concept of balance between the inside and outside of an organism, and within the systems of the organism itself. Since much theory at the time was founded on a belief of the inevitability that some should suffer because they were not the fittest to survive (obviously òther' groups not in the privileged positions of the thinkers and writers of the period, who had the money and time to do so), it is important to consider the work of Marx. Marx was also unlike other theorists who drew many analogies from the scientific concept of the organism but did not consider the lived experience of the human body.4 The attitude of Marx is interesting to consider, since it is distinct from much of social theory in recognising how organisations ± or rather the capitalist mode of production ± discipline and frequently destroy the body: `the harmonious and sensuous interchange of man and nature for the purpose of satisfying bodily needs is destroyed by the competition that divides man from man, by the machines that cut up the work process, by the system of private property that separates the worker from the means of production, and by the fetishistic overvaluation of commodities that leads to an obscuring and devaluation of human needs' (Das Kapital, quoted in Kern, 1975, p. 61).5 It is not that Marx sees as problematic the body carrying out work, where this provides for the bodily needs through the transformation of the resources of nature; the problem stems rather from the anatomisation of this relationship, the divisions that have been sliced between worker and work. This separation can be seen clearly in relation to the Cartesian split: àlienation is the rejection by the spirit of what the body has to do' (O'Donnell, 1992, p. 280). However, while Marx recognised the problem of the body, his work focuses on the social organisation that produced it. Related to the Cartesian dualism of mind and body in modern social theory, although obviously historically pre-dating it, is asceticism ± the

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structured denial of the body in order to achieve something that is seen as being more valued. In Chapter 2 I discussed how this denial has been, almost paradoxically, incorporated into the modern consumerist, individualised cult or project of the body. But it was also a recurring theme among nineteenth-century social theorists. Weber, of course, believed that through `the Protestant ethic' it was essential to the development of capitalism; Marx saw it as a consequence of the psychological effects of capitalism; for Nietzsche it was a necessary stage in the development of the human mind; and Freud was interested in the effects it had on mental illness (repression) although he also saw it as being necessary for the progress of civilisation. So these thinkers debated the consequences of asceticism but were simultaneously impressed by it (Kern, 1975, p. 59). The valuation of mind over body, and indeed the control the mind has over the body continues to exert a strong influence on the intellectual tradition, even sometimes ± as in the cases of Nietzsche and Freud ± in the most unlikely places. In a perhaps more improbable place we can find a challenge to the dualism, as Darwin wrote in his private notebooks that he believed `the mind is a function of the body' (Kern, 1975, p. 65). I want to conclude this section by considering briefly the influence of the òrganic' to two theorists who have been argued to be influential in organisation theory: Durkheim and Parsons (see Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980). Biological metaphors have also more indirectly influenced organisation studies via those social theorists who have been most associated with biological analogy: Comte and Spencer. However, these links have already been explored in two key texts on the development of organisation theory (and which themselves can be seen as actively constructing the discipline): Burrell and Morgan (1979), and Clegg and Dunkerley (1980). Rather than repeat these here, I want to trace less obvious connections between biology and organisations which institutionalise the scientific view of the organism and retain the Cartesian split between mind and body. Durkheim uses the distinction between mechanical and organic to understand the nature of society as collective rather than individualistic, as in laissez-faire economic theory. He contrasted the mechanical solidarity of less differentiated society, where there was no specialised division of labour, to the organic society with its high division of labour. Important to Durkheim were the ways in which the parts of societies were organised: in an organic form of society there is a high division of labour, a degree of relative autonomy between people, but also interdependence because of the nature of the division of labour.


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People need others to do the jobs that they cannot or do not wish to do. Although in many ways Durkheim seems to be rejecting the evolutionary liberal economics trend, he still has a concept of order/ organisation; entity with boundaries; and relationship between the whole and its parts. Parsons, as one of the Pareto circle at Harvard, was directly influenced by concurrent work in biology: by L. J. Henderson on the concept of system; by Cannon on the idea of equilibrium in the homeostasis of the blood; and the insect biologist Emerson on the connection between organic systems and social ones. Indeed, Parsons is seen by Russett as `raising equilibrium to the level of a general theory of society . . . a unifying concept' as part of an attempt to `systematize ``behavior theory'' on an organic basis' (1966, pp. 151±2). In drawing on both a systems and an organic/organism metaphor, Parsons developed the ÀGIL' framework to understand societies' functions. This argued that societies had to fulfil four functions ± Adaptation, Goal attainment, Integration, Latency (the latter later on changed to boundary maintenance functions). Although in the 1960s and 1970s and in the British context, Parsons was held up in sociology as a positivist and functionalist reactionary to be shot down in flames, his thought was both more sophisticated and influential in organisation theory than might be thought from that context. As well as several papers of his own on organisations (for example, 1956, 1957), he was particularly influential in making Weber accessible to an Anglo-Saxon audience, by translating some of Weber's work and influencing other translations. But it was a particular reading of Weber that emphasised structures. In the 1970s there was a flurry of papers to `de-Parsonize Weber', with the discovery of the `radical Weber', which brought in more emphasis on subjectivity and the history of German idealism that the earlier popularisation had omitted. These characteristics of the anatomised view of organisms and their relationships can be seen clearly in the development of organisation theory, which will be discussed in the next section. ORGANISATION THEORY AND THE ÀNATOMISING URGE' Division, order and boundary Òrganisation' is thus similarly a development of forms of representation that rely on the scalpel and the mirror. Organisations are not

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natural but are fixed and solidified to make them appear so. They are endowed with organs which are assumed within the dominant framework to have both a structure and a function; they are given very solid boundaries, and a distinct division is made between inside and outside; there is an attempt to standardise and force them to the norm. They are certainly gendered, yet in the tradition of `western' rationality they are portrayed as neutral and neutered. Processes of organising are intimately connected to division. Hassard argues that Ìn Weber's work, organizations become the crucible within which processes of differentiation take place' (1993, p. 7). The principle of separation is assiduously maintained through various organising processes. For example, within traditional bureaucratic organisation there is separation between organisational `functions' and the struggle to define, measure and control each of these. Divisions are sliced between the person and their role, and in the effort to keep private and public life apart ± at least in so far as emotions, the body and `gender' (meaning the female gender, the male being taken as the `neutral' norm) are concerned, if not in the insinuation of organisational life further and further into the domestic sphere. And strong attempts are made to retain the distinctions of power and hierarchy, institutionalised through managerial ranks, the separation of `conception' and èxecution' (made explicit by F. W. Taylor), and through the rules, norms and artefacts of formal and informal culture. As one form of knowledge construct, the concept of òrganisation' itself comes premised on the tools and principles of the ànatomising urge', as does the development of theory about organisations. Burrell and Morgan (1979) argue that functionalist organisation theory is the dominant paradigm in the field. This is one in which models of organisational functioning are highly important, sometimes linked to the structures of the formal organisation, and there are stringent attempts to measure, classify and explain forms of organisations and link these to behaviour within them. Marsden and Townley (1996) have described the Aston studies as the archetypal example of normal science and functionalism. Clegg and Hardy (1996) criticise the Aston work in language which powerfully evokes the anatomised body part, reminiscent of the Open University programme I described at the start of the chapter. They argue that `the Aston translation process arrested this agency and prevented managerial discretion from contaminating the results: only the researchers knew which organisations were in the study, and they preserved them in the analytical


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formaldehyde of ``formalization'', ``standardization'', ``centralization'', ``routinization'' and ``configuration'' ' (1996, p. 690). Interestingly, Burrell and Morgan characterise this approach by its `host of rival typologies which attempt to classify the subject area' (1979, p. 119) ± while setting up their own rival typology ± and castigate theorists in the field for à reluctance to penetrate to the foundations of the subject' (ibid., emphasis added) ± thereby setting up their own approach as being more incisive, and thus incorporating some of the key assumptions of the ànatomising urge' into the very heart of their work! This will be discussed in more depth below. Much of organisation theory has taken the concept of the òrganisation,' as a distinct entity for study, as a given. The word òrganisation' stems from the bodily metaphor of possessing organs and, like the body, there are taken-for-granted assumptions about the boundaries marking the inside and outside of the entity, the distinction between the òrganisation' and its ènvironment', how it is made up of distinct parts ± a structure ± which interact with each other on the basis of goalachieving behaviour ± thus having a rational function. But it is in this construction of meaning, embedded in social, historical and cultural processes, and not as objective universal scientific facts, that the organising processes themselves are constituted. In the 1990s organisation theory became more reflexive about its own part in this, and some writers have refused the traditional terms of organisation theory. For example, Law stresses that `perhaps there is ordering, but there is certainly no order' (1994, p. 1). Organising needs to be seen as a verb not a noun, since it is incomplete, precarious, plural and heterogeneous (ibid., p. 2). Part of the reason for this rethinking of the nature of organisation and organisation theory is the developing critique of natural science and rationality (for example, Brown, 1992) which was discussed in Chapter 1. Organisation studies, too, has invented a body and its nature that suits its own purposes. To a large extent it is the anonymous, immutable and dismembered body of the ànatomising urge'. For example, Romanyshyn sees a connection between the divided and mechanistic body, the work it carries out, and the anonymous, interchangeable products of this labour. The labour of division of the ànatomising urge' becomes the division of labour which `converts the worker into a mechanical performer of repetitive functions' (1989, p. 145). Indeed, both in the managerially orientated tradition of organisation studies and in the critical sociological tradition from Marx, Weber and Durkheim (Shilling, 1993, p. 25), the body is only seen in terms of its

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control and rationalisation, not as a subject of intrinsic interest. The Cartesian mind/body split is hierarchically institutionalised in F. W. Taylor's separation of `conception' from èxecution', with the former being given control over the latter. The control of mind (`science', `culture', òbjectivity') over body (`nature', `subjectivity') can also be seen as part of the organisation of white-collar, managerial and professional work, since; `routine control of the body is integral to the very nature both of agency and of being accepted (trusted) by others as competent' (Giddens, 1991, p. 57). The bodily metaphors which are pervasive in organisations also divide the body into parts: for example, `head office' (the mind is still firmly in change of the members) not to mention `divisional heads', `factory hands' (again, the valuing of mental over manual bodily work), `supervisors' (the continuation of the importance of the visual). In Images of Organizations, Gareth Morgan suggests a link between biology and organisation studies, in that `think[ing] about organizations as if they were organisms' (Morgan, 1986, p. 39) has led to `many of the most important developments in organization theory over the last fifty years' (ibid.). Biology, as the science of living organisms, is one key to the images, metaphors and `knowledge' of the body. Therefore it does seem important to consider the basis of the multiplicity and changing biological and biomedical views on the body that have been adopted as key ideas in understanding organisations. The biological metaphors organisation theory draws upon are consistently those of the òrganised body' of Cartesian rationalism. In what follows, I take just a couple of examples to illustrate the pervasiveness of biological metaphors and the predominance of structure across a range of different approaches. One consistent theme across organisation studies is the construction of organisations as bounded and structured entities which have a sense of internal cohesion differentiated and separated from the external ènvironment'. This can be illustrated by quotations from a best-selling text book in the Marxist tradition of labour process theory, Work Organizations (Thompson and McHugh, 1995). They say `let us define organizations as consciously created arrangements to achieve goals by collective means' (1995, p. 3) where `the essence of organization is the creation of regular, standardised behaviour and orderly structure' (ibid., p. 4). They go on to note that `despite the self-activity of their members, organizations as corporate bodies do have economic and political powers above and beyond those of the particular individuals that comprise them' (ibid., p. 5).


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Thus organisations are theorised as structures which self-determine ± are goal seeking ± in their own right. They are seen as organisms ± biological entities ± that behave in particular ways to carry out certain functions in order to survive. There are, of course, many difficulties with this anthropomorphism and reification,6 which have been articulated by many other writers (for example, Silverman, 1970; Mouzelis, 1967). Indeed, Silverman comments that ìt may, therefore, be necessary to drop the analogy between an organisation and an organism: organisations may be systems but not necessarily natural systems' (1970, p. 31). However, the anthropomorphism of the goal-seeking entity of the organisation has retained its power and can be seen across work as diverse as social systems theory, population ecology and institutional theory. The work of Chester Barnard (1886±1961) is one of the first attempts to develop a comprehensive academic theory of the organisation. Along with the work of Herbert Simon, Burrell and Morgan (1979) characterise this approach as an èquilibrium model' of organisation. As well as Parsons, who applied the idea of equilibrium to society (see above), Barnard was a member of the Pareto circle at Harvard, which was strongly influenced by the ideas of the biochemist L. J. Henderson, who sought to bring biology into the curriculum and research agenda of business and social theory. For Barnard, the organisation's goal is to achieve internal equilibrium through three necessary and sufficient conditions: communication, willingness to serve, and common purpose. Biological arguments are put forward to defend this proposition. It is a ùnitary' perspective on organisation (Burrell and Morgan, 1979, p. 149), based on the elision between organisation and organism. Barnard saw as pathological those people who are ùnfitted for co-operation' (1938, p. 13). Individual people are conceptualised as members of the organisation, fitting into the overall function like cogs in a machine, with no room for superfluity or different motives. This notion of equilibrium, the balance of properties within the organism/organisation that keep it functioning properly, is also prevalent in other key works of the time that have been influential in the development of organisation studies and that are still commonly taught as part of business schools' organisational behaviour syllabuses. Thus Henderson was closely involved with the setting up of the Fatigue Laboratory in the Harvard School of Business Administration in 1927 to look at mental and physical stress in workers (Russett, 1966, p. 114). This work led to the well-known Hawthorne experiments. Other academics associated with these, directly or indirectly, include Roethlis-

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berger and Mayo. Mayo in particular used the concept of equilibrium in his consideration of industrial problems. Another associate of the circle, Homans,7 drew on the same ideas for his work on group processes. Herbert Simon's work on administrative behaviour also draws heavily on the notion of the organised body,8 particularly the Cartesian separation of body from mind. Simon states that `the central concern of administrative theory is with the boundary between the rational and nonrational aspects of human social behaviour' (1957, p. xxiv, original emphasis). In the development of his use of Weber's notion of rationality, Simon first separates off the rationality of the individual as being limited ± `bounded rationality' ± and then allows it to be occluded by the more encompassing organisational rationality through a process of ìdentification'. Thus the mind of the individual is effectively taken over by the mind of the organisation: `through his [sic] subjection to organizationally determined goals, and through the gradual absorption of these goals into his own attitudes, the participant in organization acquires an `òrganization personality'' rather distinct from his personality as an individual' (1976, p. 198). Rational organisation requires that people become predictable parts of the whole. There is an assumption that people in the organisation will act as `members' ± in the sense of parts or organs of the body, especially limbs. In this construction of the human body, a limb is separate and different from a brain. It is controlled by the brain at a distance through some means of communication. Since it is deeply problematic to control anything in this way, Simon's solution is ìdentification', whereby organisational members are made to be òf one mind'. However, Clegg and Hardy have pointed out that this denial of agency, let alone conflicting interests, is one of the fundamental problems with the organism/organisation conflation: prescriptions often conjure up a medical model by referring to the state of the organisation's health, and providing prognoses for survival or morbidity. These functionalist approaches tend to founder on the organicism imparted with this model: there is no a priori organic entity, whose health corresponds to that of the body in medical discourse, outside the representational aspirations of those theorists and consultants seeking to prescribe. So, while the liver and the arteries cannot debate the appropriate prescription for their health, the constituent parts of organizations usually do ± and rarely agree. (1996, p. 698)


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It is interesting that in all of the above approaches, the organisation is seen as the primary unit of analysis, with the environment playing a secondary role. The corporate entity is a bounded entity. The `function of the executive' is to keep it that way. Whereas boundary-maintenance is here an active and significant process, other fields within organisation studies take the boundary as a given: the organisation as an entity has become an unquestioned concept. As Rowlinson says of organisational economics, questions about why and how organisations are there in the first place become rhetorical (1997, p. 3). However, this is most clearly seen in the case of population ecology. This approach has become popular in the USA. It gives a naturalistic gloss to sociology and draws in a quite specific way upon currently high status biological and mathematical conceptualisations. Here the level of focus is not the individual organisation and its attempt to maintain its own boundary, but within a whole population of organisations struggling to survive in a particular environment. Although they explicitly reject the anthropomorphism of the organisation (Hannan and Freeman, 1989), the assumptions they make clearly depend on the mechanised view of the organism under evolutionary conditions, and the language they use reinforces this. For example, their point of view is that: `the individual actors, biotic creatures, are assumed to have relatively fixed repertoires of action (coded in the genome). So the motor of change is selection ± the excess of births over deaths of actors that possess a certain fixed strategy' (1989, p. 143). The elision between organisation and organism is ultimately taken for granted as analysis examines the life-cycle of organisations from birth to death. What it also draws on is the modern form of biological determinism ± genetics. In a similar vein, institutional theory (Scott, 1995, p. xiv) continues the tradition of open systems theory. However, unlike the vast majority of population ecologists, institutional theorists see the organisation as being capable of responding to the environment in positive ways. Scott argues: Òrganizations are creatures of their institutional environments, but most modern organizations are constituted as active players, not passive pawns' (1995, p. 132). It is interesting to note that developments in institutional theory also pave the way for a symbolic-interactionist understanding of the boundaries between organisation and environment, where it is the active construction and interpretation of the organisation as a bounded entity which, symbolic in itself, produces material effects (Hatch, 1997, p. 64). It is from approaches such as this that the organisation/organism can begin to be deconstructed.

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A further point of interest is that these organisation/organisms are òrgans without bodies' (Braidotti, 1994a, 1994b) ± they have the functions of a living organism, but are not fleshed out. The structures they have are the cognitive structures of the `western' intellectual tradition still dominated by Cartesianism. The managerial literature on `knowledge work' (see, for example, Badaracco, 1991; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Hedlund, 1994) can be used to illustrate this lack of fleshedness. The language used to describe processes of transfer of knowledge and learning within an organisation takes the organisation/organism as the level of learning ± it holds knowledge together which cannot be held by its individual parts. The words to describe the process of learning are highly mechanical ± drawing on the still-prevalent view of the human body/brain as a mechanical object which stems from Descartes and the tradition of anatomy. The dominant objectivist assumption about the nature of knowledge is reflected in a tendency for an image of the knowledge worker as an èmpty vessel', a `receptor' for information, as an ìnterface' between the organisation and the environment (see, for example, Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). The knowledge worker would appear to be reduced to the status of electronic gadgetry. The failure of the organisation/organism concept in these approaches to flesh out its theoretical object is also possibly a function of a specifically male cognition. Weber, central to the theorising of rationality and influential in the development of organisation theory, attempted to suppress emotion, separating off the private person from the public function (Bologh, 1990). This may well be associated with masculine `reason': the cutting-out of emotions as well as the unpredictable body from which they emanate (see Lloyd, 1984). As discussed in the introduction, the body has been associated with the subjugated feminine principle, whereas the mind is more valued. It is also linked to the domination of (masculine) reason over (feminine) nature (see Easlea, 1983; Lloyd, 1984). The organisation, when the legitimacy of its ontological status is questioned, is treated as if it were an individual, and the individuals within it in turn become parts or members. Weber himself said `the corporation, a fictive person, has replaced the company of equals as the legal scaffolding of work' (Abbott, 1989, p. 273). In this simplified version of the structures and functions of biology, individual members of the organisation merely become its organs. They have functions which are, usually through the managerial function, linked into the overall goal of the organisation. Although the individuals in an


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organisation are themselves bounded entities, they are still only parts of the whole, which functions through their interrelationship. As in the prevailing modernist view of the body, these interrelationships are seen in a predominantly mechanical way ± ironically, even though the organisation itself may be conceptualised as an organism. Thus structure is important, because attaining the right structure is the way to achieve a overall balance (equilibrium) of functions to gain the desired outcome. Those elements that do not function correctly or disrupt the structure must be excised or treated, like cancers in the body. The idea of organisations/organisms simply as larger bodies, corporate entities with their own bounded shapes, anatomies and morphologies, which have powers over and above their members, obscures the real operation of power, its pervasiveness and its links to the creation of knowledge and meaning (Foucault's views of power may be useful in dismantling this approach). However, even specifically power-orientated books in the Radical Weberian tradition rely on the concept of the bounded organisation. Another example that may be taken is Salaman's (1979) Work Organizations: Resistance and Control. Here a sociological approach to organisations centres on the concept of organisational structure. This concept is used to describe the regular, patterned nature of organisational activities and processes. Obviously, organisations are composed of people, but the regularities displayed by members of an organisation are not the result of their personal preferences or psychologies, but of their exposure to various organisational controls, which more or less successfully limit, influence or determine their behaviour. (1979, p. 5) This approach is also consonant with Marxist labour process and Radical analyses such as those by Clegg and Dunkerley (1980), and Thompson and McHugh (1995). Repeatedly, the structured, bounded image of the organisation/organism would seem to underlie modernist organisation theory. Organisation and the culture of death So far, the link between the ànatomising urge' and organisation studies has been traced through the assumptions that have shaped the subject of the discipline, by pursuing some occluded historical connections. But, as in the development of the practice of anatomy

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itself, and its links with the later development of medicine and bureaucracy, there are institutional features of the ànatomising urge' that it is important to consider. In Chapter 4 I described the interrelationship between the development of anatomy and death. Here I shall continue to explore this connection. Even in contemporary contexts, there are a network of threads that weave together rationality, separation, ordering and classification into the organisation of death. The extent to which it underlies the organic metaphor I have discussed above is illustrated by the attempt by Wallace (who developed a theory of evolution the same time as Darwin) to persuade Darwin to change the metaphor of `natural selection' to `natural extinction', saying that this was more accurate (Ansell Pearson, 1997). In other words, the `death of the many' was seen to drive the `survival of the fittest'. This also underlines the links between biology, social Darwinism and eugenics. As I stated in the previous chapter, the anatomical urge revolutionised the ways in which the west saw the dead body as not to be lamented but to be exploited. Not only the study of the dead body, but also death itself comes to be rationalised (in both its process and its justification). In the development of the guillotine the intention was to make the means of death more efficient and therefore humane. The process of execution was also intended to be removed from a social context. Indeed, the original idea was that these deaths were to take place in a wood. During the French Revolution these aims were partially realised. Crowds lined the streets as the condemned were taken from prison to the execution place, but a heavy military presence and the arrangement of the guillotine on a low platform not much higher than the surrounding area meant that the spectacle of death was limited (Sennett, 1994). Thus there is the management of technology, place and people in the organisation of death. As Bauman (1989) has argued powerfully, the process of rationalisation has been taken to its extreme in the managerial systems that were developed by the Nazis before and during the Holocaust. On 9 November 1938 there was Kristallnacht ± mob violence against the Jews which killed about a hundred and destroyed Jewish homes, shops and businesses. But Bauman argues that what marks out the Holocaust from long-standing outbreaks of mob violence of this sort is their replacement with bureaucratic means. In the Holocaust there is a brutal society-wide organisation of the ànatomising urge'. The efficient processes of differentiation and destruction involve the separation of roles and tasks, and ends and means, between people, between layers of hierarchy, between the private person and the public Nazi.


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Bauman (1989, p. 98) argues that violence has been turned into a specialised and perfected technique, which is intended to be rational and free of emotions. This is achieved through a meticulous functional division of labour and the substitution of a technical for a moral responsibility. Àll division of labour (also such a division as results from the mere hierarchy of command) creates a distance between most of the contributors to the final outcome of collective activity, and the outcome itself ' (1989, p. 98). The divisions of labour within the `Final Solution' were the key to blindfolding those involved from the full consequences of their actions. The use of technical terms to describe the most horrific of acts, the minute fragmentation of the tasks into discrete parts which never allowed the whole to be comprehended by functionaries, the fooling of those who were to be killed into thinking that the process was for their benefit and so on all demonstrate that, once unleashed, managerial sophistication can be applied to anything ± including genocide (Bauman, 1989). All organisations, whatever their size, engage in a labour of division in which death is involved. Across the globe, it can be argued that the food system is one predicated on the mechanised death of millions of animals, the arms industry is predicated on the death of millions of humans, the space industry on the defence of humans against aliens who may never come, and the automobile industry's advertising of safety features is predicated on the deaths of passengers in their unsafe cars. The example of the Ford Pinto where, despite full knowledge of the dangers being well established within the company, the car was sold to the public ± the cost of legal action against the company seen as being outweighed by the revenue from its sales ± illustrates how close death lies to management practices (Corbett, 1994, pp. 76±80). The extent to which human organisation involves death has been almost completely excised by organisation theory (Burrell, 1997). As Baudrillard says: `Power is established on death's borders. It will subsequently be sustained by further separations (the soul and the body, the male and the female, good and evil, etc.) that have infinite ramifications, but the principal separation is between life and death' (1993, p. 130). If the scalpel, through the labours of division of death, cuts right to the heart of organisational life, this has its own consequences for how we understand our own identities in this world. Mellor argues that in high modernity people are ùltimately having to take individual responsibility for the construction of meaning as well as the construction of identity. In this context, death is particularly disturbing because it signals a threatened `ìrreality'' of the self-projects which modernity

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encourages individuals to embark upon, an ultimate absence of meaning, the presence of death bringing home to them the existential isolation of the individual in high modernity' (1993, pp. 19±20). It is this anxiety over the unpredictability, irrationality and potential meaninglessness of death that fosters the organisation of death and its separation from public life (ibid., pp. 20±1). Having considered the organisation of death, I shall now turn to consider the much discussed death of organisation ± but conclude that its demise has been exaggerated! DISCIPLINES, DIVISIONS AND FLUIDITY Disciplining organisation studies: abjection and the body of knowledge As was mentioned in the previous chapter, the process of boundary maintenance is central to the creation of an academic discipline. Organisation studies has tried to follow the path of the natural sciences in becoming a bounded discipline and professionalising its membership. Calls have been made for à unified science of man [sic] in organisations' which will bring ìncreasing benefits if man is to control the social institutions he has established, and hence the nature of the society in which he lives' (Pugh et al., 1975, pp. 1, 68). There have been challenges made to this formulation, from what has been defined as ìnside', as well as òutside', the field, but the debates around what constitute legitimate objects of knowledge and what perspectives are seen as valid ways of studying them have been pivotal features in the development of organisation studies as a bounded area of interest. In the rest of the chapter I shall explore some possible connections between these processes of creating divisions and maintaining boundaries in the field of organisation studies and the processes of the ànatomising urge'. In particular, I want to draw on the concept of àbjection', especially as developed by Kristeva (1982), to understand the links between the creation of a discipline and its identity as a body of knowledge, and the construction of self-identity and a structured, organised (human) body.9 Two areas of debate in organisation studies will be considered in the light of the concept of àbjection'. First, there is the debate about the boundaries of the discipline, particularly in relation to what areas of work and their associated ontological and epistemological perspectives are considered to fall properly within the confines of the discipline, and which are to be rejected. The second


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issue relates to the theoretical object of the discipline: `the organisation' as an entity, and to recent debates as to whether this is becoming fluid to such an extent that it is no longer a useful defining concept. Abjection can be seen as part of the development of a coherent sense of self, as suggested through the Lacanian idea of the `mirror stage', where the child learns the identification of his/her own body image as (re)presented by the mirror and differentiated from that of the (m)other. Kristeva argues that abjection is a process that is àt once somatic and symbolic' (1988, p. 135). This indicates a process which brings together the corporeal lived body-self and the social self as influenced by inter-subjective and hence wider cultural relationships. On the physical side it is the process which rejects those aspects of the body that are found to be revolting and disgusting. This is a culturally mediated definition (see Okely's (1983) analysis of the construction of the boundaries between inner and outer, what is acceptable to and what is considered repugnant by gypsies, which often leads to misunderstanding between them and other groups in society who misconstrue them as dirty), and thus the somatic and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined. It is useful here to return to Lingis's distinction between the social valuing of structured and fluid bodies which heads the chapter. In the `western' cultures within which the discipline of organisation studies has predominantly been shaped, the aspects of the body that are rejected as being abject include those that are expelled from the body ± thus marking out the desire for the body to be constructed as a firm, definitely bounded entity whose èdge' is clearly held in place by the physical boundary of the skin of the singular individual human. Thus humans are typically disgusted by vomit, urine, faeces, pus and other bodily fluids that are perceived to be òut of place'. Blood has an interestingly dual nature in this process. In its rightful place it marks out societal distinction ± the `blue blood' of the royals and aristocracy (blood, of course, only appearing blue while it is safely contained within the veins of a living person). It also has a sacred place in relation to the Christian religion, in the sense of blood sacrificed ± the body and blood of Jesus that was shed for us. However, blood is such a powerful symbol of abjection that out of place and out of the (structured and organised) body it frequently has the ability to arouse in ordinarily reasonable people a state of panic or loss of consciousness. In this abject state it is often associated with injury and death, both physically and symbolically a significant disruption of the body's boundaries. However, it is also closely related, as with other abject body fluids and, symbolically, with fluidity

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more generally, with women, particularly through menstruation and childbirth,10 Kristeva, in particular, locates the source of the abject in the maternal relationship. This relates to the arguments about the denigration of human reproduction developed in Chapter 6. Kristeva also comments that abjection transforms the ànxiety of the borderline subject into the site of the Other' (Weiss, 1999, p. 96; see Kristeva, 1982, pp. 7±9, 54). She describes it as `the deadliest of fantasies' (1982, p. 180). Since it, as with the ànatomising urge', is intrinsically bound up with the desire for the death of the other, whether that is death of the rejected parts of body image and identity which are expelled in order to maintain the integrity of the self, or desire for the death of Others who have to be rejected in order to preserve the identity of the collective dominant group. This has consequences for organisation theory through the symbolic association of groups of people, notably women, black people and disabled people, with the abjection of the body. This will also be explored in more detail in Chapters 6 and 7. This process of abjection can be seen in the development of the dominant construction of the body through anatomy. Here, the body's boundaries are constructed in a structured and definite way; and the whole body becomes one that is understood through systems of structures linked with definite functions. The fluidity and mutability of the body are rejected forcibly and removed through the death of the individual subject and the scientific method that requires fixity and objective knowledge. The same processes of abjection can also be seen in the model of knowledge incorporated into anatomy and the other sciences, including the majority of work in the social sciences. However, the rejection of certain aspects of the body, or indeed the self, are not the same as complete expulsion. As Kristeva argues, the abject is `something rejected from which one does not part, from which one does not protect oneself as from an object' (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4). Indeed, the abject continues to constitute the self by its very expulsion and through the feelings of abjection it produces: For Kristeva, that which is `lost' or which resists incorporation into the body image is also precisely that what makes the coherent body image possible because it marks the boundary between the body image and what it is not. There is a permanent danger that this boundary will be dissolved, however, since the boundary is only reinforced on one side, the Symbolic side. The òther side' is the


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unnameable, abject domain that continually threatens to overrun its carefully established borders. The fragility of the border in turn undermines the stability and coherence of the body image. (Weiss, 1999, p. 89±90) Thus it is important to recognise that it is not only the specific nature of the abject ± body fluids, for example ± that is central: Ìt is not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite' (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4). It is this aspect of abjection that makes it so significant for understanding the processes which construct the dominant organised and structured (anatomised) body of `western' science, which has also become the dominant body image within our own sense of self. It is also why abjection can be seen as being relevant in considering the centrality of the debates in organisation studies around the boundaries and borders of the disciplinary field. One of the significant theoretical debates which, sometimes surprisingly, has endured in the field of organisation studies is that around what constitutes the legitimate object of the subject. The `classic' form of this debate has centred around the notion of paradigms and their incommensurability ± whether they can coexist peacefully, in competition, or even be synthesised into some sort of amalgamation. Much time, journal space and (often quite emotional) energy has been expended on this debate (see, for example, Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Donaldson, 1985, 1990; Reed, 1985, 1990; Aldrich, 1988, 1992; Perry, 1977, 1992; Ackroyd, 1992; Hassard, 1988, 1990, 1991; Willmott, 1990a, 1993a, 1993b; Jackson and Carter, 1991, 1993). Here I do not intend to rehearse the features of the various arguments, but rather to focus on their functions within and outside the disciplinary field in the creation and sustaining of boundaries to the area. Burrell and Morgan's (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis might be argued to have stirred up a hornet's nest of subsequent debate because it deliberately and overtly points to those areas of work and perspectives on organisational analysis that have hitherto effectively been the àbject' of the field. In recognising, and forcing future debate to recognise, that there was no singular body of knowledge, no pure and undefiled method of understanding organisations, this work opened up the way to seeing the Others of mainstream

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functionalist organisation theory. In proposing different forms of analysis that could not easily be assimilated within the dominant body, but which were described as ìncommensurable', this debate allowed these Others to have a legitimate voice. Indeed, in a defence of incommensurability in the mid-1990s, Burrell (1996, p. 648) argues that it was the political significance of encouraging diversity in the field that was the most important function of the book. However, describing Paradigms as òpening up' the field is not an innocent metaphor. As has already been noted in this chapter, the direction and form the book took in seeking to classify the Others of organisation analysis into neat boxes distinguished along the dimensions of objective/subjective and order/conflict, imposes a structure on to the potential fluidity of the multiple approaches distinguished, putting them firmly in their place. Thus Burrell and Morgan's work opened up the debate, but in the same way that anatomy opens up the dead body for classification. Although multiplicity is recognised briefly, it is immediately anatomised. Grosz's account of the nature of the process of abjection is useful here: Abjection is the underside of the symbolic. It is what the symbolic must reject, cover over and contain. The symbolic requires that a border separate or protect the subject from this abyss which beckons and haunts it: the abject entices and attracts the subject ever closer to its edge. It is an insistence on the subject's necessary relation to death, to animality, and to materiality, being the subject's recognition and refusal of its corporeality. The abject demonstrates the impossibility of clear-cut borders, lines of demarcation, divisions between the clean and the unclean, the proper and the improper, order and disorder. (Grosz, 1990, p. 89) In seeking immediately to recreate order, Burrell and Morgan wrestled with the desire for a structured body of knowledge. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the 2 2 matrix that is their primary tool of analysis not only constructs internal borders, but continues to rely on the distinction between the inside and outside of the `box' that is defined as organisation analysis. However, in the face of this `paradigm proliferation' (see Perry, 1977), some academics appointed themselves as guardians of the field in a more self-conscious stance. As Jackson and Carter perceptively note: À boundary needed to be reestablished between orthodox science and non-science, not on the basis of subject matter, but on


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the basis of the criteria of science' (1991, p. 113). We have already seen how `western' science and rationality are founded on the rejection of the corporeal body, and it is one characteristic of abjection that it has been linked with the desire to reject or transcend the body itself. Àbjection involves the paradoxically necessary desire to transcend corporeality. It is a refusal of the defiling, impure, uncontrollable materiality of the subject's embodied existence. It is a response to the various bodily cycles of incorporation, absorption, depletion, expulsion, the cycles of material rejuvenation and consumption necessary to sustain itself yet incapable of social recognition and representation' (Grosz, 1990, p. 88). The most well-known protectors of the realm include Donaldson (1985, 1988, 1996a) and Pfeffer (1993). Donaldson states that his aim is to reassert organisation studies as `purposeful, coherent and with its own criteria' (1985, p. xii). In a later book, For Positivist Organization Theory (1996a), he continues to develop this position, dismissing any theoretical approach to the study of organisations other than contingency theory. This views organisations as having structures that are determined by contingencies such as size, leaving no scope for strategic choice or the conflicting interests of members. It is also proclaimed to be functionalist, with particular structures seen as producing certain outcomes such as efficiency, innovation and so on. In their critique of Donaldson, Jackson and Carter argue that `He makes a strong distinction between what he sees as the province of organisation theory and that which is, in his view, more properly the domain of ``the general sociologist, the political sociologist or the political scientist'' (Donaldson, 1985, p. 120), and argues that organisation studies should not be conflated, or absorbed into, ``more general or more macroscopic-societal schema'' (1985, p. 121) ± Donaldson sees organisations as discrete bounded entities which must be studied as such' (1991, p. 118). Pfeffer (1993) also attempts to defend the boundaries of organisation theory. Not only does he stand out against the predations of the economists to the borders of the discipline, but within organisational theory itself, his vision ± the `Pfefferdigm' (Van Maanen, 1995) ± is of control of the discipline by an elite (analogous to the brain directing the body?) who decide what is right and proper for organisation theorists to do. The activities of such academics as Donaldson and Pfeffer fit very much with Judith Butler's description of the consequences of abjection in constituting the inside and outside of the subject, whether this be the individual self or the disciplinary field. She argues that

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This exclusionary matrix by which subjects are formed thus requires the simultaneous production of a domain of abject beings, those who are not yet `subjects', but who form the constitutive outside to the domain of the subject. The abject designates here precisely those ùnliveable' and ùninhabitable' zones of social life which are nevertheless densely populated by those who do not enjoy the status of the subject. This zone of inhabitability will constitute the defining limit of the subject's domain; it will constitute that site of dreaded identification against which ± and by virtue of which ± the subject will circumscribe its own claim to autonomy and to life. In this sense, then, the subject is constituted through the force of exclusion and abjection, one which produces a constitutive outside to the subject, an abjected outside, which is, after all, ìnside' the subject as its own founding repudiation. (Butler, 1993, p. 3) Another way in which the defence mechanisms of organisation studies have been raised in response to the multiplicity of potential paradigms is the attempt to synthesise them into one way of producing a `more comprehensive' view of òrganizational reality' (Gioia and Pitre, 1990, pp. 584, 585). This is perhaps a more insidious form of abjection than the overt attacks of Donaldson and Pfeffer. Here there is an appearance of accepting multiple identities within the discipline, yet a more in-depth consideration of the language used indicates that the differences between perspectives have been reduced to a singularity. So, for example, while Gioia and Pitre claim to recognise the `fundamental differences' between paradigms, they wish to develop a `multiparadigm perspective' (1990, p. 587) where the multiplicity of paradigms is reduced, linguistically as well as conceptually. Instead of seeing the boundaries between paradigms as being impenetrable and incommensurable (see Burrell and Morgan, 1979, who advocate developing each paradigm in isolation), they see them as being blurred. In some ways this might have facilitated a greater fluidity in the structured body of organisational knowledge, but their own underlying assumptions indicate that both disciplinary boundaries and the dominant functionalist paradigm are still firmly in place. Although they ostensibly reject synthesis (1990, p. 595), the effect of moving analysis to a `meta-level' (ibid.), which they argue for, still reduces diversity to singularity. Indeed, in using the analogy of `triangulation' (1990, p. 596) they indicate their underlying objectivist, unitarist assumptions.


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Both Jackson and Carter (1991) and Willmott (1993a) have criticised Reed (1985) for following Gioia and Pitre in similarly conflating the multiplicity of organisation analysis while claiming the plurality of the field. Jackson and Carter (1991) argue that he fails to recognise power as being significant in the process of knowledge production, and that trying to find a pluralistic `middle way' only recreates the power imbalance that Burrell and Morgan's work started to unpack. Willmott (1993a) criticises Reed for maintaining an underlying assumption of a `real world' of which different, pluralistic strategies can give us a more complete overall picture. Interestingly, Willmott also adds that Reed has been taken to task for àn ahistorical conception of ``structure'' that he seeks to integrate with a disembodied conception of `àction'' ' (1993a, p. 684), which would seem to corroborate the prevalence of the ànatomising urge' in organisation theory. In both of the above cases, Jackson and Carter's observation that `there is a fear of heterogeneity, and comfort sought in homogeneity' (1991, p. 126) holds firm. These attempts to produce a stable subject may be compared to the work discussed earlier on body image. Neither Schilder nor Lacan propose a singular body image that becomes part of the construction of a person's identity, but rather multiple, fluid body images. Weiss suggests that it is the very multiplicity of these body images which guarantees that we cannot invest too heavily in any one of them, and these multiple body images themselves offer points of resistance to the development of too strong an identification with a singularly alienating specular (or even cultural) image. That is, these multiple body images serve to destabilize the hegemony of any particular body image ideal, and are precisely what allows us to maintain a sense of corporeal fluidity. (Weiss, 1999, p. 100) She uses this to understand the anorexic person, suggesting that the obsession with bodily weight stems from too singular an image which tries, to the point of death, to maintain a coherent body image, allowing for no ambiguity or fluidity. This insight might be applied to those in organisation studies who attempt to maintain a singular vision of the fixed and certain boundaries of the discipline. Not only are they rejecting the abject Other which paradoxically maintains their own self identity, but they are continually trying to expel more and more of their own subjecthood as Other, until the field becomes circumscribed to a singular, enervated, lifeless body of knowledge.

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Other writers, even though caught up in the paradigm debate, recognise and seek to promote a genuinely open relationship with the multiple òthers' of the discipline and with those of other disciplines. Thus it is from this basis that Hugh Willmott takes issue with paradigms for `representing methodological diversity as a dualism ± as an either/or' (1993a, p. 682) and therefore for its effective emphasis on exclusion and closure. As he argues persuasively in a subsequent paper, àn openness to the Other does not necessarily result in subordination or the suppression of difference' (1993b, p. 728). Another important strand of critique in organisation studies11 is in making overt the processes of division and boundary maintenance. Thus Munro comments that: In much recent social research, boundaries and divisions are no longer seen as lying outside practices. Instead of treating this material as context or background, divisions are seen as cultural artefacts that are consumed and reproduced continuously. Thus, although it is easy to forget this, it has become a point of contemporary knowledge that all divisions have to be continuously made and redrawn. The consequence for analysis has been to draw `knowing' back into the world as part of the very labour that is being analysed. (Munro, 1997, p. 17) Cooper (1990) examines how the maintenance of stability, form and boundary have become key to the study of organisations. Power comments that Cooper describes this as an èxercise of power to overcome the `èssential undecidability'' of organizational reality' (Power, 1990, p. 121). Cooper goes on to argue that the influence of systems theorists such as Parsons and Blau has been significant in developing the conventional stance of the discipline, since they `begin their analyses from a position which omits the foundationary steps of division or differentiation in social life. Social organisation therefore appears already formed' (Cooper, 1990, p. 172). Law emphasises how ethnographers, sociologists, organisation theorists, as well as those ìn' organisations ± workers and mangers ± are inextricably bound up with these organising processes, participating in them, not standing objectively at a distance observing and reporting (1994, p. 2). As MallarmeÂ commented, `we are condemned to meaning' (Hoskin, 1995, p. 142), and in constructing our meanings we also organise the world. Cooper's work also challenges the taken-for-granted foci of the discipline, often by inverting key phrases such as `the organisation of


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production' and the `division of labour'. Of the latter, which resonates with the subject in hand, he comments: instead of the `division of labour', the differentiation of the sense draws attention to the complex processes at work in actively shaping the human agent as a perceiving organism in the social system. This differentiation process we may more accurately call the `labour of division' since it not only highlights the act of division itself (as opposed to the specific agents of `labour') but it also suggests that the `division' in this context is significantly bound up with the act of `seeing' ± that is, vision is an intrinsic component of `division'. (Cooper, 1997, p. 33) Division can also be seen as linking the processes of the scalpel and the mirror. Thus there has been much activity concerned with the creation, maintenance and potential disruption of boundaries around the field of organisation studies. These uncertainties and defence mechanisms can also be traced in the debates about the òbject' of organisation studies: the nature of `the organisation'. In the next section I want to look at the extent to which this structured entity is being currently challenged by notions of fluidity. Leaky boundaries? As this chapter has discussed, the òrganisation' has become the theoretical object across organisation studies. This has not only been significant in its relationship to a particular form of knowledge and rationality, but also in terms of power. Organisation studies needs actively to maintain its own disciplinary boundaries from the encroachment of other fields of study ± perhaps, in particular, sociology and management science, from two very different angles. Thus the concept of òrganisation' is privileged and given ontological status. In so doing the notion of boundary is accepted as part of the baggage: as a fixed object with ontological status it has to be bounded from the non-organisation. And, of course, this bounding is often given ontological status because it has huge political implications. The òrganisation' gives the writer meaning, a structured place of theorising, and by addressing client (usually management) concerns also mobilises resources.

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However, the straightforward concept of organisation has been under fire from both the empirical perspective, where it no longer fits the perceived `reality' of organisational life, and in the multiple theoretical threads that have led to the plurality of organisation studies, many of which come from a blurring of boundaries with other disciplines. In academic and societal perspectives on the human body, too, the organised and structured body of the ànatomising urge' is becoming fluid. In academic terms, Turner (1996, p. 17) suggests that postmodern theory is a critique of the Cartesian view of reality. In postmodern theory, boundaries become blurred: between mind and body; body and technology; self and other. The changing conditions of modern life also seem to challenge the boundaries of the body in many ways (and hence both the coherence of the self and the object/subject split on which `western' rationality is based). The body can be changed and reshaped by diet, exercise and cosmetic surgery. Technology can allow the separation of biological and parental roles in reproduction. Body parts can be exchanged ± sometimes through the economic system ± in transplants and prostheses. Genetic engineering holds out the spectre of altering the very foundation of human life. Scientists might argue about the difficulty of changing the actual `germ-line',12 but the fantasy has gained a strong hold on the popular imagination (fuelled by the recent cloning of `Dolly the sheep'). Thus the body is no longer a clear, bounded entity but can be restructured and an image of the self, projected via the body, can be recreated. `Postmodern' views of the body would seem to be significantly different from those processes of abjection described above, which seek to maintain structures and boundaries. These changing conditions of modern life that seem to challenge the boundaries of the body are often presented as liberating opportunities. However, fear and threat are frequently related to the potential breach of body boundaries, as was discussed in Chapter 2, which indicates that feelings of abjection remain powerful. Apart from AIDS, there have been horror stories of unknown viruses against which the body has no defences. Stories of the Ebola virus, in particular, dwell on the fear of the `melting body': Èbola causes the body to melt, liquefy, so that the slimes and uncoagulated blood that run from the cadaver are saturated with Ebola virus particles' (Martin, 1994, p. 229). These viruses are thought to originate in the equatorial rain forests, and are especially associated with Africa. Martin quotes magazine articles which link them with the environmentalist cause of the destruction of


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the tropical forests, but there is also perhaps a (continuing) sense of invasion of the national boundaries of the `western' countries by the developing world: the `strangers' whom Bauman argues, threaten the `western' structured and organised world. There continues to be considerable fear of women's `leaky bodies' (Shildrick, 1994; Grosz, 1994, p. 203), which are compared unfavourably to the ideal of the male body, which is, first and foremost, the organised, structured and contained body (as has already been seen in Chapter 2). Thus postmodern challenges to the boundaries of the body are a particular threat to the male Cartesian rationalism so closely interrelated to the ànatomising urge'. In fearing leakages, it is the disruption of organisation, of the structure of the body, that is a problem. The boundaries of the organisation are also under question in relation to debates around the `postmodern' issue in organisation studies: `The postmodern organisation has no centrally organized rational system of authority on which such spatial metaphors as ``hierarchy'' can be placed. It becomes a shapeless and flowing matrix of shifting and flexible exchanges, a federation of organisational styles and practices each surviving on its capacity to respond to demand' (Crook et al., 1992, p. 187). Both the organisation and the body seem to be moving away from the emphasis on structure and boundaries that Lingis argues is so central to people in the west. I have chosen to look at two texts that deal explicitly with the `postmodern' organisation. In Clegg's Modern Organizations (1990) the stance is taken that we live in a postmodern age and, in terms of the significance of this shift for organisations, we must look towards networking and organisations without boundaries. The Third Italy of Emilia Romagna and the 1980s phenomenon of Silicon Valley have both been used by organisation theorists to show that some successful organisations do not resemble the bounded large bureaucracies of the Fordist era. New organisational `forms' are developing. These developing concepts of a supposed postmodern age often relate to the distinction that is made between the three basic forms of organising ± namely, market, hierarchy and network ± and the political systems attendant upon them ± capitalism, socialism and corporatism. There is a need to look at `previously untranslated organisational forms' (Clegg, 1990, p. 23), which do not originate in what many call the world of òrganisations' as usually understood within the boundaries of organisation studies as a discipline. This can be seen as a tremendous threat by organisation theorists.

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However, even those theorists who argue that organisational boundaries are melting retain the vestiges of the ànatomising urge'. In the introduction to the Handbook of Organization Studies (1996), Clegg and Hardy talk about the pervasiveness of this new fluidity: few would fail to acknowledge the emergence of new forms of organization. On the outside, the boundaries that formerly circumscribed the organization are breaking down as individual entities merge and blur in `chains', `clusters', `networks' and `strategic alliances', questioning the relevance of an òrganizational' focus. On the inside, the boundaries that formerly delineated the bureaucracy are also breaking down as the empowered, flat, flexible postFordist organization changes or, to be more accurate, loses shape. (1996, p. 9) Thus, while the conventional concept of organisation is challenged, conceptions of ìnside' and òutside' remain. This illustrates that, in relation to organisations as well as to the body, the process of abjection remains tenacious in our thinking. The threat posed to organisation theory by the concept of the organisation without boundaries can perhaps be seen most particularly as a threat to bureaucratic hierarchy. The organisation without boundaries does not threaten organisation theory if the subject is conceptualised as being concerned with organising rather than with the organisation. Although `the organisation' can be seen as an anatomised object; òrganising' can be argued to be processual, multiple and `living'. This point is picked up in work by Gephart, Boje and Thatchenkery. They say that: `For us, the meaning of organization is problematic. Rather than conceiving of organizations as substantively as concrete facticities embedded in artefacts such as policies and buildings, we regard organizations relationally . . . as a concept of social actors that is produced in contextually embedded social discourse and used to interpret the social world' (1996, p. 2). Thus their focus is upon organisations and organising (ibid., p. 3) in a search to redefine a field in which many possible theories of organisation could exist. Sometimes the openness of the organisation and its boundaries are welcomed as being `post-bureaucratic'. The language used is often one based on the liberation of the individual from a forced and needless identity with the organisation itself. Since much of the new rhetoric is


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more individualistic, it appears to open up new opportunities for the individual, and encourage entrepreneurialism, self-expression and an end to alienation. The leaky boundaries of the theoretical object known as `the organisation' are often welcomed by manageriallyorientated `post-bureaucratic' consultants. However, a particular twist to the notion that these ideas might be `liberating' becomes clearer when seen in the context of a statement such as: Òrganizations are now viewed as organic, holistic, value-driven, information processing networks with permeable internal and external boundaries. They are lean and mean, smart, and motivated by enlightened self-interest that puts profits in their proper perspective' (Mead and Mead, 1992, p. 121). The language of this quotation maintains rather than challenges the singular, unitary organisation that is distinguishable (although permeable) from its environment. Individualistic language may even become another example of reification of the organisation as an entity itself. If the organisation is a self-interested individual, then its members are yet again being seen merely as its mechanism or organs. In some ways it may be that the `boundaryless' organisation is not so much one without boundaries or structures, but is an attempt to redraw the boundaries to try to achieve the confluence of knowledge and power that has so long been the purpose of rational science. The Industrial Revolution recognised the benefits of bringing large groups of workers under one roof, and controlling them through the disciplining of their bodies in space and time, using machine control and the pacing of the line. The by-word now may be flexibility, but often this disguises a widening of the boundaries of the organisation, again in space and time, through homework or the expectations of professionals and managers to deal with `work' issues whenever and wherever they occur. Technologies such as the mobile phone, the modem link and portable PCs all contribute to this (see, for example, Massey, 1993). Surveillance by the organisation of more and more areas of employees' lives (the technological extension of Ford's `sociology department'?) may also represent less the blurring of boundaries than their extension in a one-directional way.13 Although this is not necessarily through the structure of the bureaucratic organisation, it is facilitated by the same rationalist logic. The same may also be true of the `new' forms of relationship with suppliers and customers. Thus in 1996 Ford made efforts at Valencia and Dagenham to reproduce Highland Park by bringing a concentration of suppliers on to one site. It was Ford himself who recognised that the `The 5 Dollar Day' was necessary so that the workforce could afford to buy his products.

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This recognition that the boundary between èmployee' and `customer' is often a false one, is also behind such initiatives as arguing `the business case for equal opportunities' or `managing diversity'. Here, a rich diversity of employees is advocated so that the company may better understand a diverse section of customers, and therefore the coverage of the market for services or products will be better. However, it is likely that `tolerance' of diversity will still be defined and controlled by dominant groups and concepts (such as òrganisational efficiency' and `the bottom line') (Cockburn, 1989; Essed, 1991; Dickens, 1994). In all these examples, it may be that senior managers are trying to bring consumption inside organisations to control this process as well as that of production. Management would still seem to be about creating and maintaining the inside and the outside of the bounded organisation (see Barnard, 1938). I would like to conclude this chapter by suggesting that the `postmodern' ideas presented above of the disruption of the organ/organisation do not entirely constitute a rupture in the modernist rationalist modes of organisation, self and body, even if they do go some way to problematising the concepts of structures, boundaries and wholes considered to be part of the `modernist project'. It is less easy to accept either a naturalised body or standardised definitions of òrganisation' and òrganisation studies' any longer without a willing suspension of disbelief. Thus I return to Lingis's statement, and suggest that the boundaries of body, self and organisation are on the whole being defended against fluidity, however fashionable, and that the key to this is the `stable psychic identity' that has been created as the rational, self-examining self of modernity. We are still imprisoned in relatively fixed bodies, and relatively fixed bodies of knowledge even if these are leaking. I shall go on to examine the relationship between these structured bodies and organisations, and issues of identity, in the next two chapters.

6 The Mirror The world is not already there, waiting for us to reflect it. (Cooper and Burrell, 1988, p. 100) In this chapter I return to the other characteristic of the ànatomising urge', the mirror, which is depicted along with the scalpel in representations of Anatomia. Where the scalpel indicates the pervasiveness of the desire to be incisive, on the body and in the formation of knowledge, the mirror indicates our desire to know ourselves, to be selfreflexive, to have a coherent idea of our own identity. Thus the scalpel and the mirror appear to be very different sorts of tools, not obviously connected to each other. The scalpel seems to be connected with death and disease, while the mirror is connected with life; the scalpel with depth, the mirror with surface; the scalpel with analysis, and the mirror with appearance. However, in the next two chapters I want to show how the scalpel and the mirror are closely related to each other, both in the dominant construction of the body and in the prevalent tradition of knowledge. Thus, in this chapter, I examine the interplay of scalpel and mirror, considering how the ànatomising urge' has come to influence and even construct `western' conceptions of identity as well as of the body and knowledge. It is perhaps useful to weave together here the main threads of the ànatomising urge' that were discussed in the first half of this book. There is the pervasive influence of the Cartesian dualism between mind and body, which values the former, especially in the progress of knowledge, and denigrates the latter. There is the desire to see beneath the surface, to find the hidden truth of things and expose them to the light and visibility, even where this means objectifying the object of study, killing and fixing it, and incising into its very heart. Then there is the creation of boundaries, especially between inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion, constructing categories and dualisms to order and control nature and the world. Here I explore what is represented by the mirror and the way of `seeing' the world that is associated with it ± a visualisation, linked with anatomy, which distances, objectifies and categorises, creating the dualisms of self/other, same/different, subject/object, among others. As part of this I want to look at the connections between this mode 153

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of knowledge and our notions about self ± what it is to be an individual in a `culture of dissection' ± and our relationship with òur' bodies. These categories of `knowledge', `self ' and `body' have become separated, anatomised within the `western' intellectual tradition. However, in bringing together the tools of scalpel and mirror here there is an opportunity to begin to reconnect some of the broken threads. In linking a form of subjectivity with the ànatomising urge', it is clear that an historical view of identity is being built on, as with the construction of the body. There has been much recent work on the concept of identity, which can be seen as being related to Foucault's characterisation of the modern period as that in which Man [sic] invents himself (1970, p. xxiv) and becomes the subject of his own search for knowledge. This has challenged the dominant Cartesian notion of the subject, which sees the individual as a ùnitary, essentially non-contradictory and above all rational entity' (Henriques et al., 1984, p. 93). In contrast, recent studies of the subject, based on poststructuralist theories, suggest that: `subjectivity is best viewed as a specific, historical product that is ambiguous, fragmentary, discontinuous, multiple, sometimes fundamentally non-rational and often contradictory' (Collinson, 1992, p. 28). Hollway (1989) develops the argument that people's identities are constructed in their relations with others. She challenges the idea that there is one `reality' that constitutes an individual and therefore a set stock of things they have to say. Instead, `people's accounts are always contingent: upon available time and discourses (the regimes of truth which govern the directions in which one's thinking can go); upon the relationships within which the accounts are produced and upon the contexts of events recounted; upon power and the defences in operation against formulating different versions because of their selfthreatening implications' (1989, p. 39). In putting this forward, Hollway draws on Foucault's idea that ` ``truth'' is a historical product and therefore no knowledge is absolute' (1989, p. 41). As I discussed in Chapter 3, our identities are developed in relation to our embodied experience and in interaction with our intercorporeal relations with others. The significance of this embodiment is often neglected by those who theorise about subjectivity, including work on identity within the field of organisation studies. This is perhaps not surprising, given the cultural weight of the Cartesian dualism and associated features of the ànatomising urge'. Although post-structuralist writers may stress the contingent nature of identity, the majority of people usually strive for coherence and

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consistency in the narratives of self they produce, trying to construct their experience within the terms of the dominant `western' idea of the self as being unitary and rational. Entering into various discourses which affirm our sense of identity as masculine or feminine is also related to this need for continuity (Henriques et al., 1984, p. 205). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as the challenges to the unitary self, there are also changing notions about the coherence of the body, as was discussed in Chapters 2 and 5. These notions about self and body are interconnected. Shildrick argues that `the indeterminacy of body boundaries challenges that most fundamental dichotomy between self and other, unsettling ontological certainty and threatening to undermine the basis on which the knowing self establishes control' (1994, p. 26). But we can also see that the unitary self and the coherent body have always been (illusory) constructions which only applied to certain sections of society. As this chapter will discuss, many identities and bodies have been marginalised by the ànatomising urge' which cuts between categories to create dualisms and hierarchies. MIRROR AND MIND The mirror is often used as a symbol of truthfulness. In the tradition of science and rationality, knowledge is understood to be objective truth about a `real' world: in these `correspondence' theories of truth, knowledge reflects back an accurate copy of what is there. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1980), Rorty argues that `the picture which holds traditional philosophy captive is that of the mind as a great mirror'. The image of the mirror is also related to the `mimetic' nature of language and other forms of representation. `Mimesis' comes from the Greek notion of language reflecting nature (Hall, 1997, p. 24). Thus there is a direct, transparent relationship between language and the world it depicts in a straightforward, imitative way. The image of the mirror has been evoked in this way, particularly with reference to the Enlightenment, described by Cassirer as a `bright clear mirror' (1951, pp. xi±xii). The image of the mirror foregrounds the visual. This can be seen1 in the ànatomising urge', with the desire to see beneath the surface, to seek out the hidden secrets of the body ± and to be able to see them for oneself.2 In medicine, too, the growing perception of a need to see what went on in the body, in order to better control and treat it, indicates

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how fundamental sight is to these fields of knowledge. Braidotti has argued that clinical anatomy, with its sadistic subtext, is an exercise in mastery that aims at denying death. By trying to reduce the body to an organism, a sum of detachable parts, it implies that the body is but that: what you see is what you get. There is an inevitable slippage from the visible to the mirage of absolute transparence, as if the light of reason could extend into the deepest murkiest depths of the human organism. As if the truth consisted simply in making something visible. (1994a, p. 67) Descartes is sometimes seen as the `founding father' of this ocularcentrism. This in itself is somewhat simplistic, because he distrusted sight ± as all bodily knowledge ± as the basis of truth, and especially criticised the play of mirrors, which can deceive through tricks with light and perspective. However, sight and mind were closely connected. Levin argues that Descartes affirms the sovereignty of reason over visual knowledge, but `the intuitive nature of which is modelled ± paradoxically ± on our experience with vision' (1993a, p. 9). Descartes was fascinated by geometry, and fundamental to his development of work in this field was his creation of an imaginary inner space (Carter, 1983). Within this, he was able to extend the work of the mind's eye on to imaginary lines and coordinates. Thus there continues to be a tension between the ocularcentrism of anatomy and the valuing of pure Reason. After all, although seeing is believing, it is carried out with the sensory equipment of the body and therefore remains suspect. Pure theory, in the natural sciences, however, frequently holds a place of reverence. It is the activity of the mind alone. In other words, sight is achieved through the bodily eyes, while reason is achieved through the pure consciousness of the sovereign Ì', the subject of Descartes' `cogito'.3 Thus in this tension there is already a problematising of the mirror. As a physical object that reflects back what our eyes can see in it, it is already tainted by the body. However, in symbolic form, as the mirror of the mind, it is objective and truthful. In Descartes' own separation, between the body that sees with the eyes that can be deceived, and the mind that sees the objective, transcendent truth of reason, a space has been created for the subjective self ± already a cognitive construct rather than an embodied one. This splitting of the person into two parts, mind and body, subject and

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object, allows the conceptualisation that the thinking part can separate off to examine and study the material part. In considering how this splitting of mind and body has come to influence experiences of identity, it is useful to look at the combination of the denigration of the body, the construction of the self-examining self and the stress on the visual which come together in the creation of (artistic) perspective. As has been described already in Chapter 4, Romanyshyn (1989) argues that the representation of bodies changed from those that were integrated with all aspects of their context, emotional as well as situational, to the standardised representations of the anonymous body. This distancing effect of perspective is described by Jay: if the beholder was now the privileged center of perspectival vision, it is important to underline that his [sic] viewpoint was just that: a monocular, unblinking fixed eye (or more precisely, abstract point), rather than the two active, stereoscopic eyes of embodied vision, which give us the experience of depth perception. This assumption led to a visual practice in which the living bodies of both the painter and the viewer were bracketed, at least tendentially, in favor of an eternalized eye above temporal duration. (Jay, 1993, pp. 54±5) Interestingly, this bracketing out of the body can be seen as being related to the similar bracketing out (epocheÂ) of corporeal life in Husserl's phenomenological search for the `transcendental ego'; `Perspective in this sense was atemporal, decorporealized and transcendental' (Jay, 1993, p. 189). Hoskin argues that it is a second, duplicitous operation that makes possible perspective from the point of view of a fixed single subject. Thus a `second self floats free of the immobilized first self, moves round to view from the side, measures and checks the viewing coordinates, and then returns whence it came, merging back into one' (Hoskin, 1995, p. 153). He proposes that this split subject is the modern selfexamining self which is reflexively conscious of itself. It is this `self-examining self ' (Hoskin, 1995, p. 153) that is necessary for the Cartesian rationalist idea of objective knowledge, based on the assumption that knowledge is universal, divorced from the individual characteristics of the person who knows: Descartes assumed that the clear and distinct ideas available to anyone's mental gaze would be exactly the same because of the divinely insured congruence between such ideas and the world of

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extended matter. Individual perspectives did not, therefore, matter, as the deictic specificity of the subject could be bracketed out in any cognitive endeavor. The same assumption informed the Albertian concept of painterly perspective; all beholders would see the same grid of orthogonal lines converging on the same vanishing point, if they gazed through, as it were, the same camera obscura. (Jay, 1993, p. 189)4 These discussions should alert us that the way in which vision itself is conceptualised and experienced also has a history (see Falk, 1994, on taste). The ocularcentrism that has frequently been discussed as foundational to the `western' intellectual tradition, is a certain way of seeing. Heidegger has criticised `western' ocularcentrism as an impulse òf a looking-at that sunders and compartmentalizes' (1977, p. 166). This sort of visuality,5 which certainly fits with the urge to order and classify, can also be related to the development of perspective ± the centring of the sovereign self, even if this was based on an illusion. Furthermore, Mercer argues that `the fetishistic6 logic of mimetic representation, which makes present for the subject what is absent in the real, can thus be characterized in terms of a masculine fantasy of mastery and control over the `òbjects'' depicted and represented in the visual field, the fantasy of an omnipotent eye/I who sees but is never seen' (1997, p. 286). It is interesting that Hoskin (1995) finds that it is the splitting of the self which lies behind the illusion of the coherent viewer in perspectivism, for splitting of the self is an important theme in the aspect of the mirror. Not only does the dualism of the ànatomising urge' lead to the division between self and other, but there is also the internal splitting which leads to parts of the self being split off and projected on to the other. This point obviously derives from psychoanalytic theory, and is related to the process of àbjection' that was discussed in Chapter 5. Thus far, then, the characteristics of identity associated with the mirror of the ànatomising urge' are the separation of `self' and `body', the partitioning of the `self', and the split between `self' and Òther'. In these processes of division and boundary creation, the scalpel and mirror are at work. MIRROR IMAGES: THE MIRROR AND IDENTITY In The Civilising Process (1978), Elias has detailed the development of this privatised form of identity. He connects the development of the

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mirror in medieval Europe with the parallel growth in the concept of the individual. Although there had been forms of mirror well before this date, the techniques for producing, on a large scale, flat mirrors with silvered backs was only achieved in Venice at this time. Earlier mirrors, using blown glass, had distorted the reflection, and therefore could not be related to the concept of reflecting back objectively.7 Smith, following the work of the French historian, Gusdorf, suggests that the Venetian mirror technology allowed people for the first time to reflect on their whole self, thus enriching the sense of a coherent identity (Smith, 1997, p. 53). Whether cause and effect can be so easily connected it is difficult to assess, but there was certainly a conjunction of elements which suggest an increased sense of selfhood from around the early sixteenth century, and heightening vastly in the seventeenth century. Smith (ibid.) charts the rise of examples of a greater selfawareness in the portraits and self-portraits (the latter generally requiring the aid of a mirror), essays, diaries and works on conduct, aimed at self-control. In the same vein, Elias (1978) notes how the German word ìch' only appears on the stage when, around 1500, members of the aristocracy become conscious of themselves as individuals separate from the community. And in this separation, the concept of the mirror plays a key role in allowing self-reflection and the development of a new sense of identity. By allowing the individual body to be seen by its Self, the development of self-consciousness arises. This is crucial in the process of individuation where human beings come to have a sense of their separation, physically and psychologically, from the Other. Mead (1934) was to talk of the distinction between the Ì' and the `Me' in terms of this separation, because once there is self-consciousness, there is the necessary distinction between the inside and the outside, the depths and the surface. The sense of self as both subject and object comes from this, as does the objectification of self, as separable from the community in which it is to be found. If we play around with the concept of ìdentity' and dissect it to produce ìd'/èntity', we can focus on the sense of self as individual and ìd'iosyncratic, as well as a whole and complete èntity'. Thus the notion of ìdentity' seems to emphasise the completeness of the self, yet total separation from the Other. The scalpel and the mirror have been used to divide between self and Other. With ìdentity', this sense of self reflection, of being able to see oneself as others do, and of looking at the self from òutside' owes much to the metaphor of the mirror. This is integrated explicitly into psychoanalytic theory via

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Lacan's idea of the `mirror stage', where infants become conscious of their own separate existence8 (see also the discussion in Chapter 3). Once the self is aware of its own existence, control of self becomes possible. Thus, for Elias, self-control, and for Foucault, self-discipline, become possibilities when the mirror allows us a glimpse of a selfpossessed ìndividual'. Thus we see the `culture of dissection' produces a form of identity that is under powerful pressure towards conformity, both through the self-disciplining of the individual and through the disciplining and marginalisation of the Other. In other words, ìdentity' seems to become closely allied to ìdentical'. Although the Enlightenment emphasis on the individual with rights marks in some ways an individualistic turn of thought regarding the self, other developments have served to emphasise that the individual with rights is in fact standardised, mass produced from an identical mould ± and consequently those who do not fit the mould are not accorded these rights or perceived as being self-determining. They are not permitted to have self-identity. It is argued that this rests on the process of `normalisation', which Foucault (1977) proposed as being key in `western' society. Normalisation is the process by which the eccentricities of human beings in their behaviour, their appearance and their beliefs become subject to measurement and if necessary corrective straightening. Normalisation is both a form of identity construction and a form of knowledge construction, as Foucault makes clear. The body of the individual and the body of society are divided and differentiated only so that they can be standardised and disciplined into conformity: `The perpetual penality that traverses all points and supervises every instant in the disciplinary institutions compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short, it normalizes' (Foucault, 1977, p. 183). Perhaps the most significant feature of Foucault's conceptualisation of the process of normalisation is that it is based upon disciplinary technologies that simultaneously construct subjectivity, and thus rely on self-discipline. Foucault was later to develop this work in considering `technologies of the self ' (see Hoskin, 1995, discussed above). We have already seen in Chapter 5 how Bauman's study of the Holocaust portrays the organisation of the ànatomising urge'. It illustrates the power of the normative mirror, as well as the slicing of the scalpel, since the mass production of the identical is matched by the mass destruction of the Other. In Bauman's analysis we can also see the close association between the `culture of dissection' in the creation

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of a new, uniform Àryan' identity and processes of rationalisation and `scientific' knowledge. First there is the clear social and physical separation of those considered to be deviant (Jews, gypsies, disabled people and homosexuals). These are separated according to a view of a norm that is suitable for the creation of a particular image of society. As Bauman argues: `Definition sets the victimized group apart (all definitions mean splitting the totality into two parts ± the marked and the unmarked), as a different category, so that whatever applies to it does not apply to all the rest' (1989, p. 191). Thus the symbol of the mirror in the representations of anatomy, evokes a certain construction of identity. This is one that is disembodied, created through the incision of the dualisms of subject and object. It is also one that is split within itself and divided from others. Here, the elision between ìdentity' and ìdentical' that is bound up with processes of normalisation is significant. SPECULUM A form of the mirror, the speculum, provides a focus for considering one aspect of the dissections between self and Other, that between male and female. This incision is typical of the ànatomising urge', as it supposedly rests on incontrovertible and essential bodily differences. The speculum, a mirror specifically designed for penetration, is used predominantly by men to reflect upon, and penetrate within, women.9 For the speculum, says Irigaray, ìs not necessarily a mirror. It may, quite simply, be an instrument to dilate the lips, the orifices, the walls, so that the eye can penetrate the interior' (1985a, p. 144).10 Thus the speculum is the mirror located on a penetrative arm ± it combines the qualities of mirror and scalpel. The gender dimensions of the mirror and the scalpel, then, are in need of articulation. The hidden realm of the female interior, opened up for inspection by the speculum, is deemed to be relevant and interesting for a number of reasons in capitalist patriarchy. Women are often constructed as `mother', even if they do not have, do not want, or are not able to have children. The synecdochical construction of the woman is historically through the image of the part that is associated with bearing children: the womb (see Jacobus, 1990, p. 25). As is well known, the Freudian discussion of the problem of the feminine in part revolves around the relationship between mother and male child. The

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construction of the identity of the male child in terms of the castration complex which he faces on seeing his mother's lack of a penis is a clear example of the links Freud makes between identity and anatomy. Similarly, the discussion of the `hysteric' in his work brings the issue of the head, viscera and identity of women into stark relief, because Freud saw the womb as being the source of this distancing from the `real', and retreat into expressive emotion as being an acceptable route for the woman to take in the face of the unpleasant nature of reality. Irigaray (1985a) suggests that the image of Plato's cave can be seen as a metaphor for the womb, conveying the idea that reality is outside of the darkness of the womb, and its fullness of form and colour is masked from within by the female body's confines. Given that this is women's territory, those who live there exclusively cannot hope to see the rational light of day. Although the mother is the source of life and the essential element within reproduction, the problematisation of the mother as other has come to be a key element in `western' science, as will be discussed further in the next section. The female category is cut out in the culture of dissection as a container of all that is Other to scientific and philosophical rationality: it is associated with the body, nature and emotion, as opposed to and divided from reason, science, culture and the mind. Thus women and the feminine had to be marginalised, controlled and excised by the penetrating advances of masculine science (Easlea, 1983; Jordanova, 1989; Lloyd, 1984). However, within this anatomisation of the female, the opening up of the woman gives to man forms of control and knowledge over the source of his own and her sense of identity, and also of the great mystery of life. Thus there were many examples of dissections of women, opening up the womb to the enlightenment of science, even wombs containing a foetus. This can be seen to allow greater understanding and control of the reproductive potential and problems associated with women's bodies so that the protection of his offspring (given the property rights culturally associated with fatherhood) is better ensured. The speculum allows close observation of reproductive issues by penetrating almost to the seat of the reproductive act ± the womb. Emerson (1970) considered the problems of potentially ambiguous readings of the body in gynaecological examinations. Here the `professionals' had a range of techniques to manage the situation so that the depersonalised scientific body (mere material) was dominant rather than the private sexualised (lived) body with its attendant embarrassments of a body out of place. She discusses how the medical perspective is that of the body as à technical object' (1970, p. 78). Emerson's

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explanation illustrates the use of the Cartesian split within the biomedical sphere and its organisational context: It is as if the staff work on an assembly line for repairing bodies; similar body parts continually roll by and the staff have a particular job to do on them. The staff are concerned with the typical features of the body part and its pathology rather than with the unique features used to define a person's identity. The staff disattend the connection between a part of the body and some intangible self that is supposed to inhabit that body. (Ibid.) Laid bare and specularized, the female patient loses all subjectivity and becomes a passive recipient of, even a client for, penetration. The completeness of self, the ìd's' èntity', becomes lost in the hands of the surgeon wielding speculum and scalpel. Yet Sawday says of modern medicine that `for all its seeming ability to map and then to conquer the formerly hidden terrain of the interior landscape, in fact renders it visible only through scenes of representation' (1995, p. 11). In some cases this search for the experience of interiority comes uncomfortably close to the consumption of pornography that also involves the worship of parts. The identification of woman's physiology thus allows man to seek out, record and come to manipulate women's pleasure for his own ends, often it has to be said to allow even further penetration of the female body. It is but a short step from the male investigation of the female interior to the commercial pornographic exploitation of this hidden `knowledge' ± and in the `harder' versions the violent disarticulation of `soft' (female) flesh becomes explicit, in this worship of parts (Sawday, 1995). Williams (1990) points out that in pornography the image maker seeks to portray the female orgasm and render it visible to a male audience. This is done by holding up a mirror and displacing the female orgasm into the male ejaculation ± the so-called `come shot'. However, `this new visibility extends only to the knowledge of the hydraulics of male ejaculation . . . The gynaecological sense of the speculum that penetrates the female interior here really does give way to that of a self reflecting mirror' (1990, p. 94, emphasis added). Bauman argues that there has been a move from touching Others to tasting them (1995, pp. 122±5). In the social world we inhabit at the beginning of the twenty-first century the Other is no longer known through mutual physical contact, body to body, in a shared form of communication, but is instead consumed. We taste the Other rather

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than embrace them. This may disrupt the boundaries of the Other, but confirms the entity that consumes anything different from itself (Dale, 1997). An appropriate phrase for this in relation to the ànatomising urge' is Merleau-Ponty's idea of `voracious vision' (Garb, 1998, p. 193). The mirror and the scalpel working together ± the speculum ± produce classifications of character that become part of a `frenzy of the visible' (Williams, 1990). Thus, ultimately, penetration and incision can never give access to knowledge of the Other, to subordinated, subjective, lived, embodied knowledge (this can be compared with Merleau-Ponty's embodied ontology, as discussed in Chapter 3). It can only reflect back the dominant, normalised, disciplined knowledge. In this way the mirror becomes a tool of the normalising principle. It reflects back, not unique images of the individual, but replicated copies of the norm. REPLICATION In `western' society and knowledge, I would argue, replication, in the sense of simple cloning, repetition, copying, has become a central concept. This is related to the modernist focus on the machine as a way of understanding the world. Thus we return to normalisation, the idea of mechanical reproduction, where again we have the mass production of an identical mirror image. The power of the ideas of replication and mechanical reproduction are bound up with the dominant conceptualisation of the human body that emerged from the discipline of anatomy. During the Enlightenment, the body was reconstituted as a machine; a reinvention of a body that fitted with the world view that developed from the Copernican revolution. The body is seen as a mechanism endowed with functions that provide its raison d'eÃtre. The machine-body was dynamic, the parts interconnected ± but they operated according to the laws of mechanics, without the need for an intellect of its own. Thus the body became objectified, a focus of intense curiosity, but entirely divorced from the world of the speaking and thinking subject. Anatomy also provided the representation of the body-machine as a system of interchangeable, standardised parts. From here it is but a small step to see the main mechanism of the body to be that of an accurate copying of these parts. For example, in many accounts of genetics, inherited disease and disability are seen as the breakdown of this replication process.11 In this way, the scientific narrative can be neatly divided from social and subjective aspects of

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reproduction. Thus, on the one hand, the effects of poverty or pollution on reproduction, for instance, do not warrant consideration; while on the other, the lived, embodied experience of the parents, especially the mother, of abortion, pregnancy and birth are irrelevant. It has been argued by Keller that whereas childbearing is a secret of women, men have sought the secret of life for themselves, through the tools of science and rationality. This pattern can be seen in Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA, described as a `calculated assault on the secrets of life' (Keller, 1990, p. 179) echoing the predatory language used of nature by Bacon (see Introduction). In the molecular genetics revolution, the mother is replaced by the `mother molecule' which is the `mechanism of genetic replication' ((ibid.). The individual experience of giving birth is disciplined and organized into the form of the assembly line. The cutting out of the Other in the Holocaust involved the mass destruction of the Other; in reproduction, the denigration of the Other (mOther?) is achieved through mass (re)production. The emphasis has come to lie with the product ± the humanistically laudable outcome of a healthy mother and child (with as many `defective' products as possible having been cut out of the system earlier via abortion, aided by modern techniques to see beneath the surface of the skin). But the process itself is dehumanised. Martin (1987) has shown that modern maternity is organized around the dominant ideas of industrial society ± standardisation, hierarchy, and the àctive management' of time and resources.12 In looking at the divisions that surround the organisation of reproduction, we see again the play of the scalpel and the mirror. The scalpel cuts between the mother and the foetus, between the woman's experience and the cultural construction of Motherhood. Both technology and medical expertise expropriate the child, allowing it to be individuated and alienated from its symbiotic relationship with its mother. The mother is almost removed from reproduction by a labour of division in which the child is foregrounded. It now stands out from its mother as an Enlightenment individual with rights and an identity. But this identity has developed at the cost of de-identifying the mother with the child (Taylor, 1993) and is an identity based on the mass-production of exact copies. The mother herself is also to be replicated as a mirror image of the highly ideological cultural category of `Mother'. The cultural constitution of `Mother' in `western' societies, with its connotations of nurturing, selfless `sole caretaker', isolated and insulated in the home, is key to the maintenance of patriarchy: `the relationship between mothering and patriarchy can only be understood if we look not only

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Figure 6.1


Ultrasound picture

at how women reproduce Mothering, but at how Mothering reproduces Woman' (Rossiter, 1988, p. 15). This is predicated on the mother±child relationship, and the control of the woman's body. Ultrasound pictures of the foetus are used to engage this cultural construction of Mother from the moment of conception rather than from birth as well as to construct the foetus as a separate individual from the mother (see Figure 6.1). This framing of a section of an observation which then becomes understood in a bounded way, separated from its context, is described by Scarbrough and Corbett as the `mirror problem' (1992, p. 70). They cite Mumford's account of the significance of the mirror in creating a certain world view: `Glass helped put the world in a frame: it made it possible to see certain elements of reality more clearly: and it focused attention on a sharply defined field ± namely, that which was bounded by the frame' (Mumford, 1934, pp. 125±6). Ultrasound, although it involves no physical cut, is also the modern mirror image of the scalpel: `Fetal imagery epitomizes the distortion inherent in all photographic images: their tendency to slice up reality into tiny bits wrenched out of real space and time' (Petchesky, 1987, p. 263). Modern technologies claim to render visible that which is en-wombed; but, the image of the foetus requires an interpretative framework which makes sense of the fuzzy image, this interpretation itself the vehicle for the highly politicised

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discourse surrounding reproductive rights (Taylor, 1993, p. 601). Along with other reproductive technologies, it becomes part of the control of the female body. Both mother and Other are also increasingly written out as normalisation takes place around an exclusively male norm. Easlea (1983) argues that men attempt to appropriate the creativity of of reproduction through their domination of science and technology. He considers the invention of the atomic bomb from this point of view, noting the language used to describe it, with the ultimate product of the bomb being described as a baby boy (see also Keller, 1990, p. 181). In Aristotle's view, women are mere ovens in which the creative, heroic sperm is placed (Grosz, 1994). Hearn maintains that the parthenogenic myth is a central feature of the contemporary comic Viz, where women are seen to be disposable because men come to reproduce each other (Hearn, 1994). Braidotti sees the same trend in many contemporary films, such as those of Spielberg, and Terminator (1994a, p. 66). Thus, throughout modern life, in both science and culture, the (m)Other is silenced and rendered invisible. Irigaray argues that woman has only two roles in relation to the male norm ± as `reproductive material' and as `duplicating mirror' (1985b, p. 151), and these are seen as coming into play simultaneously in the modern organisation of reproduction. Kristeva (1982) relates the process of àbjection' in the formation of the bounded individual subject, discussed in Chapter 5, to the rejection of the maternal in `western' cultures. Again, there is the pervasiveness of the ànatomising urge', as the scalpel excises what does not accurately reflect the mirror of normalisation. In the conflation of (human) reproduction to (mechanical) replication a number of incisions around body, gender, self and knowledge coalesce. In the latter half of the twentieth century century, reorganisation of human reproduction turned the process of `labour' (childbirth) into a factory. Replication smacks not only of the factory and mass production, but also of the laboratory. I have already noted in Chapter 4 the links between the early ànatomy theatres' and the laboratory. In discussions of the `new reproductive technologies', women's bodies have themselves been characterised as `living laboratories' (Rowland, 1992). The laboratory also emphasises replication of experiments to gain a degree of certainty over a chaotic world. But here, too, order gives way to disorder, homogeneity to heterogeneity, conformity to creativity. In studies of science laboratories there is an acknowledgement, even by the scientists, of the individual `craft' skills of science compared to mechanised reproduction, the different conditions under

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which experiments are undertaken, the `finger factors' which mean that replication is not so straightforward (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984). Thus the control that is implied in the creation of the identical is not so easily achieved. Nor is it so easy to control the identical once it has been created. However, as Latour and Woolgar (1979) argue, these aspects are written out of the ìnscription devices' that constitute the product of the laboratory. MARGINALISED BODIES I have discussed here how the female body, and particularly the body of the mother, is marginalised. There are other marginalised bodies of society and of organisation theory, too. Bodies that are typically marked ± and marked out as being linked with the body and thus devalued ± include those of èthnic minorities', people with disabilities, gay men, lesbians, and transsexuals. This is so especially where there are visible characteristics to create an immediate perception of òtherness'. Given the value that is put on the body beautiful in the late twentieth century, those people whose bodies are defined as not fitting the ideal ± `fat', ùgly' or òld' ± are also often marginalised. Work on stigma by Goffman (1968) is highly relevant to this. He traces the word `stigma' to the Greeks who used it to refer to bodily signs designed to indicate publicly something morally discreditable about the individual so marked ± the signs were usually cut or burnt into the flesh and often showed that the bearer was a slave, criminal or traitor. Thus the link between the visual and the body was established. This developed a specifically Christian meaning in the `stigmata' ± the bodily sign of holy grace, such as the marks of the nails on Christ's hands or feet appearing on the hands or feet of a holy person. Goffman (1968) attempts to provide a sociological account of these. He argues that whether the sign is discrediting depends on the web of social relationships around the individual. He defines three types of stigma: physical `deformities'; blemishes of individual character, for example, alcoholism; and `tribal' stigma of race, nation and religion. These might be seen as being rather incompatibly lumped together. Without particularly distinguishing between these forms of `stigma', Goffman suggests that these characteristics shape the individual's identity. This happens because the individual recognises how others will perceive the stigma, and this produces (according to Goffman) shame. This is through the process of social mirroring, although this

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also happens if the individual is alone with a mirror. This is not simply the physical act of seeing the deformity, blemish or other characteristic, but the social act of the individual reflecting on how other people see him or her. There are two important points in Goffman's work. The first is the recognition of the significance of visibility in the social process of defining bodies. Within this he introduces the concept of `passing' ± of being able to appear `normal' or being mistaken as being nonstigmatised. This is easier where signs are not visible or can be hidden. The second is the recognition of the significance of the body as a social sign in relation to the individual's identity. However, as Mellor and Shilling comment (1997, pp. 32±3), it is too deterministic an account, which puts all of the emphasis on the individual being defined by society and none on processes of agency or resistance. In political terms, Goffman (1968) has a habit of referring to ùs normals' when arguing how individuals who possess `stigma' are defined by others who are `normal'. This in itself indicates the attitude he has towards people with `stigma' ± they are others, about which he can produce an order, classification and analysis. Indeed, his stated objective at the beginning of the book is to do so (1968, p. 10). The difficulties with Goffman's approach are underlined when we look at writing on identity by black people. For a start, the badges of nation, race and religion Goffman refers to as one of his types of stigma, are related to their own forms, histories and experiences of identity. It would seem to be a colonial appropriation to relate these solely to the experience of being `deviant' in a predominantly white society. As is often the case in writing by a member of a `dominant' group, their own gender, racial and class identities become invisible; they form the norm from which every other characteristic is judged to diverge. Yet the normalisation process is perhaps not so simple as this exclusion of those who do not fit the norm. There is also the imaginary element of the relationship between self and other. The use of psychoanalytic theory has produced a different understanding of the complexities of the construction of identity in relation to the gaze of the other than that given by Goffman. Gilman (1997) in particular has developed the theory of abjection to show that the dominant13 group (whites in `western' societies) split off parts of their own identities which they reject ± but also desire ± and project them on to their construction of the Other. Thus the other becomes constituted not solely by their difference but also through fantasy. `Blacks are constantly constituted by Whites as ``the fantasy of a fantasy ± not cold,

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pure, clean, efficient, industrious, frugal, rational (that is, not the pantheon of anal-negative ego traits which are the summum bonum of the bourgeois order) but rather warm, dirty, sloppy, feckless, lazy, improvident and irrational, all those traits that are associated with Blackness, odor, and sensuality'' ' (Kovel, 1988, p. 195, see also Ware, 1992 and Hooks, 1982). In other words, black people have been characterised as having the opposite characteristics to the values of the ànatomising urge', in the same way that women were characterised as `nature' and the Other of rational science. These dualisms overlap and intersect each other, sliding across one another so that the meanings constructed demonstrate the differences and boundaries between those who are characterised as being rational, civilised, associated with the mind and reason, and those who are characterised as being irrational and associated with the body. So it is interesting here that the white fantasy construction of black people uses terms that evoke the body, such as odour and sensuality. In contrast to Goffman's (1968) understanding of a `spoiled identity' being created as a whole by the perception of others' gaze, the mirroring look of the other anatomises, as Heidegger's assessment of ocularcentrism shows. This has already been alluded to in the discussion of the relationship between the ànatomising urge' and pornography. It has also been described by black writers about their experience of being created as the Other. Fanon describes how he felt disintegrated by the look of a white person: `the glances of the other fixed me there, in the sense in which a chemical solution is fixed by dye. I was indignant; I demanded an explanation. Nothing happened. I burst apart. Now the fragments have been put together again by another self ' (1986, p. 109). Hall (1997) discusses the `Hottentot Venus' in the same terms. In 1819 an African woman, Saartje Baartman, was brought to England by a Boer farmer and for the next five years was exhibited around in London and Paris, her body being measured, modelled and used for `science'. As Hall demonstrates, accounts of her mark out her differences, she is constructed as the Other. But she was also reduced to parts: ìn the models and casts of [parts of her] which were preserved in the MuseÂe de l'Homme, she was literally turned into a set of separate objects, into a thing ± `à collection of sexual parts''. She underwent a kind of symbolic dismantling or fragmentation ± another technique familiar from both male and female pornography' (1997, p. 266). The Hottentot Venus is just one example of how colonial power exhibited the Other in the national and international exhibitions that were popular during the last half of the nineteenth century and the first

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half of the twentieth. Lidchi (1997, p. 195) points to the relationship between `scientific' knowledge (anthropology), popular culture, colonialism and visibility. Disability activists also find Goffman's work on stigma problematical. Oliver (1990), who has written extensively on the social definitions of disability and their consequences, argues that, while Goffman's work became a dominant framework for understanding disability, no one mentioned that the empirical evidence for his insights was derived from secondary sources heavily dominated by psychological models (Barker et al., 1953; Wright, 1960) and that much of this data was gathered in one country in one specific period. And only Finkelstein (1980) pointed out that while Goffman's work was concerned with social contexts, interactions and processes, stigma was ultimately reducible to the individual; there could be no stigmatising process unless the individual possessed a stigma in the first place. (Oliver, 1990, p. 66) What Oliver and other theorists such as Finkelstein are concerned about is the individualisation of disability ± what has been described as the `medical model' ± which posits disability as a personal tragedy, reducing it to the physical and mental condition of the individual `victim'. This individualises and privatises, so that the `problem' of disability is solely the burden of that person, not to do with how society defines and discriminates against them. At the same time it also dehumanises the person, categorising them according to their medical condition and making them subject to the decisions and opinions of experts. In place of this dominant construction, the disability movement in Britain argues for a social understanding of disability. In this model the physical or mental impairment is decentred, while the attitudes and actions ± or lack of action ± of society is seen as that which itself produces the disability. Thus disabled people are excluded from many of society's institutions by the assumptions of an able-bodied norm which has become so naturalised as to be invisible to the majority of people (and architects!). Yet they are also subject to being institutionalised, that is, divided off and separately organised. This normalisation process is graphically described by Finkelstein: The aim of returning the individual to normality is the central foundation stone upon which the whole rehabilitation machine is constructed. If, as happened to me following my spinal injury, the

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disability cannot be cured, normative assumptions are not abandoned. On the contrary, they are re-formulated so that they not only dominate the treatment phase searching for a cure but also totally colour the helper's perception of the rest of that person's life. The rehabilitation aim now becomes to assist the individual to be as `normal as possible'. The result, for me, was endless soul-destroying hours at Stoke Mandeville Hospital trying to approximate to ablebodied standards. (1988, p. 4±5) The ideology underpinning this also forms the basis of the Abortion Act (1967), which allows abortion if `there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped' (Oliver, 1990, p. 55). This same standard of `normality', judged by experts and the state, was what governed the division of those sent to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. In this debate we can see the complex links between body and self. In disability, the àbnormality' of the body becomes a tool that is used for defining and classifying people. Those involved in the debate have rejected their identities being reduced to one aspect of their lives; indeed, they have rejected the reduction of themselves to mere bodies, mere objects whose meanings are given by experts rather than themselves being allowed to speak as subjects. This same dynamic can be seen in connection to women and black people, where they are defined in relation to their bodies and become reduced to the body. Given the Cartesian split, when people are defined as `body' they cannot have access to mind, soul or subjectivity, which, as we have seen above, is based on consciousness and not on being an embodied person. However, there is always the danger that, in asserting their individual subjecthood, issues of embodiment are rejected by political movements such as feminism, black consciousness and disability rights. In trying to overturn the dominant dualisms, it is all too easy to turn the dualism on its head, valuing the òther' or subordinate side, without challenging the structure of the dualism itself. CONCLUSION The mirror allows some observation of self while the scalpel allows some investigation of Other. Yet these are twin processes, for we are the Other to self when our own internal voids and fluids and organs are concerned, and we are self to Other when we consider the internal

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organs of another human being. We make a division between self and Other using scalpel and mirror. One is surface-orientated and the other depth-orientated, but the scalpel is also a device for revealing what lies deep below by addressing itself to the problem of the surface and what is superficial. While the mirror appears to address the problems of the superficial, its primary utilisation is to ask questions of meaning, interiority and interpretation. The mirror is the superficial, which is only seen to be effective in its revelation of hidden meaning, especially identity. For example, the significance in the story of `Sleeping Beauty' of the line, `Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?', which is linked to a moral dimension of beauty that is not simply skindeep. Meanwhile, the scalpel is incisive and penetrative through the bodily wall, but it creates new surfaces as it cuts. The scalpel is thus an instrument of the surface, not only of depth; and the mirror is as much an instrument of depth as it is of the surface. In the next chapter I shall consider how these aspects of the `mirror' are related to the development of organisation theory. As we have seen, organisations are similarly a development of forms of representation which rely on the scalpel and the mirror ± they are not natural but are fixed and solidified so as to make them appear natural. They are endowed with organs that are assumed within the dominant framework to have both a structure and a function; they are given very solid boundaries and a distinct division is made between inside and outside; and there is an attempt to standardise and force them to the norm. They are certainly gendered, yet in the tradition of `western' rationality they are portrayed as being neutral and neutered. In relation to this, I suggest that they are based on the valorisation of various forms of replication, as is organisation studies. By the same token, they excise gendered reproduction.

7 Replicating Organisation `Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?' (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1)

INTRODUCTION This chapter argues that the normalising mirror plays a central part in the simultaneous production of knowledge of organisations and organising, and in the production of the organised `subject' (and by this I mean both individual subjectivity and the subject of organisation studies). It suggests that much of the discipline of organisation studies is based on processes of replication and normalisation. It goes on to argue that even those areas of the discipline that seek radical change are still seduced by the normalising mirror of the ànatomising urge'. The final section of the chapter demonstrates that, while mechanical replication around a norm is embedded in the discipline, issues and concepts of human and social reproduction are excised, as they are from organisations themselves. This is another instance of the marginalisation of bodies and embodiment from organisation studies. By way of introduction to this theme, I wish to consider briefly its prefiguration in early Renaissance Venice. In this nascent form and locale, we can see the conjunction of practices and discourses that together link the scalpel and mirror. In particular, we can see the concurrent development of the technical and industrial production of the mirror, and its conjunction in cultural, scientific and business discourses and processes. Venice around the sixteenth century was probably the foremost manufacturing and trading centre of Europe (Burke, 1986). It was a 174


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republic that had control over extensive territories, both in its hinterland in northern Italy and overseas. It was able to control shipping of goods by the Cape route, until competition grew from Portuguese ships, and it was also the most industrially advanced city of the time. Only a very few manufactured goods in Europe could be described as being ìndustrial', using considerable capital equipment, factory-type production and division of labour (Rapp, 1976, p. 6). Venetian production had these characteristics and economic historians have therefore taken great interest in it, since it foreshadows the Industrial Revolution. One of its major industries was shipbuilding. This was organised in the state manufactory, the Arsenal, in a way that was quite different from enterprises in other countries. From its foundation in the early twelfth century, it was the most technologically advanced in Europe. There was a specialisation of skills and associated division of labour that was unusual for the period, and which is argued to have given it superiority over all other shipyards (Rapp, 1976). The Arsenal contained within it all the manufacturing processes required for shipbuilding: timberyards, stores of hemp, ropemaking, foundries and so on. The different skills were organised into guilds, although the workers did not form an industrial proletariat but a rather craft aristocracy (Mackenney, 1987). However, Dante did compare the conditions of the Arsenal to the infernos of Hell (Inferno, canto xxi, 11.7±18). In shipbuilding in particular, and to a lesser extent in its other main industries, Venetian manufacturing was the prefiguration of the replication of mass production. Another major industry in which Venice had a monopoly was the making of mirrors. Glass-making had a long history in Venice itself, moving in the late thirteenth century to the island of Murano (Rapp, 1976). By the early 1500s, Venetian glass-makers had perfected techniques that enabled them to produce mirrors of a far superior quality than those produced anywhere else, and the industrial tradition meant that they could be produced in large quantities. More expensive traditional backings of steel, lead and silver were replaced by cheaper amalgams of tin and mercury. The segments of glass, previously convex, round or oval, became larger and flatter. The new techniques also meant that small mirrors could be produced relatively inexpensively, and these became available to the general public. These mass-produced mirrors became a prime fashion item of the time across Europe. They were fascinating to people because of their reflective nature, their novelty and because they were perceived to be a high status technological product. They were often set in ivory or

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precious metal, and attached to clothes by ribbons or chains (Grabes, 1982). Printing was another significant industry in fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury Venice. There were several important reasons for this (Gerulaitis, 1976). First, Venice had managed to stabilise its currency during the years 1472 to 1517, which was obviously attractive to new businesses. It was also a wealthy city, so capital was readily available, and there was a receptive reading public ± its population was around 100 000. In addition, paper was easily acquired in Venice, since its papermaking industry was also the European leader at the time. And finally, as a key commercial centre, it provided a well-established network for distributing books. As these factors indicate, the printing of books was primarily a profit-making rather than a cultural exercise (Gerulaitis, 1976, p. 4). As with shipbuilding and mirror-making, it is clear that the aim of Venetian printing was mass-production: producing many copies of books at a cheap enough cost to sell large numbers. The economic and organisational characteristics described above in this industrial conjunction of several forms of replication are not separate from the cultural and scientific work of the time ± although there is a clear division between academic studies of the art of Renaissance Italy and studies of its economy! Hoskin and Macve (1986) have linked the development of the foundational accounting practice of double-entry bookkeeping with this period of history. Double-entry bookkeeping is closely linked to the idea of reflection; indeed, Hoskin and Macve argue that it is `perhaps the finest expression of this metaphor: it was a mirror-book embodying the balanced and interconnected writing of the equal and opposite signs of debit and credit' (1986, p. 121). Lucio Pacioli's Summa de Arithemetica, Geometrica, Proportioni et Proportionalita (1494) is the work most cited in discussions of double-entry bookkeeping. It is widely believed that he was the publiciser of an earlier-established, probably Venetian, system (Eisenstein, 1979). Hoskin and Macve trace this precursor of industrial accounting systems to Renaissance developments rather than to the later developments of the industrial revolution with which they are often associated, because they consider them to be part of a wider cluster of elements of writing and recording, as well as the business processes to which they are immediately related, Hoskin and Macve connect bookkeeping to a related development that combines selfconsciousness and detailed, accurate writing: that of family memorabilia and, later, autobiographies (1986, p. 122), which are linked to


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the development of a more self-aware subjectivity at this time. During the Renaissance, self-portraits, which generally rely on the technology of the mirror, also became more widespread. Thus the rise of the massproduced mirror both facilitates and expresses the growing emphasis on a perspective of the self. It is interesting that Pacioli was not a businessman, but a scholar. He had studied under the painter Piero della Francesca and translated the artist's work on perspective. This is said to be one of the most important works on the mathematics of perspective (Schneider, 1994, p. 178). He also collaborated with Leonardo da Vinci1 in his anatomical studies (Schultz, 1985, p. 77). Here we start to see the interconnections between spheres of life which, in the early twenty-first century, are seen as being separate. We also find that looking more closely at the development of perspective in art leads us back to the science of anatomy (and it is perhaps worth noting that Padua, one of the major European centres of anatomy at this time, was part of the territory of Venice until 1509). Artistic anatomy is linked with the work of Alberti, among others. Not surprisingly, given the development of perspective with which he is associated, ànatomical theory was intrinsically bound to the doctrine of proportion'2 (Schultz, 1985, p. 38). And as we saw in Chapter 4, proportion or ratios are intimately connected to the development of rationality and analysis. This obsession with perfect bodily proportion continued from the Renaissance to influence the later work of the anatomy theatres. Hogarth ± whose work is associated with the less aesthetic aspects of life ± mocked those who `puzzled mankind with a heap of minute unnecessary divisions' (1969, p. 76). Thus there exists a cluster of interconnections around rationality, business, science and art. Burke explains a number of these significant links in Italian thought of the time: Another image of man, common in literature of this time, is that of a rational, calculating, prudent animal. `Reason' (ragione) and `reasonable' (ragionevole) are terms which recur, usually with overtones of approval. They are terms with a wide variety of meanings, but the idea of rationality is central. The verb ragionare meant `to talk', but then speech was a sign of rationality which showed man's [sic] superiority to animals. One meaning of ragione is àccounts'. Merchants called their account books libri della ragione. Another meaning is `justice': The Palazzo della Ragione in Padua was not so much the `Palace of Reason' so much as the court of law. Justice involved calculation, as the classical and Renaissance image of the

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scales should remind us. Ragione also meant `proportion' or `ratio'. A famous early definition of perspective, in the life of Brunelleschi attributed to Manetti, called it the science which sets down the differences of size in objects near and far con ragione, a phrase which can be (and has been) translated either as `rationally' or ìn proportion'. (Burke, 1986, pp. 198±9)3 Another methodology, related to proportion, in artistic anatomy was imitatio (ibid.). This was where anatomical illustrators corrected the imperfections they perceived in the physical body in front of them. They were also fascinated by measurements of the body (as in the development of perspective). Cellini, another anatomical illustrator, advocates that the correct `measures' of the body must be known by the artist, so that the proportions are as `nature has ordered' (Schultz, 1985, p. 39). This invokes the mirror once again in the way that `mimesis' does, but interestingly it àllowed the artist to perceive the workings of nature while correcting its imperfections' (ibid.). Thus, as with the duplicitous split self that facilitates the achievement of Alberti's perspective, there is also a distorting mirror at the heart of the illustration of anatomy. Indeed, the artists themselves could be seen to be duplicitous, since there was an apparent lack of concern with individual creativity, with apprentices replicating the master's style (Burke, 1986, p. 242). Thus the mirror of the ànatomising urge' is not an accepting mirror reflecting back the self which is seen, but a distorting mirror. Given my epistemological stance, I would argue that an objective reflection is not possible. The reflection is always already constructed and interpreted through a web of intersubjective and discursive meanings. However, the mirror of the Renaissance and of the Enlightenment is constructed as if it were objective. This is why the discovery of the duplicitous second self in perspective and the correcting self in imitatio is significant. Hidden within the rhetoric of objectivity we find the normalising mirror. And this is seen to disturbing effect in Venice. Here, the growth of a clear distinction between self and other was expressed practically in the development of the physical separation of those who were different. Venice was split into different areas along the lines of ethnic divisions. This was particularly well developed in the construction of the Jewish ghetto. Again, this is something that is, in the main, excluded from books on Italian art and those on economic history. The ghetto was situated on the edge of the city. At night it was locked and guarded.


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The Jews were only allowed a modicum of freedom during the day, and not only the Jews, for `the impurities of difference haunted the Venetians: Albanians, Turks, and Greeks, Western Christians like the Germans, all were segregated in guarded buildings or clusters of buildings. Difference haunted the Venetians, yet exerted a seductive power' (Sennett, 1994, p. 215). Sennett, in his study of the relationship between the body and the city, Flesh and Stone (1994), notes that the Venetian fear was centred on the body and a fear of touching which defines the body of the Other as polluting. This enforced physical separation is a stark instance of the normalising mirror. It includes those who conform to its identical identity, while excluding those who deviate from the self-same image. The marks of exclusion are written on to the individual and collective body of the òther', shaping not only their marginalised life in (out) of society, but also their subjectivity. The eagerness with which Shylock wishes to exact his vengeance upon Antonio's body in The Merchant of Venice through his rightful pound of flesh, can be seen as a reflection back to the Christians of their own excision and mutilation of the Jews. In this brief excursus into Renaissance Venice I have sought to weave together disparate threads which indicate the links between the normalising mirror, the replication of mass production and the production of knowledge. This fabrica or fragment of history is a prefiguring of these strands in modern organisation theory. THE ORGANISATION OF REPLICATION Delineating the characteristics of the `mirror' in the ànatomising urge' gives us a picture of subjectivity that is disembodied, split and bounded, normalised around a concept of identity which emphasises the identical, the normal ± and returns us to the metaphorical use of the scalpel to excise the deviant. From this framework, then, I want to take a closer look at organisation theory to see how these notions about normalisation and identity have become incorporated into the discipline. The focus is on the replication of the self-same, and the exclusion of the reproduction of the Other. As has already been discussed in Chapter 5, there is a trend within organisation studies of dividing the discipline up into sub-disciplines. The work around paradigms has been central to this (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Hassard, 1993). The boundaries between Burrell

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and Morgan's paradigms are drawn on the lines of ontological and epistemological assumptions, namely those on two dimensions between a realist and a nominalist ontological view of society, and between a subjectivist and an objectivist view of how the social world can be known. Not only do the paradigms divide between strands of work, but also the struggle to fix and place work in a static place means that rupturist views of key theorists' work have had to be adopted. For example, Marx's work is taken to be split between work before and after 1848, so that it has been divided within itself into different parts that can be more easily categorised into different paradigms (see Hassard, 1993). In the discussion of organisation theory that follows here, there is a blurring of boundaries between paradigms of functionalism, interpretive sociology, radical humanism and radical structuralism (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Rather than categorising work, hereafter there is a significant slippage between strands. However, there is organisation here in my presentation of the theme of the `mirror', since my own narrative of the literature is to consider the multiple ways in which the embodied subjectivity of the individual is excised or eluded in organisation theory. The self-reflecting mirror Within this first section I explore the diversity of ways that different perspectives in organisation studies are focused around a process of normalisation. Across areas which have been seen as having quite different objectives and methods there is a common assumption, not always explicit, that there is a norm around which organisations are (or should be) organised, which tends to the identical. This focus may come from the foundational belief that there is à best way' to organise, since organisations basically have the same characteristics ± what Huczynski (1997, p. 378) describes as `content universalists' ± or that there is a best process to discover the best solution ± what he describes as the `process universalists'. I have chosen here to look at four groups of theories within the discipline. First, I consider what might be regarded as the foundation stones of the discipline ± Taylorism and the Human Relations School; second, theories of bureaucracy and organisation structure that owe part of their legacy to the Parsonian reading of Weber; third (and briefly, given the focus on it in Chapter 5), systems theory; and fourth, institutional theory and population ecology. The four strands identified have in common the replication of their theoretical objects and the continuation of their discipline. This


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is because they are concerned primarily with the continuation and explanation of social order. It is a relevant question here to ask how organisation analysts themselves contribute to the replication and normalisation of organisations. Using the Foucauldian position articulated in Chapter 3, we can point to the way that discourse has material effects. For example, in the managerialist tradition within the discipline there is a trend towards the àccurate' reflection of the manager. Huczynski (1997) suggests that the so-called management `gurus' are increasingly popular because their theories or prescriptions are self-confirming to managers. In other words, they mirror the existing preconceptions of the manager, reflecting back to them as clients the perspectives they already hold. This gives legitimacy to both managers and those who provide these tools for them, consultants and/or academics (these are not necessarily separate categories, especially in the business school context), thus sustaining a self-replicating (and at the present time potentially lucrative) process. Work such as that by Hollway (1991) has demonstrated the self-serving interconnections between the production of knowledge and the knowledge of production, even while the two were being rhetorically distinguished through language that posited them as neutral science. These theories are frequently built around a ùnitary' perspective. This construction is based on the elision between organism and organisation discussed in Chapter 5, since it assumes that the organisation is a (reified) entity, and that the members of it, whether managers or workers, have common goals, with the organisation and with each other. That is, that the organisation-organism, being a whole, has superordinate goals that all its parts act together to attain. It is seen in the rhetoric of Taylor, discussed below, and also in the work of many other influential forces in the development of organisation studies. The fourteen principles of the French theorist Fayol include ones on the unity of direction of the firm (taking the biological analogy that an organisation-organism should not have two heads); there should be a unity of command (with only one source of orders to employees); individual and group interests should be subsumed under the overall aim; clear centralisation and order; and an esprit de corps or integrated culture (he saw the organisation as the `body corporate') (Campbell, 1997). Mary Parker Follett, an early influence on the development of Human Relations, was concerned to create unity of action out of the diversity of interests there are in an organisation (Graham, 1997). There is a normalised image of the organisation's goals and purposes,

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and the assumption or desire that the members will reflect back an accurate copy of these. This is expressed in such ideas as `vision', `mission' and other corporate culture initiatives. The emphasis is on employees identifying with the company. In much management-orientated literature this is either assumed without being questioned, or there is an explicit focus on achieving it by various means, for once, the individual has identified with the firm he/she can no longer be separated from it. Individuality is suppressed through identification. Most of the theories discussed in this section do not consider the individuals who constitute (and are constituted by) the organisations of which they write. Indeed, analysis is generally conducted at the level of the organisation, or even at the level of populations of organisations. Attention is only directed towards the identity or the body of the individual organisational members in order to manipulate these to achieve a control and normalisation of them. Subjectivity is objectified. The body is disembodied. Identity is suppressed through identification. It is no accident that F. W. Taylor and `scientific management' are generally presented as being central and foundational to the discipline of organisation theory in textbooks and accounts of the area. Taylor's ideas were not in themselves original or unique. Many organisations were already practising the features of scientific management in a piecemeal way (Hollway, 1991). What was new and influential was the organisation of the ideas, codifying and articulating them into a rational discourse which justified them through the use of `science', thus making them seem natural and neutral. The major scientific theory that Taylorism was based upon was that of natural selection, as he argued that those unfit to face competition should be weeded out. The part Taylor plays in turn in the construction of the nascent discipline of organisation studies is to embed the characteristics of the ànatomising urge' fully into its foundations. His rhetoric is perhaps the first to portray the interests of owners, managers and workers as being shared in common, and cutting away anything extraneous to this: `scientific management is a system devised by industrial engineers for the purpose of subserving the common interests of employers, workmen, and society at large, through the elimination of avoidable wastes, the general improvement of the processes and methods of production, and the just and scientific distribution of the product' (from the report on the investigation into scientific management by the US Commission on Industrial Relations in 1914: see Hoxie, 1915, p. 8). Taylor also utilises a particular relationship between theory and


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practice which has had a central place in the development of the discipline. He argued that only where there was an exact reflection between the elements of the theories he advocated and their implementation would scientific management have the positive results he claimed for it. Conversely, where managers did not replicate his ideas exactly he could not be held responsible for the consequences. As Hollway comments: `science has always liked to point with exactitude to the relation between its theories and applications and has tended to posit an orderly world where effects are simple and controllable' (1991, p. 28). However, as the Hawthorne experiments later indicated, social science cannot be separated so easily into cause and effect. As this discussion shows, the rhetoric through which the theory is constructed has itself an effect that cannot be distinguished from the practice. And, indeed, the effects of Taylorism have been widespread and pervasive, not only in factory organisation, but also in the discipline of organisation theory itself. Hollway argues that Taylor was the first to present a way of moving from the arbitrary coercion of the worker's body to the normalisation of the worker into being a self-disciplined individual (1991, p. 28). From these early beginnings of the academic discipline, where theorists were still obliged to address the problem of the (worker's) body and its control, I would suggest that the discipline has developed so that theories no longer (have to) do so. They have systematically written the body (both as an object and as embodiment) out of the mainstream of the discipline. In the normalisation and mechanisation of the workers' body and the subsuming of their identity into the replication of identical acts and a simplistic economistic motivation, Taylor achieved the denigration of the worker as subject into the worker as object. Obviously, as Marx and Engels pointed out only too clearly, in literal terms this was a process that had gathered pace since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, but here it is incorporated into the systematic production of knowledge about organisations, as Braverman (1974) was to show so graphically. The Human Relations School can be seen as a continuation of the use of a scientific discourse for the legitimation of greater control over workers' labour power. Yet it marks a new step in the formation of the normalised worker rather than the direct operation of power on the worker's body. Although it appears to address individual workers' differences, it is important to see this as only within a restricted zone of tolerance for differences. The use of the concept of individual differences is not innocent; indeed, these differences were classified as

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variance around a norm. Cronbach explained the attitude of the industrial psychologist to individual differences in this way: Individual differences have been an annoyance rather than a challenge to the experimenter. His [sic] goal is to control behavior, and variation within treatments is proof that he has not succeeded . . . The correlational psychologist is in love with just those variables that the experimenter left home to forget. He regards individual and group variables as important effects of biological and social causes . . . Just as individual variation is a source of embarrassment to the experimenter, so treatment variation attenuates the results of the correlator. His goal is to predict variation within a treatment. (Cronbach, 1957, p. 674) In other words, the `deviance' from the norm of worker behaviour is only acceptable in a very limited way. For example, the application of tests akin to Burt's intelligence tests used differences just as far as they could be applied to organising workers into different jobs and levels according to the supposed `scientific' measure of their abilities. This scientific measurement and prescription was tacitly set against the discourse of the `sentimental' worker: the worker who was affected by personal, emotional and, by extension, irrational influences. These were to be attended to, listened to and understood, as part of the humanist discourse of industrial psychology, but the ultimate objective was always to subsume these individual interests to the greater efficiency and output of the organisation.4 Indeed, Hollway's Foucauldian study of industrial psychology suggests that the interviews between the Hawthorne workers and the Harvard academics actively constructed understanding of the subject by both sides. The subjectivities of the workers (as normalised) and the knowledge of organisations are being constructed simultaneously, as described in Chapter 3. Rose (1985) suggests that this psychology of measurement stemmed from a conjunction of both science and management, where the former provided the methods and justification for measuring people, as the latter needed these tools to evaluate, compare and classify people. This conjunction can be seen as the development of the ànatomising urge' into the field of organisational psychology. As well as the mirroring of workers around behavioural norms, the shadow of the scalpel was also present, since much of this psychological development was linked with Social Darwinism and eugenics (Hollway, 1991; Rose, 1985). Galton used statistics to `prove' eugenic notions: `there is no


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bodily or mental attribute of any race of individuals that cannot be . . . gripped and consolidated into an ogive with a smooth outline and thence forward be treated in discussion as a single object' (quoted in Rose, 1985, p. 69). This is a pretty unambiguous statement of how `scientific' knowledge is developed to write out the individual embodied subject by use of a normal curve! These principles were incorporated into organisation studies through the use of psychometric and selection testing, which were also linked with Cyril Burt, the populariser of intelligence quotient (IQ) tests in Britain, and in particular their use for eugenicist ends. This is the sort of foundation and legacy of Human Relations' approaches to organisations that is not very often mentioned in the discipline. The `received wisdom' usually emphasises Human Relations' interest in the individual worker as a necessary antidote to the dehumanising effects of Taylorism. Frequently, the history of the field is written as though Human Relations was an overturning of scientific management, to which it was the antithesis. However, Braverman argues powerfully that they are two sides of the same coin, with the Human Relations initiatives being used to normalise workers into identification with the organisation: `Work itself is organized according to Taylorian principles, while personnel departments and academics have busied themselves with the selection, training, manipulation, pacification, and adjustment of ``manpower'' to suit the work processes so organized. Taylorism dominates the world of production; the practitioners of ``Human Relations'' and `ìndustrial psychology'' are the maintenance crew for the human machinery' (1974, p. 87). Thus in these two formative sets of work in organisation studies, we see the development of objectified disembodiment and consequently of the normalised person at the very centre of the discipline. This paved the way for a multitude of studies concerned to achieve a `best fit' between the individual and an aspect of their job or the organisation: theories of motivation, organisation development, leadership, and latterly emphases on èmpowerment' and the `learning organisation' can all be seen in relation to the normalising impulse. This basically forms the subject matter of what has become known as òrganisational behaviour', the subject as taught to managers in business schools, as such a `soft' subject yet justified through its appeal to the manipulation of others in the organisation. It is probably not surprising, given the implicit aim of these key writings, to `correct' or modify the individual to the needs of the organisation and exclude those who are deemed to be unsuitable

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(selection testing gained a huge influence in early industrial psychology; see Hollway, 1991), that much of what developed as òrganisation theory' ignored the individuals who constitute organisations altogether, concentrating instead on the best composition of the organisation as an object in its own right. The impetus for analysis at the level of the organisation comes from two main sources. One is from Henderson and the Pareto circle, through into the development of systems concepts, and the other is the Parsonian `translation' of Weber in the late 1940s (as discussed in Chapter 5). Systems theory has been more fully discussed in Chapter 5, given its close association with biological analogy. It will suffice here to comment on the logical extension of this as seen in the adaptation of Maturana and Varela's (1980) concept of autopoiesis ± the self-producing system ± to organisation theory by Morgan (1986). Maturana and Varela argue that living systems are organisationally closed, self-referential, since they attempt to maintain their own identity by subordinating all changes to the self-maintenance of their organisation. `Thus a system's interaction with its `ènvironment'' is really a reflection and part of its own organization' (Morgan, 1986, p. 236). This self-organisation and self-replication do not involve the Other. They are internally driven processes and can be identified within many systems. A more critically orientated approach to organisations, using similar ideas, can be seen in Kanter's (1977) study, Men and Women of the Corporation. Here, she argues that there are strong pressures for conformity in organisations, partly stemming from attempts to reduce uncertainty. This is seen in the `homosocial' and `homosexual' reproduction of male managers from similar social backgrounds, choosing those who are like themselves against those (typically women) who are different. Subsequent work on both management and equality in organisations has argued the disadvantages of this form of replication to the organisation, in both business and ethical terms. Yet management thinking in the shape of the desire for `charismatic leaders', another adaptation from Weber,7 returns us to the spectre of the replication of the `great man'. In looking at the legacy of Weber in the development of normalisation in organisation studies, it is important to distinguish his work from the plethora of research that followed the re-interpretation of his work in the USA in the immediate post-war period. This latter work demonstrated misunderstandings of the ideal type concept on a massive scale. In the work of Blau (1955), Selznick (1949), Crozier (1964) and Gouldner (1954) the tradition of German Idealism from which Weber's writings stemmed is little in evidence. The ìdeal type' loses its


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sense of the ìdea' and the ìdeational' and comes to be seen in the Anglophone way of `the ideal' meaning `superior' or `best'. Many theorists, taking Weber's ìdeal-type' of bureaucracy as their norm, have focused on how this applies empirically to organisations, comparing how far they replicate or deviate from this norm. Mouzelis (1967) discusses and evaluates the different ways in which Weber's concept has been used in the discipline. One of the major misunderstandings, stemming from the translation and use of Weber in particular theoretical contexts, surrounds the meaning of ìdeal-type'. Mouzelis (1967, pp. 44±5) considers four ways it has been misunderstood. First, it has been used as an average or typical bureaucracy. This is most obviously related to the normalisation of organisation. Second, it has been taken to mean a logical class or simple classificatory type. Again, this allows the inclusion and exclusion of those organisations which do or do not fit in the box. Third, it has been seen as an èxtreme type', a method used in psychology and sociology to order concrete instances along a continuum. Finally, it is seen as a theoretical model or number of hypotheses that can be validated or rejected by conducting empirical research to test it out. It is clear from this discussion that there are a multitude of ways that Weber's work has been adopted into organisation theory as a normalising influence ± a perspective, of course, already predominant in the discipline, as we have seen above. Clegg (1994, p. 49) also recounts how the academic status of Weber was thrown behind organisation theory, so that `Weber's evident insights became pressed into service in a discipline that had neither framed nor generated them'. Weber himself said `the development of the modern form of the organisation of corporate groups in all fields is nothing less than identical with the development and continual spread of bureaucratic administration' (Weber, 1947, p. 337). This identity of modern organisation with bureaucracy gave organisation theory its theoretical object for the 1950s ± bureaucracy. Hall (1963), Udy (1959) and Stinchcombe (1959) all developed measures of bureaucracy ± essentially assessing it around a norm ± in order to further the interests of and in organisation theory (Brown, 1979, pp. 136±42). This strand of `bureaumetrics' (Hood and Dunsire, 1982) was to lead to the highly influential Aston Studies. The perspective on Weber typical of the Aston Studies, and its offspring contingency studies, is demonstrated in this account of bureaucracy by Pugh. He focuses on Weber's comment that bureaucracy was dominant because of its `greater technical efficiency' (Pugh,

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1971, p. 13). He adds that ìn doing so he formed the starting point of a series of sociological studies designed to examine the nature and functioning of bureaucracy, particularly to draw attention to the dysfunctions of this structural form left out of the original analysis' (ibid.). Here Pugh seems to have ignored Weber's deep concerns about the deleterious consequences attendant upon bureaucratisation. From this standpoint, then, the combination of systems concepts and Weberian theory on the structuring of the organisation can be seen developing in a number of different ways to approaches which consider the best fit between characteristics of the organisation ± size, hierarchy, span of control, technology and so on ± in relation to the environment in which the organisation-organism is to be found. This constitutes contingency theory. Here it would seem that there is less room for normalisation, since contingency theory is usually presented as an approach that says that it àll depends' on the contingent variables as to how the organisation should be arranged. However, a closer look reveals the normalising influence at work. These are Huczynski's `process universalists', as contingency theorists argue that once one has analysed the relevant characteristics, the organisation can be made to achieve a best fit with its internal and external contexts. Donaldson's work is perhaps at the most extreme end of contingency theory, but does have the advantage of clearly, if not crudely, showing its assumptions. He argues that organisations tend to adopt the structures that are most effective and, furthermore, `There is little or no scope of choice in that the organization will need to adopt the organizational structure that fits the contingencies, in order to avoid performance loss' (1996a, p. 165). Donaldson's version of the normalisation process can be seen in his use of `SARFIT' ± the `Structural Adaptation to Regain Fit' cycle, which he posits as the `common, underlying theory' (1996b, p. 65). The contingency theories are also centred around the scientific norm of replication. Donaldson explains that otherwise the studies might be `flukes or idiosyncrasies or reflect biases of the authors' (ibid., p. 64). Thus there is a need for replication. This also provides a rationale for further investigations: `Replication studies are seldom on the same organizations, so the studies provide also a test of generalization, that is whether the original findings hold in studies of new organizations, in settings that differ in some way, such as type or country' (ibid.) Being cynical, one might suggest that this is a rather transparent ploy to replicate the theoretical object, ensuring the continuance of contingency work!


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The final pair of theories I wish to consider here also tend to construct knowledge of organisations at the level of the organisation, or even at the level of populations of organisations. In these, the influence of organisational economics, more than psychology or sociology, can be discerned (Rowlinson, 1997). I shall focus on neoinstitutional theories (as the title suggests, this is not a homogeneous area) and population ecology. I have put these together because, while they are significantly different from each other in their assumptions about organisations, they both have a conceptualisation of ìsomorphism', or of organisations having the same forms. Population ecology is a theory based on a combination of Darwinian biology and neo-classical economics. Unlike theories that consider the internal evolution of the firm (Rowlinson, 1997, p. 41), population ecology looks at the selection criteria of natural selection in the population of organisations. Thus their use of evolutionary theory is more Darwinian than Lamarckian. In other words, individual organisations are not seen as having much choice in whether they can adapt to the environment, but those who have characteristics that have the `best fit' ± that is, the best mirror image of the environment ± are seen as being most likely to survive. This close replication of the features of the environment is termed ìsomorphism'. It is analogous to the replication of genes in sociobiology (see Chapter 2). There is an assumption of the rationality of natural selection combined with organisational rationality: that the òptimal behaviour of each firm is to maximise profit' (Hannan and Freeman, 1977, p. 940). The extreme neo-positivism found in the field leads to the reification of their theoretical object: organisations. This reification has been critiqued from within organisation studies for the way it removes power from the social processes enacted by individual people. Perrow comments: `the new model of organisation±environment relations tends to be a mystifying one, removing much of the power, conflict, disruption, and social class variables from the analysis of social processes. It neglects the fact that our world is in large part made by particular men and women with particular interests, and instead searches for ecological laws which transcend the hubbub that sociology should attend to' (1979, p. 243). It is difficult to define what constitutes institutional theory, since the field is so diverse (Tolbert and Zucker, 1996; Rowlinson, 1997). Rowlinson notes that, while organisational economics has made some attempt to distinguish between òrganisations' and ìnstitutions', with stress on the continuity and stability of the latter, the two terms tend to

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be treated interchangeably. Both Rowlinson, and Tolbert and Zucker, return to Berger and Luckmann's (1971) discussion of ìnstitutionalisation' in The Social Construction of Reality. Berger and Luckmann relate institutionalisation to habituation, where àny action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be reproduced with an economy of effort' (1971, pp. 70±1). In relation to organisations, this can be seen as central to work on routinisation and how particular patterns of action become embedded into organisational processes (see, for example, Granovetter, 1992; North, 1990). The social constructionist strand has been associated with `neoinstitutionalists', who themselves have claimed an historical and powerful institutional base in the work of theorists such as Selznick (1949).6 In the `new' institutional theories there is more scope for the consideration of subjective values, culture and symbols which form a significant part of an organisation's practices, and through which its identity is constructed. Thus it can be seen that institutionalism is quite different from population ecology, since it allows for intervention in organisational processes (although it also seeks to explain why change is not always so easy to achieve) and it considers the `subjective' experience of organisations, not simply those characteristics that are constructed by scientistic theories, such as population ecology, as òbjective'. So how is ìsomorphism' understood within this particular context? DiMaggio and Powell, associated with the field of `new institutionalism', have tried to explain the `startling homogeneity of organizational forms and practices' (1991, p. 64). Their term for this homogenization is ìsomorphism', which is à constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions' (1991, p. 66). They classify a number of processes which lead to isomorphism. The first is through some coercion into conformity by other organisations in the same field; the second is `mimetic' isomorphism, where organisations tend to copy each other when faced with uncertainty. A third is `normative' isomorphism, where the professionalisation of key organisational members means that knowledge and practices are diffused through extraand intra-organisational networks. There are also those firms who experiment with new structures and processes to cope with new technological, marketing or organisational problems. This is labelled àdaptive isomorphism' and includes early Taylorism and JIT supplier relationships in Japan. Thus the idea of ìsomorphism' ± the identical configuration of the organisation ± is found across the different, although related, fields of


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population ecology and institutional theory. Taking these together it can be seen that there is much scope here for normalisation and replication, as organisations can be isomorphic on three dimensions ± environment (context); structure (material); and culture (ideational). The common feature is that they retain the underpinning that there is a best way or best fit for the most efficient form of organisation. This is the form that is the most pure reflection, or exact copy. This replication across organisations can be seen in Ritzer's thesis of McDonaldization (1993). Here the combination of the characteristics of bureaucracy with those of the assembly line upon which McDonald's burger restaurant is argued to be based is seen increasingly across many sectors of the economy. The way that McDonald's restaurants are identical wherever they are on the globe allows for standardisation and predictability, thus facilitating cost minimisation and the use of a deskilled workforce. But this extreme form of replication can also be seen to have a deleterious effect on individuals' experience of their embodiment. This is not a factor that is explored by either the neoinstitutionalists or explicitly by Ritzer, although he provides some clues from which we can build up a picture. In the first place, it is of particular note that Ford first developed his notion of the assembly line from Chicago meatpackers' use of the overhead trolley to butcher cattle! As the carcass was taken along by the trolley, highly specialised butchers carried out divided tasks (1993, p. 58). As many studies have shown, the experience of working on an assembly line is itself alienating, producing a fragmented sense of identity. However, both Taylor and Ford had preconceptions of the sorts of people they thought were fit for assembly-line-type jobs. These workers were associated with being `not-thinking' sorts of people ± that is, just associated with the body, and not the mind (ibid., p. 119). The replication involved in the Fordist, Taylorist or McDonaldized process is also transferred to the workers. For example, workers in EuroDisney are forced to conform to a standardisation of the body. In 1992 they were instructed: Èmployees are compelled to maintain weight in harmony with their height. Men are forbidden to sport beards, moustaches, long hair or jewelry. Women must not wear short skirts or use mascara. Only one ring per hand and one earring per ear will be allowed, and only appropriate undergarments of a natural . . . color should be worn under a dress' (ibid., p. 111). Ritzer shows how this experience is also a feature of being a customer in a McDonaldized world. The implicit view of the human body is of a `feeding machine' (1993, p. 26), with the assumption that people do not

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go to McDonald's for a pleasurable experience but to `refuel' (ibid., p. 64). Many other McDonaldized products and services are also aimed at the efficient control of the body, such as easy diet regimes (for example, based on milk-shake meals), and exercise machines (where one does not have to actually run over possibly rough or hilly terrain, but can watch television or listen to music to use time more efficiently. These presume the Cartesian split that the mind is not engaged in the same activity as the body). Ritzer does acknowledge that the body itself can make McDonaldization less easy to achieve. However, he notes how haircutting cannot be made predictable because of the differences of individuals' heads and the different ways that hairdressers work (ibid., p. 84). It is interesting, however, and perhaps a consequence of the impulse of anatomy to standardise its knowledge, that the same does not seem to apply to procedures that are aimed at the interior of the body. Ritzer gives examples of assembly-line eyesurgery in Moscow and `McDoctors' in the USA. These would seem to be a logical extension of the attitude towards patients' bodies illustrated in the work of Emerson (1970), discussed in Chapter 6. However, Ritzer's theory of the McDonaldization of society can also be seen as a form of self-replicating discourse. It is an extension of Weber's thesis of the increase of rationalisation into all spheres of life, but it does seem, despite the occasional qualification, that he has presented it as a totalising process and within a totalising discourse. In the next section I consider aspects of organisation theory that have moved away from the self-replicating mirror, but that are still held in thrall by the notion of the mirror, although here it is a distorting one. The distorting mirror In this section I want to look at theories of organisation in the radical and Marxist traditions, as these go some way to questioning the ànatomising urge'. That is, they do not accept that understanding organisations is primarily to do with finding more efficient ways to run them, and the foundational analyses in the work of Marx and Engels acknowledge the toll that capitalist organisation takes on individual bodies. Thus these are quite different from the sorts of theories of organisations considered above. Unlike these, the Marxist-inspired theories are motivated by the desire to see the existing social order transcended and the theoretical object of their attention ± capitalism ± destroyed. Part of this critique is of the normalising mirror, which can be seen in the mechanical replication of mass production and the


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division of labour. However, I would argue that the normalising mirror is still highly central to these theories, and this prevents the critique from being able to adequately conceptualise gendered and embodied subjectivity in such a way as to provide a full critique of the ànatomising urge'. Issues of rationality, science and the implicit construction of the subject as transcendent consciousness, still indicate the vestiges of thinking which itself reflects the dominant intellectual tradition. Thus the mirror image retains a place in Marxist and radical theories. Rather than a self-replicating mirror there is an implicit notion of a distorting one. This can be seen in the emphasis on alienation as the experience of subjectivity under the capitalist mode of production. This is the image of the worker and his/her place in the world as a distorted reflection through the lens of capitalist class relations and production. There are fractures between the individual, his/her labour and the product, which are ultimately seen to result in a fractured self and divisions between self and others.7 In other words, because of the relations of production, the self of the worker cannot be reflected back to him/herself as a whole and true image. Alienation produces the worker as an object, not as a subject: the object which labour produces ± labour's product ± confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labour is labour which has been congealed in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labour. Labour's realization is its objectification. In the conditions dealt with by political economy this realization of labour appears as a loss of reality for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and object-bondage; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation. (Marx, 1972, pp. 57±8) In many ways this criticism of the commodification of the worker into an object is one that implicitly criticises the process of the ànatomising urge' in objectifying the individual. However, rather than challenging the subject/object dualism, it tends to move from the denigration of the òbject' side to try to reassert the superiority of the `subject' side, leaving the underlying assumptions untouched. This is because the central notion of alienation depends on an objective view of truth and `reality', which are then distorted by capitalism. Foucault's critique of ìdeology' is perhaps pertinent for understanding this point, as he says, `The notion of ideology appears to me to be difficult

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to make use of, for . . . like it or not, it always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth' (1980, p. 118). Hassard's (1993) use of the `radical humanist' paradigm in his empirical study of the fire service is helpful in understanding this. He says that this analysis illustrates `the ways in which the dominant culture of the organization is reproduced with the help of `àcceptable'' theories of management' (1993, p. 104). And he says of the radical humanist paradigm that à central notion is that human consciousness is corrupted by tacit ideological influences. The common sense accorded to hegemonic practices such as management training is felt to drive a wedge of false consciousness between the known self and the true self ' (1993, p. 105). Here `false consciousness' is what is gained through the distorting mirror of capitalist production. Baudrillard's critique of Marxism in The Mirror of Production (1975) can also be usefully discussed here. This argument is that Marx did not question the concepts he derives from political economy ± production and labour. Thus, while Marxism has radical objectives, it acts to reproduce, and even strengthen, the political economy Marx set out to displace, because these basic concepts remain in place. This can be seen in the above quotation from Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844). Baudrillard argues: Everywhere man has learned to reflect on himself, to assume himself, to posit himself according to this scheme of production which is assigned to him as the ultimate dimension of value and meaning. At the level of all political economy there is something of what Lacan describes in the mirror stage: through this scheme of production, this mirror of production, the human species comes to consciousness in the imaginary. Production, labor, value, everything through which an objective world emerges and through which man recognizes himself objectively ± this is the imaginary. Here man is embarked on a continual deciphering of himself through his works, finalized by his shadow (his own end), reflected by this operational mirror, this sort of ideal of a productivist ego. (1975, p. 19) The consequences of these mirroring assumptions as they are built into Marxist and radical theories can be seen in the following conceptualisations of organisation theory. In their Organisation, Class and Control (1980), Clegg and Dunkerley argue that people should be


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considered `not as subjectivities, as unique individuals or social psyches, but as the bearers of an objective structure or relations of production and reproduction which are conditioned not by psychology but by history' (1980, p. 400). In this formulation it becomes clear that within Marxist theory there is also a normalising tendency that reduces the experience of identity to the replication of identical units of structure and history. Not only has the capitalist reduced the worker to a unit of production, a cog in the machine, but so has the Marxist theorist! From a similar theoretical perspective that sees consciousness as a false reflection of some objectively understood truth, Thompson and McHugh argue that, Ìnstead of reflecting the concerns of established power-groups, organisational theory should reflect critically on and challenge existing attitudes and practices. It can draw on the distinction between practical and technical rationality identified by Habermas (1971) and subsequently espoused by many other radical writers', where `practical rationality emphasises conscious and enlightened reflection which would clarify alternative goals and action based on the widest communication and political dialogue' (1995, p. 18). This sounds very reasonable, and therefore plausible. However, it continues to depend on the tradition of rationality which, I have argued throughout, is built on the desire to incise, to divide, to classify and to normalise. Given the arguments in the previous chapter that knowledge constructed in the model of the ànatomising urge' can only reflect back the same, and can never adequately know the other, the Habermasian approach would seem to lead only to a circularity or repeated reflection of the same, since it does not question the very terms on which it is built. The work of Harry Braverman has been highly influential in the development of a neo-Marxist strand of organisation theory or industrial sociology that became known as `labour process theory'. Braverman (1974) argues that it was through the `massification' of labour that capital was able to dominate. Once workers were deskilled, their craft controls eroded, their tasks highly divided, they themselves could easily be replicated, like the mass products that they made. Workers were no longer unique and irreplaceable individuals, but identical cogs in the machinery of capitalism. As part of his critique, which centred particularly on the effects of scientific management and its spin-offs such as time and motion studies, Braverman paid some considerable attention to the control of and effects on the worker's body. He gives many examples of the èfforts [which] have been made to find a means

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of gaining a continuous, uninterrupted view of human motion, and to measure it on that basis' (1974, p. 177). These include the use of `radar, accelerometers, photoelectric waves, air pressure, magnetic fields, capacitive effects, motions pictures, radioactivity' (ibid.). Measurements of heart rate and oxygen use have also been made to assess the level of energy the worker is expending (ibid.). The transformation of the human body into an object, started through the science of anatomy, has certainly come to fruition in the `science' of management. This is an objectification which relies on the fragmentation and standardisation so central to anatomy, linked to the Cartesian split between mind and body, for as Braverman says ìn the setting of antagonistic social relations, of alienated labor, hand and brain become not just separated, but divided and hostile, and the human unity of hand and brain turns into its opposite, something less than human' (1974, p. 125; see also Cooley, 1987). From the mid-1970s, labour process theory provided a lively focus for debate and research, with annual conferences in Britain leading to many important publications (for example, Knights and Willmott, 1986, 1990; Jermier et al., 1994). In this, Braverman's work became the mirror held up to the capitalist production process, against which work assessed whether it was a true and accurate reflection or an overgeneralisation taken from his own experience but not based on sufficient empirical study. The iconic status of Labour and Monopoly Capital was aided by Braverman's death shortly after its publication (Smith, 1997). However, `Bravermania' later gave way to a detailed examination of what were seen as Braverman's shortcomings. Two aspects of the critique of Braverman are especially pertinent to my argument. These are that Braverman did not take adequate account of either subjectivity, particularly that of the workers, or of the gendered nature of the labour process (for example, Knights, 1990; Willmott, 1990b; West, 1990). Thus it is probably in work developing out of a labour process perspective, broadly understood, that has produced the most critical note in relation to the dualistic formulations of the ànatomising urge', particularly those between subject and object, and between male and female. However, theorists did not fully take up the leads that Braverman's work might have produced in relation to theorising the body in organisation theory. Organisation theory has yet to develop a full consideration of the dualism between mind and body, and its links with gender and subjectivity, although Willmott (1994, p. 119) argues that this is an important facet to `bringing agency (back) into organizational analysis'.


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Collinson (1992) argues that Braverman's approach is marred by a dualistic attitude that `treats managers as the subjects and workers as the objects of organizational processes' (1992, p. 25). Collinson says (ibid.), in `defining ``work'' as purposive and under the direction of conceptual thought, Braverman neglects its social character'. This seems to me to echo the critique made by Baudrillard (above), since what leads to this treatment of managers and workers is that the `signs' of work and production remain as monolithic concepts. I would further argue that the dualism implicit in Braverman's treatment is that between mind and body, between mental work and manual work. The former gains value from its association with knowledge and the active principle of mind, which is also linked with consciousness, and thus to the root of subjectivity. The latter is devalued through its connection with the body, itself only an object. Thus those who work with their bodies (and by extension of the dualism, not simultaneously with their minds) themselves become as objects. Until the philosophical and historical relationship between mind and body, and its connection with the dominant mode of knowledge, has been recovered, as this project attempts to do, even critical work in organisation theory will continue to replicate these divisions. Of course, this critique is in danger of romanticising the notion of èmbodied subjectivity', presenting some image of a whole and coherent person. This would be to just add the body into the Cartesian cogito. As Collinson takes pains to point out, subjectivity is a `dual experience of self ' (1992, p. 29), of being both separate from and in the world (thus echoing the perspective of Merleau-Ponty, discussed in Chapter 3). It is also contradictory, fragile and constantly being produced and reproduced. Although, again, embodiment is not theorised explicitly, Gray's (1987) study of a `macho' shopfloor culture gives some indications of the issues a more embodied organisation theory might approach. In this he discusses the problems involved for masculine identity when it becomes associated with the body as an object. It does not show only the experience of the fragmentation and objectification of the body, which Braverman elaborates, but also the gendered aspects of subjectivity as related to embodiment, which Braverman does not consider. Gray argues that the workers attempt to elevate their position and shore up their self-identities by characterising the nature of their work as `men's work', distinguished by the need for physical strength, which neither women nor white-collar workers could manage successfully. However, this identity also becomes a source of denigration as work-

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ing-class men become associated with `savages' (1987, p. 226) in the eyes of the managers. Gray says that, as a consequence, the workers in turn denigrate women, as `pieces of flesh, physical bodies, mindless animals' (1987, p. 221). The tension and ambiguity experienced by Gray's workers is, I would suggest, linked with the commonplace association of women with the body, and both masculinity and true personhood with the mind and consciousness. Society still devalues the body (hence the position of manual work in the hierarchy), yet men are physical meant to show their superiority over women through their greater strength. These contradictions indicate the difficulty of separating issues of class, gender and subjectivity in organisation theory, and the concurrent need to consider the experience of embodiment as being interconnected and expressive of these. THE EXCLUSION OF REPRODUCTION Above I discussed at some length the embeddedness of ideas of (mechanical) replication and normalisation in different strands of organisation studies. It is not so simple to examine the exclusion of human (that is, bodily, sexual) reproduction for the very reason that it is absent. The replication (the identical copying of the same) that I have argued is so prevalent in social and political theory is the dualistic opposite of reproduction (the creation and valuing of the other and of difference). Gatens puts this into philosophical and cultural context: Woman in fact never makes the transition from the mythical `state of nature' to the body politic. She becomes nature. She is necessary to the functioning of cultural life, she is the very ground which makes cultural life possible, yet she is not a part of it. This division between nature and culture, between the reproduction of mere biological life as against the production and regulation of social life, is reflected in the distinction between the private and the public spheres, the family and the state. (1996, p. 51) And organisation studies is firmly rooted in the `body politic' and the public sphere; its theoretical object, `the organisation' is predominantly a public organisation, especially a capitalist one. Thus it is relevant that Gatens goes on to comment, ìt is tempting to argue that the modern body politic has yet to be embodied ' (ibid., p. 55).


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One example of how `reproduction' is excluded from organisation studies, even theoretically, comes from Penrose's (1952) critique, `Biological Analogies in the Theory of the Firm'. She argues that the analogy between organisation and organism is inappropriate, since the processes it assumes ± birth, youth, maturity, old age and death ± are only relevant for organisms that reproduce sexually. Organisms that have asexual reproduction (which I would distinguish as replicating rather than reproducing, given the process of splitting into identical entities) do not have the same development and do not die. Although this is an argument which is a highly apposite criticism of theories such as population ecology that attempt to classify organisations and populations of organisations (Rowlinson, 1997, pp. 42±3), it further marginalises any association between reproduction and organisation. The solution of those areas of theory vulnerable to this sort of argument is a further reduction to smaller and smaller body fragments, such as the gene as the unit of analogy. Tapping into the language and assumptions surrounding genetics enables social theory to return to the more mechanical processes and (genetic) determinism with which it is comfortable. These move further from the social, gendered and embodied aspects of human reproduction. In the main, attempts to consider women's reproductive role have come from a Marxist or socialist feminist perspective (despite problems in attempts to incorporate issues of gender and racial oppression into the concept of class). In these approaches it is argued that women are exploited both as wage labourers and as domestic labourers. The tasks that women typically do within the family, both practical and emotional, are unpaid and often unrecognised. This double oppression also feeds back into the public sphere, enabling the greater exploitation of women in the workplace through the `sextyping' of jobs and the greater disadvantages associated with `women's work'. Some attempts were made in the 1970s to moot a `domestic wage' but it was never clear how this could be put into operation (it would have been only a partial response to the issues around gender relations, in any case). One useful example of research that shows how the skills women develop through their gender socialisation and their main role in reproduction of the family on a generational and a daily basis are undervalued in the workplace, is that by Davies and Rosser (1986). They looked at administrative roles in the National Health Service (NHS) that involved both the management of practical arrangements, such as a surgery or a clinic, and the associated emotional interface, among the diverse groups of health professionals, and between them

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and patients.7 These were jobs not designated as high-level management, and were not included in those career roles through which aspiring graduate trainees would pass.8 The people filling these roles were typically women who had had a family and later returned to the workplace. The researchers argue that the skills these women used on a daily basis were very much linked to those they developed in the care of their families: the organisation of diverse tasks requiring the manipulation of many arrangements at once (`juggling'), and the emotional management of people with grievances or worries. However, these abilities were not seen as skills ± they did not require training nor external validation through qualifications, they were not rewarded nor were they seen as part of career progression (indeed, higher managers and consultants sought to keep these women in these roles, since for the particular tasks they did they were seen as being indispensable, although not in relation to what was considered to be management potential). In fact, these skills were virtually invisible since they were assumed to be `natural' abilities the women had purely by virtue of being women, since they were to do with the reproductive function, which has no place in the public organisation. Organisations might appropriate women's reproductive abilities, but do not recognise them, since what is valued is replication. In terms of management it is not the ability to deal with difficult situations or people that is rewarded, but the production of output or the replication of charisma in leadership. With the exception of a few studies such as Martin's (1987), discussed below, the little research that has been conducted on the links between reproduction and the workplace have been empirical studies, often of health and safety risks around fertility and birth defects. For example, chapters by Bates Gaston (1991) and Bramwell and Davidson (1991) in a reader on Women at Work focus mainly on the hazards for pregnant women at work. Much of the detail given is from occupational health and medical studies. Bates Gaston does note that it is cultural stereotypes surrounding women's reproductive role that have influenced the (de)valuation of women in the workplace. For example, stereotypes around the menstrual cycle assume that women are moody, unpredictable, unreliable and perform badly at work. There is no agreed definition of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), but it does lend `scientific' legitimacy to discrimination against women. Another common assumption is that women with children are unreliable workers.9 Interestingly, Bates Gaston's method of trying to counteract these stereotypes is to adduce scientific evidence that they are incorrect. These themselves are, of course, subject to critique over their


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replication. It seems to me to be a very partial response to the social and cultural constructions of women's bodies and their reproductive roles, as the following research by Martin underlines. Where reproduction cannot be excluded from organisation it becomes subject to being organised and separated off into institutional contexts where the leaky bodies and fluidity of women can safely be contained. Emily Martin's study, The Woman in the Body (1987), shows the interaction between the discourse used to describe the woman's body, menstruation, birth and menopause, and the material organisation of these. She says how the dominant metaphors are of à hierarchical system of centralized control organized for the purpose of efficient production and speed' (1987, p. 66). Thus the conceptualisation of the woman's body echoes those features that are focused upon in organisation studies. The material effects on the woman's body are produced by these discourses. Birth, for example, is organised around these notions. Oakley (1984) gives the example of a hospital in Dublin where labour is not allowed to go on beyond twelve hours, and where àctive management' of the process is pervasive. This is a common practice in the organisation of labour, and constitutes the artificial breaking of the waters, an oxytocin drip to speed up contractions and, if the labour is still not `progressing' as the doctors feel it should, a caesarean section. Both time and space are managed, just as they are in a factory. As well as the timed stages the birth is expected to go through, there is the movement of the labouring women through side wards for the early stages, labour and then delivery rooms. As Martin comments, the emphasis is on a successful `product' at the end, with the process counting for very little. Thus both the language used and the practices (themselves both organised and institutionalised in organisations, home births remaining in the minority) reflect the predominance of the replication of mass-production rather than the lived experience of reproduction. They also reflect normalisation ± the expectations of what a `normal' birth should be like ± which women themselves as well as the èxperts' are socialised into. This excision of reproduction, or its subsuming into mechanical replication, has its effects on the embodied subjectivity of women. Martin interviewed many women about their experiences of childbirth and found that the alienation of the experience was widespread. She uses the work of Schilder on disturbed body images (see Chapter 3) to illustrate the effects of the discursive and material practices on women's experiences of their bodies. For example, women who have had an epidural anaesthetic cannot feel when to push with the con-

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tractions and have to èxperience' their body through a monitor or the orders of a midwife. Those who have caesareans feel that their bodies have been fragmented and objectified in very vivid ways, feeling dissociated from the birth and from the baby. Haraway articulates the politics and power involved in this exclusion, denigration and organisation of reproduction. She writes that: Reproduction has become the prime strategic question, a privileged trope for logics of investment and expansion in late capitalism, and the site of discourse about the limits and promises of the self as individual . . . Simultaneously, reproductive biotechnology is developed and contested within the story of the final removal of making babies from women's bodies, the final appropriation of nature by culture, of woman by man. Symbolically, reproduction displaced to the laboratory and factory becomes no longer the sign of the power of personal and organic bodies, preeminently the site of sexual politics, but the sign of the conquest of still another `last' frontier in the ideology of masculinist technology and industrial politics. (1990a, p. 142) In conclusion, this chapter has explored the interconnections between the dominant valuing of mechanical replication over human and social reproduction as this relates to different strands of organisation theory. In doing this it has considered how issues of embodiment, subjectivity and gender are marginalised within the discipline. What is replicated is the male mind and masculine thinking. This leads to a highly narcissistic phallogocentrism.

8 Conclusions . . . an organization is a body of thought thought by thinking thinkers. (Weick, 1979, p. 42) My objective has been to examine the interrelationship between the (human) body, embodiment and the development of organisation studies as a disciplinary field. I argue that the body is an àbsent presence' in organisational theory. However, while the body is not seen explicitly as being relevant to the discipline, specific assumptions about the body have shaped the area of organisation studies, as part of a wider tradition of `western' knowledge and rationality, and in particular as part of the development of social theory. Within organisation studies, the body is not theorised in its own right, but these implicit assumptions about the nature of the body have shaped the course and approach of organisation studies significantly. I have argued that the broader intellectual and historical context of which organisation studies is a part, is one in which a `culture of dissection' predominates. This has the characteristics of what I have described as the ànatomising urge'. This is the model of anatomy on which our primary `knowledge' of the body is based. It is a model founded on the body as material object which can be studied by a scientific method that involves the cutting-up of the body, penetrating below its surface. It divides up the body physically by dissection, and conceptually into organs and systems, splitting it into structured parts which have their individual functions to contribute to the whole. It is also a form of knowledge that requires the body to be dead, fragmented and denatured. In order to become the object of the microscope, life has to be removed so that the material of the body can be `fixed' in its rightful place in the scientific world view. Anatomy also provides the model for that knowledge, which is privileged and valued. Again, the emphasis is on developing knowledge through division, fragmentation and splitting. The fundamental form of this knowledge is the dualism that both cuts between the two terms and puts them into a hierarchical relationship. I have shown how both ànalysis' and `rationality' fit into this picture, since these forms of knowledge proceed through classification, categorisation, and thus organising and ordering. As Sawday says of the science of anatomy: Às the physical 203

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body is fragmented, so the body of understanding is held to be shaped and formed' (Sawday, 1995, p. 2). Thus there is a clear link between rationality and the organising of the fragments cut up by the anatomising urge. Indeed, rationality is a form of organisation given by the ànatomising urge'. In this process the creation and maintenance of boundaries, and the inclusion and exclusion of terms or categories is significant to the `development' of knowledge. Central to the context of this mode of knowledge is the aim of control and manageability of the world through knowledge. The effect of this `culture of dissection' in the production of knowledge, seen most clearly in its Cartesian forms, is to create an òbjectified disembodiment'. I argue that one of the central dualisms of this `western' intellectual tradition is that between mind and body. Here, the mind is seen as active, creative and the centre of knowledge, whereas the body is seen as being mere matter. In Merleau-Ponty's language, the body is turned into a `thing as other things'; in other words, it is objectified. Within the disciplinary limits of philosophy and science, the two valued axes of this intellectual tradition, the person is implicitly or explicitly treated as a disembodied consciousness. Within this construction, the thinking, knowing part of the person is only associated with the `mind', which is seen as being separate from the merely material `body'. The mind/body dualism has also become articulated with another: the dualism that has been constructed between male and female. The two dualisms have become associated, since masculinity is linked with the mind, with knowledge and science, while femininity is connected with the body, with nature and emotions. The male/female dualism is ordered into a similar hierarchy as the mind/body dichotomy. These dualistic assumptions are incorporated into the social sciences, and thus find their place fixed in organisation theory. Therefore, I have argued, organisation theory is characterised by being part of this `culture of dissection' and by the òbjectified disembodiment' of the individual. I have tried to show this and discussed its consequences in relation to a broad understanding of organisation studies. I have maintained that the relationship between `the body' and organisation theory is one of àbsent-presence'; that is, the body is assumed to be present but as an object that has not been explicitly theorised, and where it has come into direct focus, it is as an object of control. One of the ways in which the body is objectified in organisation studies is through the use of biological analogy, whereby the body is reduced to the status of òrganism'. A consistent theme across

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organisation studies is the construction of organisations as bounded and structured entities which have therefore a sense of internal cohesion, which is differentiated and separated from the external ènvironment'. The conventional construction of the organism is an organised, structured and hierarchical one. Thus the elision between organisation and organism is one of reductionism, emphasising an approach that considers predominantly structures and their functions. The òbjectified disembodiment' that is so significant in the `western' intellectual tradition and in organisation studies has, I suggest, an important effect on the conceptualisation and experience of ìdentity'. Identity or subjectivity is seen as the phenomenological understanding of self, of what it is like to be `me', within the social context of interrelationships with others and with `society' (given that in the `western' context this tends to be reified to the status of a collective being and, in some ways, related to as such). My argument in this book is that ìdentity' has become conflated with ìdentical'. In philosophical terms, the disembodied cogito, ego or consciousness tends to indicate this, since they stem from an intellectual tradition in which they are understood as being the same essence across individuals. In the context of a particular concept of `knowledge' this facilitates the argument, upon which `western' science is based, that it is possible to have knowledge that is universal, objective and the same regardless of who knows it. Knowledge is somehow òut there', directly reflective of the `real' world. In this construction of knowledge, the body becomes merely the material or object of knowledge. It can be studied by the separated-off mind. Here I try to show that this reduction to the identical leads to the valuation of the replication of the identical in many spheres of knowledge and activity. I argue that mechanical replication is valued over human reproduction, with its association with woman's leaky body boundaries. In this world view, where the female gender and embodiment are denigrated, human reproduction can be seen as the production of the (devalued) other not the (valued) replication of the same. This is the disciplinary process by which various aspects of life and individuals are compared to a constructed `norm'. Those which replicate the norm are included; they are `normal', but those that deviate from the norm must be standardised and disciplined into conformity, or excised. This is the process of both identity construction and knowledge construction which Foucault (1977) terms `normalisation' and argues is a key for understanding modern society. It can also be seen as àn ideal of assimilation' (Young, 1990, p. 157). Those individuals

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whose identity is closely associated with the body, emotion and nature ± for example, women, disabled people, and black people ± are seen as being deviant from the ideal of the rational individual, and have historically been denied their rights as self-determining individuals. I argue that, given these normalising processes that value replication, there is an occlusion of reproduction by production (especially in the capitalist context, and by extension into organisation studies). The replication of the identical can also be seen as an element in the growing cultural emphasis on consumption. As mentioned above, Bauman (1989) has argued that `western' societies are marked by a move from touching the òther' to tasting them. In other words there is a tendency to consume the other, subsuming them into the self. This maintains the strong boundaries around the self while disrupting those of the other, which suggests the `homo clausus' of which Elias (1978) wrote. The creation of firm boundaries has already been mentioned above as being central to the construction of knowledge. It is also central to the construction of the normalised identity. In modern `western' societies there is an emphasis on a coherent, independent self that might be described as the ìd-entity'. The body has also become part of this `project of self ', since there are multiple opportunities in modern society for the reshaping of the body through production and consumption. Although this seems to allow the potential for the ultimate designer individual, it also leads to anxieties about the disruption of the boundaries of the body, and of identity. I have argued that this fear can also be seen in defensive reactions to attempts to bring `postmodern' ideas of flexibility and fluidity into organisation studies. Mainstream strands of the field have sought to protect and maintain the discipline's borders. This in itself has been a move to continue to replicate the norms of the discipline, rather than allowing some creative cross-fertilisation through interdisciplinary work. In trying to understand the formation of the discipline of organisation studies as part of the wider `culture of dissection', I have looked at work that is òutside' the ànatomising urge'. This includes the work of Foucault, Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray. Weaving together strands from these writers I have tried to find a way of theorising a subjectivity that is both embodied and gendered. This draws on an understanding of the ways that the individual subject and knowledge are constructed simultaneously, and that this is an embodied experience. In bringing together the work of Foucault and Merleau-Ponty on the body, I have hoped to show both how the body is inscribed by history and

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culture, and how it is also the lived, agentic body. The body is both active and acted upon. Here we have moved from òbjectified disembodiment' to èmbodied subjectivity'. The method used in this text to understand the links between conceptualisations of the body and the development of the discipline of organisation studies has been based on Foucault's `genealogical' method. This is a method that aims to understand the conditions of the production of knowledge, linking this to a theory of how the operation of power and intersubjectivity influences the construction of knowledge, and thus questions the notion of knowledge as objective, neutral and, by being separate from the individual person, disembodied. The object of this method is to contextualise organisation studies within social theory and to consider social theory as part of a broader intellectual tradition. It is a method that seeks to weave together the threads of ideas that have been separated by the anatomising of knowledge in its more conventional organisation. In doing so it questions and transgresses (disciplinary) boundaries that have been erected historically and across the subject matter of knowledge. My own weaving has involved bringing together threads from historical periods not often seen as being relevant to understanding modern capitalist organisations. I have also woven together work from across disparate disciplines beyond those boundaries usually considered to be the legitimate perimeter of organisation studies. Thus I have drawn together work from areas such as the sociology of the body, medical sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, as well as from forms of knowledge such as cinema and biological texts, which are rarely seen as valid ways of analysing organisations. I have questioned the notion of òrganisation' itself in relation to the assumptions that are embedded in it as the object of investigation central to the discipline ± as a reified entity that is frequently, explicitly or implicitly, compared to the anatomised notion of the òrganism'. I have also tried to show that there is a political history to the notion of òrganisation' which has influence beyond the discipline of organisation studies but which is relevant for understanding assumptions incorporated tacitly into the discipline. To conclude this book I would like to move briefly beyond the confines of the ànatomising urge', and tentatively propose another way of conceptualising organisation. I would like to suggest that we need to move from an emphasis on the aesthetics of form and structure in the concept of organisation, to an emphasis on an ethics of difference, stressing notions of interdependence, symbiosis and multiplicity

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as part of an understanding of embodiment as a relevant issue for looking at organisation. I want to suggest that the concept of òrganisation', not only in the discipline of organisation studies, but also throughout the natural and social sciences, is built on an aesthetics of form and structure. This is apparent in the discussion of the ànatomising urge', where the patterning of classifications, boundaries, linearity, the symmetry of dualisms and the ordering of hierarchy are all valued and embedded into the very fabric of `knowledge'. Form has been embued with power and significance, as in the biblical act of creation which imposed organisation on that which was `without form and void' (Genesis, 1: 1). This aesthetics of organisation and order is learned. This may be seen, for example, in Dawkins' (1986) attempt to reproduce evolution in a computer program in The Blind Watchmaker. His emphasis is on the creation of form, the beauty of shape, but this is a beauty based on organisation, pattern, an essential regularity. This aesthetics of organisation and rationality seems to be a key feature in scientific theory. A leader article in New Scientist discusses the effect a new measurement of the Hubble constant from direct observation may have on theories of stellar evolution: Ìn one corner we have a beautiful theory, capable of providing an aesthetically-pleasing explanation of many features of the Universe, and the result of a vast mental labour. In the other corner, is an ugly new fact' (New Scientist, 14 January 1995, p. 3). Work initiating a critique of this aesthetics of organisation is being explored by some writers. One example of this is Cooper and Law's (1995) Organisation: Distal and Proximal Views. In this paper they look at some of the themes that have been central to my own argument. They contrast the conventional or `distal' view of organisations, which privileges the `ready-made', is interested in action at a distance, treats the organisation as a thing, and its structures as things to be measured. And in a description which echoes the features I have outlined here as constituting the ànatomising urge', they say `the distal stresses boundaries and separation, distinctness and clarity, hierarchy and order' (1995, p. 3). In comparison, the `proximal' view is continuous and unfinished, interested in action by contact, interested in organising processes rather than organisations ± the latter it sees as being èffects created by a set of mediating measuring instruments' (1995, p. 4). It implies `symmetry, equivalence and equivocality' (ibid.). Notwithstanding this, Cooper and Law remain within the perspective of the ànatomising urge'. The language they use to describe the two views of organisation is one concerned with what these views `reveal'.

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Although they hedge their bets at the end of the paper by arguing that distal and proximal are not opposites, but are mutually dependent (implicitly following the Derridean idea of differance1 about which Cooper has written ± 1989, 1992), the overall effect of the paper is to construct a dualistic way of conceiving of organisations. Their extension of the argument into examples of cybernetics and cyborgs further emphasises the vestiges of the Cartesian project in their thinking. They argue first that cybernetics is similar to the proximal view of organisations (which they privilege over the conventional distal view) (1995, p. 40). This similarity is ìn its concern with information; and in particular, we consider the way in which both treat people and organisations as coding effects or products rather than as prime movers' (ibid.). This book I hope has demonstrated that the humanistic anthropomorphism that Cooper and Law are concerned to dismantle hides a transcendental, disembodied view of the subject. However, Cooper and Law's argument pushes further down this path, away from a perspective on the production of knowledge that is situated and embodied. Their use of cybernetics and cyborgs is problematic in the same way as the `posthuman' theories discussed in Chapter 2. They are also subject to the scalpel in the fragmentation of the body along with the other `heterogeneous materials' in their assemblages. Thus, in Cooper and Law's article, some elements of òbjectified disembodiment' persist. This turning towards language and codes can be seen as part of a wider `post-human' disembodying of the individual. This envisions the ultimate fulfilment of the Cartesian cogito which is totally free of the body (discussed in Chapter 2). The valuing of codes over experiential embodiment can be seen in the genetic reductionism and determinism that has not only transformed twentieth-century biology but has become rooted in popular discourse (see, for example, Nelkin and Lindee, 1995). In this we seem to have come full circle. The early anatomists turned to dissection partly through their wish to test out medical texts on the material of the human body. The `deadening' effect of anatomy on both the body and learning has led `western' knowledge back to the (self-referential) language games of the text. The embodied subject remains elusive to both. The `language of the genes' is just that: an analogy with language. The significance of language and textuality in `western' culture has permeated the very ways in which we represent the body. Molecular biology has `discovered' the secret of life in the structure of DNA ± with its talk of `codes', àlphabets', `letters', `sequences', `blueprints', and `spelling errors' which inscribe metaphors of text and reading into

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the contemporary screening for genetic diseases and the testing accompanying reproductive technology (Stafford, 1991; Jones, 1993). The language of the genes is also one that emphasises (mechanical) replication and denigrates (human, sexual and embodied) reproduction (as we saw in Chapter 6). This form of representation has been criticised for its reductionism of the processes of both the corporeal and the social body: `the story of the double helix is first and foremost the story of the displacement and replacement of the secret of life by a molecule. Ironically enough, DNA is popularly called ``the mother-molecule of life''. Gone in this representation of life are all the complex undeciphered cellular dynamics that maintain the cell as a living entity: ``Life Itself '' has finally dissolved into the simple mechanics of a selfreplicating molecule' (Keller, 1990, p. 187).2 Keller notes that there are no mothers anywhere in James Watson's personal account of the discovery of the double helix. In Jane Flax's critique of postmodernism she is keen to show that the domination of the metaphor of the text creates a number of problems for the analysis of subjectivity, not least of which is the ensuing neglect of actual day-to-day practices experienced through and in the body. The emphasis on discourse leads to a neglect of the visceral, the somatic and the emotional: Postmodernists insist on the play of differences, on the irreducible multiplicites constituting past and present existence. This celebration of difference can mask the hegemony in postmodernism of a singular category ± discourse (or textuality). No singular category can do justice to the vast and highly differentiated variety of processes in and through which subjectivity can be constituted and expressed. An implicit privileging of language, speech, and writing circulates through this one. Many aspects of subjectivity and its practices are denied, obscured, or marginalized. Discourse is a particularly inapt synonym for practices (for example, ballet or breastfeeding) which are predominantly affective, sensuous, visual, tactile, or kinetic. These qualities are important in the constitution and expression of subjectivities. (Flax, 1993, p. 100) Rather than accept postmodernism or return to a unitary subject, Flax argues for the idea of more fluid, multiple subjectivities. Perhaps, then, rather than the analogy of language, with its reflections of the mass-production of the printing press as discussed in Chapter 7, the concept of `symbiosis' can be seen as one that moves

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from replication to reproduction, and emphasises intersubjectivity rather than the isolated Cartesian individual. This is another term from biology, yet one that has `played, and continues to play, a subversive role in biology since it challenges the boundaries of the organism' (Ansell Pearson, 1997, p. 132). `The `òrganism'' is always extracted from the flows, intensities, and pre-vital singularities of prestratified, non-organic life in order to produce, through techniques of normalization, hierarchization, and organisation, a disciplined body, a controlled subject and a subject `òf '' control. The organised body of both biology and sociology is an invention of these techniques of capture and control' (Ansell Pearson, 1997, p. 130). This is the reified entity that has also been used as the model for òrganisation', as described in Chapter 5. Symbiosis is challenging to both the organism and the organisation. It suggests that diverse materials, living and nonliving, entities and parts, require each other and their mutual intertwining to coexist. Here it perhaps also calls to mind the relationship between mother and foetus, the challenge to the idea of the individual, bounded subject. This disrupts many concepts and classifications that have been understood conventionally as being `natural'. It also disturbs the anthropocentric focus whereby Man stands alone at the apex of the hierarchy of life. Viruses, often portrayed as the deadly enemy of humankind in films such as The Hot Zone, also turn out, more mundanely, to be essential to many biological processes. Bacterial symbioses have resulted in the emergence of new genes (Ansell Pearson, 1997, p. 132). Indeed, symbiosis has challenged the centrality of `natural selection' as the explanation of evolution. In biology, symbiosis was not recognised until the 1950s because the institutionalised boundaries between the different sub-disciplines themselves obstructed synthetic studies (ibid.). The same might be said to be true of the impermeable boundaries in organisation studies that resolutely maintain the entity of the òrganisation'. Along with symbiosis, another concept that may be useful in the attempt to move away from the way the ànatomising urge' constructs knowledge is that of `chiasm',3 which Merleau-Ponty develops in The Visible and the Invisible (1973). In this work, unfinished at his death in 1961, Merleau-Ponty rejects the cogito, and he argues, following Bergson, that `fundamental knowing is not that which wishes to take hold of time as between forceps,4 wishes to fix it, to determine it by the relations between its parts, to measure it' (1973, p. 128). Merleau-Ponty challenges `western' dualisms, including those between mind and body, and immanence and transcendence, in his

212


early work through the idea of the èntre-deux' or ìn-between-two'. With this he shows the essential undecidability of dichotomous terms. He weaves together subjective and objective terms, as a philosophy of ambiguity (Vasseleu, 1998, pp. 22±3). In his later work the èntre-deux' becomes `the flesh'. As flesh, the interwovenness of language and materiality in perception is embraced as an irreducible complexity that is necessary for a sense of self. Flesh defines a position that is both subject (a subjective reality) and object (objectifiable for others), and simultaneously a subjectivity which is internally divergent from itself. In other words, flesh expresses an inscription of difference within the same (Vasseleu, 1998, p. 26). In the penultimate chapter, `the intertwining ± the chiasm', he describes the intertwining of the flesh of the world as a different way of conceiving the relationship between ourselves and the world, one that does not cut between subject and object, or objectify bodies. Merleau-Ponty tries to describe the intertwining of the world and the body, the reversible body that both sees and is seen, touches and is touched, is sensible and sentient, but finds that there ìs no name in traditional philosophy to designate it' (1973, p. 139): We have to reject the age-old assumptions that put the body in the world and the seer in the body . . . Where in the world are we to put the limit between the body and the world, since the world is flesh? . . . The world seen is not ìn' my body, and my body is not ìn' the visible world ultimately: as flesh applied to a flesh, the world neither surrounds it nor is surrounded by it . . . There is reciprocal insertion and intertwining of one in the other. (1973, p. 138) Later Merleau-Ponty describes this as a `folding back, invagination' (1973, p. 152), thus invoking the female body as the model of the interrelationship of world and embodied subject, embodied subject and other embodied subjects. This is an implicit contrast between Merleau-Ponty's conceptualisation of embodiment and the traditional formulations of the intellectual history of the ànatomising urge', which has taken the male as the norm, emphasised consciousness over embodiment, the containment of the male body image against the fluidity of the female body image. In chiasm, Merleau-Ponty conceptualised an interrelationship that is both self and other: `we situate ourselves in ourselves and in the things, in ourselves and in the other, at the point where, by a sort of chiasm, we become the others and we become world' (1973, p. 160).

Conclusions

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At the end of this work I would like to reflect back to Anatomia and the problems of writing about the ànatomising urge', using the double-edged sword of an academic text. Contact is lost in the analogy that wraps it in its re-presentation, holding it paralyzed on a one-way journey. And the sensible world always evokes contact as well as rupture, birth as well as death; yet here it suspends the alternation between its phases into the genealogy of images, of `copies' whose closeness to the model moves outside the time of generation, instead regulating itself according to the propriety of form (and) of name. These resemblance relationships of the true origin of conception would, the theory goes, be less fallible guarantees. They hold the promise of an immortal memory because they have already ringed `life' within a repetition ± a renaissance ± which speculates/specularizes it. Life is thus frozen, for all eternity. (Irigaray, 1985a, p. 351) As I write this ending, while waiting for the imminent birth of my second child, I can well contemplate the basis of a comparison often made between the writing to completion of a book project and giving birth to a child. Perhaps the analogy is centred around a product, around creativity, or the interwoven nature of the pleasure and pain of both activities. But I find the two quite different. Irigaray's contrast between the paralysis or fixity of representation and the tactility of the `sensible' ± and sensuous ± world and the `time of generation' seems to me to bring out this difference. The form of the academic text inevitably retains many of the paralyzing features of the ànatomising urge'. Explicitly, it is intended to be a contribution to knowledge, suggesting it is a new part to be added to an accumulated pile of learning about the world. Implicitly, it is judged by how incisive it is and whether the scholar has been sharp enough (or `keen' enough) to penetrate sufficiently into the arcane mysteries of his or her discipline. The academic form of publication is in many ways expected to replicate the norm of `normal science'. In a more individual sense, it can be said to be the birth of the self-same in that it is the product of the individual self.5 Even in the sense of creativity and individual endeavour, the singleauthored text is the replication of the writer's self, expressed as a singularity, as life frozen, as Irigaray portrays it. This is quite unlike the visceral experience of giving birth to an Other, to someone different, which constitutes human sexual reproduction. The bookform is in many ways intended to have a `sense of an ending'

214

Figure 8.1 Flowering foetus, Spigelius, De formato foeto (1627) Source:

British Library.

Conclusions

215

(Kermode, 1973), a finished project. The birth of a child is only the beginning of a story. Although the embodied symbiotic relationship of pregnancy and breastfeeding may only last for a limited period, the threads that bind parent and child ± body and mind ± although born of cultural construction, persist even beyond death. The scalpel and the mirror may have been applied many times to the fixed, dead body of mother and child, but in the end they can only reflect back the dominant replicated knowledge of anatomy (see Figure 8.1). Embodied experience, the interdependency of self-and-other, flesh-and-world, cannot finally be dissected nor organised into a fixed body of knowledge.

Notes Introduction: Body Politics 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

This was the x x i i i Council of Europe Exhibition, 26 October 1995 to 21 January 1996. It is very interesting that Schultze-Naumberg's previous work was around the emancipation of women's bodies from the constraining and damaging effects of clothing such as the corset, which caused deformity and illhealth, including problems in childbirth. Although in some ways a radical approach, it was also linked to the belief in a superior race that could reproduce its superiority if it were to be returned to its `natural' state unhindered by artifical fashions (Kern, 1975). Aleksei Grigorevich Stakhanov (1906±77) was a Russian coalminer whose exceptional productivity was used in a campaign of 1935 to encourage hard work. This is a distinction between the penis as `fragile, squashy, delicate' flesh and the phallus as a symbol of masculine domination (Dyer, 1985, p. 30). I am keenly aware that `western', whilst often used as a shorthand, is a relativist concept that has developed through colonialist and ethnocentric assumptions. In using it to denote a particular intellectual tradition, I consciously mark it out to indicate a reflexivity over the active construction of this `western' history which is seen as representing a unique rationality, the progress of Reason, while simultaneously obscuring its inclusions and exclusions (see, for example, Morley and Robins, 1995). Recent studies of `masculinities' have stressed the variety of constructions of masculinity (for example, Connell, 1995; Collinson and Hearn, 1994, 1996). Some pertinent studies of masculinities and organisation have shown the links between physical conceptions of strength and muscularity with a valued form of masculinity, which in turn views the brain and mental work as effeminate and those who work with their brains as not being `real men' (for example, Cockburn, 1983). Yet other studies of professional and managerial work (for example, Kerfoot and Knights, 1993; Wajcman, 1998), studies of rationality and bureaucracy (for example, Seidler, 1994 and Bologh, 1990) and studies of the development of philosophy (Lloyd, 1984; Grimshaw, 1986) illustrate the links between another conception of masculinity and rationality and the mind. In other words, there are different constructions of masculinity which sometimes value the male body as well as the masculine mind (both, it has to be said, in juxtaposition with subordinated constructions of femininities). `Sic' is predominantly used throughout this book to draw attention to the use of sexist language. This is considered significant as one of a multitude of ways that the exclusion of women is institutionalised within knowledge production as well as more widely in western societies. It is important in

216

Notes

8.

1. 1.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

2. 1.

217

the context of the argument about the normalisation processes that are described, particularly regarding those groups perceived as being connected with the body. The distinction between external and internal, and the very processes of constructing these types of boundaries is a theme which will recur through the book.

The Body and Organisation Studies This is not to deny the many alternative ways of understanding the body, particularly those of different cultures. Even in `western' cultures there have been alternative models available. These have often been suppressed systematically by a combination of rational science and industrialism (Walker, 1993). However, in recent times, more holistic approaches have reasserted an influence over our understanding of our bodies and a more accepting attitude may be implied in the term `complementary medicine'. Institutions of knowledge have also had a significant impact on the marginalisation of the body and the creation of gendered knowledge (see, for example, Rose, 1994; Noble, 1993). This is not to suggest that there have been no overviews before or since, but rather that these texts form a cluster of interest and have been influential in the shaping of subsequent discussions on the nature of the discipline. These interconnections between language and materiality, culture and practice are further discussed in Chapter 3, in relation to Foucault's conceptualisation of `discursive formations'. Foucault proposes that this constitutes a process of `normalisation' that is a key dynamic in western society. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. However, all metaphors escape from their confines. Weaving is not always simply a subversive or creative activity. Plant (1997) also links weaving to the Luddite movement of destruction of the automated looms that were appropriating the bodily skills of the weavers and making them redundant. I have become aware in re-reading this that I seem to be suggesting a mind/ body split in my own experience. Perhaps this indicates the cultural power of Cartesianism in the formation of our identities (see Leder, 1990)? Although these threads are slowly being picked up in some academic areas (for example, medical sociology).

Written on the Body: Social Theory and the Body It is interesting to note that Stephen Jay Gould recalculated these figures using Morton's own data and showed that there was no significant difference between the races (1981, pp. 50±69). However, this does not necessarily fundamentally critique the assumptions about measurement and the body.

218 2.

3. 4.

3. 1.

2.

3.

Notes Darwin also threw his intellectual weight behind these arguments: `The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than women can attain . . . We may also infer . . . that if men are capable of decided eminence over women in many subjects, the average standard of mental power in men must be above that of woman' (1981, p. 327). Shilling describes sociobiology as `pseudo-biology' (1993, p. 51), since the `scientific facts' it claims it rests on have a dubious basis even in terms of scientific methodology. `Meat' is used to refer to the penis and `beating the meat' to masturbation. `Meat' is also the term commonly used in cyberpunk literature for the body (for example, Gibson, 1993, p. 12), which certainly captures the Cartesian separation of the merely material, passive body. Thus Sobchack links the self-directed sexuality of masturbation with the self-absorbed and selfreferential discourses of cyber technology and post-human culture, both centred on masculine identity. These can be seen as exemplars of Elias's (1978) homo clausus (a little world in himself). They also connect closely to the critique of science and rationality suggested in the Introduction.

Bodily Knowledge: An Approach to Èmbodied Subjectivity' Foucault wrote: Ì am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write' (1972, p. 17). As Professor of the History of Systems of Thought at the ColleÂge de France from 1970 to his death in 1984, his very title disrupts the usual disciplinary classification. It is not possible to pin him down as an historian, a philosopher or a social theorist, since his thought blurs these boundaries and has been applied to many others. A comparison may be made with Kanter's (1977) discussion of women managers as `tokens', judged as representatives of `women' as a class rather than as individuals. Although she does not discuss this explicitly in relation to embodiment, it is the very visibility of their difference to the dominant group of white men that leads to women being perceived in this way. In my own research on black women managers (Dale, 1992; Liff and Dale, 1994), I have also seen how black women in this highly visible position take on the responsibility for how other black women are going to be perceived, since they internalise the group-based judgement of them: ìt's important that I perform well so black people aren't seen as poor performers' (Dale, 1992, p. 94). Merleau-Ponty held a chair in child psychology at the Sorbonne from 1949, and in 1952 was the youngest person to be elected to a chair in philosophy at the ColleÂge de France. He was a friend and colleague of Sartre, but from 1952 separated himself from both the existentialism of Sartre and the phenomenology of Husserl, yet continued to engage with the work of both. His points of departure are around examining the relevance of lived experience for understanding language, perception and

Notes

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

4. 1.

219

the body. However, Crossley talks of the `family resemblances' between existentialism and phenomenology (1994, p. 4), so it is important to see Merleau- Ponty's work in the context of a development and rethinking of these positions, rather than a radical disjuncture. However, towards the end of his life Husserl questioned his own work as continuing the Cartesian tradition into phenomenology. Sartre also criticised this bracketing of the world. He argued that the `reduced, neutral standpoint' of Husserlian phenomenology had to be rejected for a concern for lived experience (Langer, 1989, p. xiv). `Structuralism' is another academic classification Foucault explicitly rejected, in the English preface to The Order of Things (1970). Despite Foucault addressing much of his work in criticism of MerleauPonty, having attended his lectures when in Paris. Crossley debates this issue in his 1994 book, The Politics of Intersubjectivity, but there is not space here to go into this in detail. As with Merleau-Ponty's criticisms of Husserl and Sartre, it can be seen that Foucault's position vis-aÁ-vis Merleau-Ponty is from a point of related interests and language, rather than from a position of complete exteriority. I was fascinated to be given a booklet ± almost an owner's guide! ± when I left hospital with my newborn daughter, containing a mixture of advice and forms to be filled in on her progress. It contains `normalised' data for height, weight and head circumference, and the advice on development is similarly based on the concept of `normal' progress. The intervention of the child èxperts' in the form of regular visits and clinics is even entitled `child surveillance'. Conversations with other parents indicates that, even when we wish to escape from this normalising gaze, it is extremely difficult to avoid the worry that somehow one is not a `good enough' parent. Although there are some indications that Foucault at any rate was aware of this lacuna. He intended to write a volume in his History of Sexuality entitled `Woman, Mother and Hysteric' (Sawicki, 1991, p. 67). However, since he did not embark on this, the consideration of the specific ways that women's bodies are constructed through power/knowledge is conspicuous by its absence. Sawicki, rather charitably, comments that `given Foucault's belief that it is best to facilitate ways for the oppressed to speak for themselves, it is perhaps fitting that the task of writing these histories has been left to feminists' (1991, p. 68). Young makes the point that she is not trying to universalise these differences. They only pertain to the typical behaviour she observes around her in contemporary urban industrial society (1989, p. 53). Indeed, in reviewing her paper ten years later, she comments on how these differences in physicality have changed for her daughter compared to her own gender socialisation.

The Scalpel: An Introduction to the Ànatomising Urge' Bologna was one of the four main centres of medical education in Europe in the thirteenth century, along with Salerno, Montpelier and Paris (Sawday, 1995, p. 39).

220 2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Notes The outrage in 1999 about the way the Bristol Royal Infirmary kept many of the hearts of babies who died after heart operations went badly wrong, without the knowledge or consent of parents, shows the continued strength of feeling about the disruption of the body and ambivalence about those who are involved with this. It is interesting that Harvey was Francis Bacon's physician. He also studied in Padua, a centre of anatomy and home of Galileo, whose methods influenced Harvey's work (Robinson, 1995, p. 136). Much more detailed and subtle analysis of optocentrism is to be found in Martin Jay's (1993) Downcast Eyes, and a collection edited by David Michael Levin (1993), Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. This was also a time when, politically, that which was hidden, seen to be secret and mysterious was being cut out of society. Descartes himself was in 1623 widely thought likely to be a member of the ìnvisible college' and his name was associated with witchcraft scares. His interest in solitude (and hence, it was thought, secrecy) was a decided disadvantage in this climate. To overcome the problem, Descartes showed himself often in Paris to demonstrate to all who were interested that he was a visible and a known person. An example of this can perhaps be seen in the diagram, Ànatomy and Physiology of the Genital Apparatus of Women', 1874, from G. J. Witkowski Anatomie Iconoclastique, 1877 (pictured in Garb (1998), Bodies of Modernity (London: Thames and Hudson). This is the conventional western form of medicine, which involves treating disease by inducing an opposite condition, whereas homeopathy involves treatment using medicine (in minute amounts) which produces symptoms similar to those of the disease. Despite his extensive use of biological metaphors, especially of system and evolution, it is Parsons who develops the idea of the `sick role', which links the illness of the person with the social role that they play in being ill. This illustrates the way that the ànatomising urge' is not able to be completely homogeneous or totalising. Martin Walker's (1993) Dirty Medicine gives an absorbing account of how many bodies are marginalised from scientific medicine. He shows how the combination of the governmental Flexner Report and the power of the AMA was able to close medical schools that gave places to women, blacks or poorer whites, and a professional policy of discrimination against black people, which the AMA was only forced to admit in the 1950s. War was also waged on àlternative medicine', with state regulation of drugs that infact protected the interests of big industry and the denigration of vegetarianism, honey, vitamins and nutritional advice since the US Food and Drug Administration had interests in the meat and sugar industries. Although they were excluded for a time from mainstream medicine, homeopathy and other approaches not based on big business and the fragmentation of the person have regained more widespread credence and practice. For example, the editorial of Management Review, December 1994 is entitled Àltering the Corporate DNA' and an article in Healthcare Forum, November/December 1994 by Hazel Henderson focuses on the healthcare industry's cultural DNA code (p. 42).

Notes 10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

221

In the history of philosophy a distinction is often drawn between Descartes and the rationalists, and Bacon and the empiricist tradition. These then, tend to come to seem internally homogeneous and separate from each other. Other historians (for example, Robinson, 1995, pp. 149±50) have pointed out that there is much overlap between these approaches and that, intellectually and historically, they go side-by-side rather than as opponents. As Robinson points out, Descartes carried out many experiments while Newton tested out rational hypotheses (ibid., p. 206). I suggest that the construction of them as distinct schools of thought or movements owes something to the desire to categorise and order. Similarly, in the eighteenth century, there is a reaction against Cartesianism (by then a much more total theory of society and `man' as well as of science), but many elements of the ànatomising urge' and rationalism remain intact, as might be indicated by Weber's focus on the problems of the rationalisation of society, and later the postmodernist critique of Enlightenment Reason. As perhaps witnessed by only two passing references to him in Burrell and Morgan (1979) and one in Clegg and Dunkerley (1980), pace work by Kets de Vries (1984, 1991) and Brunsson (1986), and the use made of his work in the metaphor of `Plato's cave: organizations as psychic prisons' in Morgan (1986). Seidler (1994) argues that Freud stands against the structuralist trend ± except for the rational reading of him given by Lacan, which is in the structuralist fold. Comte's work is discussed in some detail by two of the major texts, which themselves attempt to order and thus shape organisation studies ± namely, Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Clegg and Dunkerley (1980). Foucault defines epistemes as the `total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalised systems' (1972, p. 191). In The Order of Things he distinguishes three of these periods ± the Renaissance period, the Classical period and the Modern period. Foucault conceptualises these in terms of disjunctures, whereas I would prefer to consider both changes and continuities in the patterns of knowledge formation as will be apparent from the discussions of the anatomising urge in this chapter. Although suspicious of attempts to date periods of history, Bauman describes modernity as a period `that began in Western Europe with a series of profound social-structural and intellectual transformations of the seventeenth century and achieved its maturity: (1) as a cultural project ± with the growth of Enlightenment; (2) as a socially accomplished form of life ± with the growth of industrial (capitalist, and later also communist) society' (1991, p. 4). As with the note on Foucault's epistemes, above, I think it is important to look at continuities as well as disjunctures. I would see modernity as being prefigured in the slightly earlier period of the rise of anatomy. Bauman argues that since friends and enemies are clear categories, and the relationship to each is already decided, they are unproblematic. What

222

Notes he says is the problem of modernity is the undecided category: strangers. This category has to be eliminated to be made certain. I am not so sure that this is not simplistic for modern societies. Perhaps indifference could be seen as being as significant as difference, given the pervasiveness of global communications and media. Most people watch atrocities and disasters brought into their own homes by the television news, yet are not moved to action. Indifference is perhaps created by distance, whether geographical or psychological, whereas strangers are threatening only in proximity ± at the place of entry, such as through immigration, or right on the border or boundary.

5. 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

Under the Knife: Anatomising Organisation Theory Although there are different understandings of Romanticism, between different nations and different writers and thinkers, there are also some features in common, which are worth emphasising (Josipovici, 1979, p. 180). This sounds very like the contemporary post-human dreams, although these differ in the incorporation of evolution into their view of transcending the body (Ansell Pearson, 1997). Ansell Pearson comments how the two are not so neatly divisible as is often assumed, since Darwin was ignorant of the genetic theory of inherited variations he incorporated Lamarck's ideas on the use and disuse of organs and on the inheritance of acquired characteristics into The Origin of Species (Ansell Pearson 1997, p. 87). However, Marx was very positive about the work of Darwin and even offered to dedicate the first volume of Capital to him (Giddens, 1971, p. 66). He and Engels did, however, dislike the connections with Malthus and the prefiguring of Social Darwinism. Capital catalogues the effects of factory labour to the body as, of course, does Engels in great detail in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Silverman (1970, pp. 9±11) goes into some detail in criticising the àttribution of concrete reality, particularly the power of thought and action, to social constructs'. The pervasive influence of the anatomised view of human biology, of which Henderson was a key node in the relationship of this to social science, can be seen in Homans entitling the last chapter in a book he wrote on thirteenth-century England, `The Anatomy of Society' (Barber, 1970, p. 44). This was, moreover, intended to be a generalised theory of the anatomy of society, not applicable only to the topic of the book. Similarly, another Harvard academic inspired by Henderson, the historian Crane Brinton, called his 1938 book The Anatomy of Revolution (Barber, 1970, p. 51). Again, it is particularly pertinent that Simon heads his final chapter in Administrative Behavior (1957) `The Anatomy of Organization' and claims that any solutions to the problems of administration must be founded on `thorough knowledge of the biology of the organism' (ibid., p. 220).

Notes 9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

6. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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Linstead (1997) has recently drawn on the concept of abjection to analyse male violence and organisation. Although the physical aspects of abjection (the use and abuse of the body in violence) are present in this paper, the relationship between body and organisation is not explored. Indeed, when he applies abjection to organisations themselves it is the Weberian expulsion of emotions upon which he concentrates (1997, p. 1142). It is instructive that even where such a concept as abjection with its bodily roots is used in the discipline, the lived human body itself still tends to disappear into the background. On a personal level, I found the attitudes to the blood loss I experienced during childbirth to be interpreted differently by the male GP who visited me and commented that, from the amount recorded on my medical notes, I had lost a lot of blood and offered treatment, and by the midwives who visited and said that this was a normal and acceptable level of blood loss which should cause no particular concern! Some theorists of these issues, most notably Robert Cooper, would not classify themselves as òrganisation theorists', but more broadly as `social theorists'. That is, changes that will be transmitted down the generations rather than remaining at the level of the individual. This would also seem to link with Burrell's criticism of Giddens' and others' acceptance of the organisation/non-organisation boundary (1988, p. 232). In relation to this he notes that `whilst we may not live in total institutions, the institutional organization of our lives is total' (ibid.).

The Mirror Particularly in the context of the argument of this chapter, it is interesting how often images of sight are used in academic discourse. However, as will be discussed, it is not the sensual act of seeing with one's eyes that is emphasised, but the cognitive act of `seeing' with one's mind's eye. In French, the word for mirror, la glace, also means ìce'. Irigaray uses this elision in her work to suggest the fixity and rigidity of the image of the mirror (Wenzel, 1997, p. 327). We can compare this to the fixing of the dead specimen in order to study it. Histories of philosophy often oppose these tensions as èmpiricism' and `rationalism' but, as, for example, Robinson (1995) has stressed, they are infact two sides of the one coin, as with the scalpel and the mirror. Even the writers associated with each overlap do not neatly fall into one or the other. The separation is yet one more example of the perceived need to divide into categories. Jay also argues that perspectivism, through èlective affinity', is à notion of space congenial not only to modern science, but also, it has been widely argued, to the emerging economic system we call capitalism' (1993, p. 189). This theme will be explored further in the next chapter. This is not the only sort of looking-at that is possible, of course. It could be argued that the shared gaze between parent and infant, or between lovers, subverts the will to power.

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6.

The idea of fetishism is based on the substitution of a part for the whole, of àn `òbject'' for some dangerous and powerful but forbidden force' (Hall, 1997, p. 266). Marx saw `commodity fetishism' as the displacement of the living worker into the things produced and subsequently consumed. Psychoanalysis sees it as substituting an object for the absent phallus, displaced because it is taboo (which itself might be seen as a reduction). Thus, fetishism could be said to be analogous to the ànatomising urge', in that it reduces things to their components. 7. This perhaps also resonates with the words of St Paul that humans only saw ìn a glass darkly'. 8. Braidotti argues that Lacan's mirror stage perpetuates the tyranny of the logocentric gaze (1994a, p. 71). 9. Despite the subversion of its use by feminist women reclaiming knowledge of their own bodies. 10. Irigaray contrasts the concave speculum with the flat mirror. However, the shape of the speculum can be seen as enabling an enlarged image of the interior to be produced, and therefore, I would argue, fits with the characteristics of the ànatomising urge'. 11. Textbooks for undergraduate biology students, such as Klug and Cummings (1994), indicate the underlying assumptions about the devaluing of reproduction that does not give the exact copying of replication by the language of `mutation', `copying error' and measures for the probability of deviation from an original DNA source, despite the way that they explicitly recognise this mutation as the source of variation and thus the prime mechanism of evolution. Popular accounts of DNA, such as Gribbin's In Search of the Double Helix (1985) do likewise. 12. This has perhaps been more prevalent in the USA, but there are many examples of it in the UK context, although it can be argued that the tide is changing again towards more women-centred approaches that consider patients' needs individually. 13. In the sense of having the power to define and construct the social relations within which all live. Thus, as well as numerical power, there is the cultural power to define the limits of tolerance. As several writers including Bauman (1991) and Essed (1991) have argued, `tolerance' is not a liberating concept, but shows that the dominant group can define the limits they will allow the other to behave within.

7. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Replicating Organisation Da Vinci is also known for his `mirror writing', thought possibly to disguise his work from the Pope. The proportions of the idealised human body were also taken as the basis for architectural proportions. Interestingly, apparently Italian firms had mathematicians working for them, called `cossists', who worked in codes to preserve their reputations (Singh, 1998, p. 40). And, indeed, to society. The main concern of Elton Mayo, who is widely associated with the Hawthorne experiments from which developed the

Notes

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

8. 1.

2.

3.

4.

225

Human Relations School, although he was a populariser rather than a researcher, was the problem of conflict in society and how to ameliorate it. Although Bologh (1990) has critiqued Weber's emphasis on `greatness' from a feminist perspective. Tolbert and Zucker's paper is appropriately entitled, `The Institutionalization of Institutional Theory'. In empirical terms this research is quite dated now because of the huge changes in the health service brought in with trust status. However, the points about women's skills remain highly pertinent. At this time there was a distinction in the NHS between àdministrative and clerical' posts and higher managerial ones. The latter were becoming more distinguished from the former as part of the attempt to move to more `professional' management, which was more like that in private industry (assumed to be more effective because of the value that tends to be placed on the profit-making sector). My own experience in personnel work suggests to me that many managers, including women managers, do make selection decisions based on this assumption.

Conclusions To oversimplify this complex concept with a brief description, it is used to indicate the way that language always invokes the òther' of what infact it says. The presence and absence of the meaning and its opposite can never be totally separated. Although language is an attempt to pin things down precisely, it is continually frustrated by the deferral of meaning that is always already there in its evocation of what is absent. Marsden and Townley (1996, p. 671) draw on the genetic metaphor when they suggest that `capital is best understood as the social DNA of the cells that constitute society . . . Capital is analogous to DNA because it is the primary self-replicating genetic material from which action is produced and is present in nearly all social organisms'. Although they reject the view of DNA as being deterministic, arguing that it is both structure and process, they still illustrate the tendency to accept scientific notions as somehow conveying an objectivity, without considering the cultural ideas embodied in them and the history of their metaphorical use. Merleau-Ponty's idea of chiasm seems to be linked to `chiasma', a word derived from anatomy. Here it means an intercrossing or decussation (to divide in a cross-shape or intersect). It is particularly used of the intercrossing of the optic nerves or of the structure formed by the crossing over of the chromosomes during meiosis. Here is an anatomical term, yet it evokes both incision (intersection) and intertwining (intercrossing); it is related to both vision (which plays a central part in the ànatomising urge') and reproduction, which is marginalised. Thus we seem to have in `chiasm' a word that is in the interstices of the dualisms discussed in this book. The use of the metaphor of forceps is interesting. This instrument used in technologically assisted births can only be used by a doctor (more likely

226

5.

Notes to be male), and not a midwife in the UK at the time of writing. Its use is very likely to involve an episiotomy, a deliberate cutting of the labouring woman, rather than allowing the vagina to stretch naturally. Feminists and organisations involved in advocating woman-centred childbirth argue that, despite medical prejudice, deliberate cuts heal more slowly and cause the woman more difficulty than an unassisted tearing. In the context of Merleau-Ponty's work, the forceps metaphor evokes Bacon's The Masculine Birth of Time, in which he advocates the domination of (masculine) science over (feminine) nature, as discussed in the Introduction. Academic convention acknowledges that influence of other people, but usually include disclaimers of the responsibility of those others ± the work is intended to be seen as the individualised product of bounded selves, even where there is multiple authorship. Indeed, normalised measure of academic work, such as research assessment exercises, depend on these apportionment conventions.

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Index abjection 116, 139±47, 168, 169±70 AIDS 42, 148 Alberti, L. 93, 177±8 Alcmaen 84 alienation 193±8 allopathic medicine 99 American Medical Association 99, 220 analysis 108, 203 ànatomical Renaissance' 85, 177±8 anatomising urge 23±6, 29, 38, 41, 57, 62, 100±10, 115, 123, 136, 154, 179, 203±4 Anatomy Act of 1832 87 anatomy theatres 88, 92, 101, 167 anthropology 33±6 Aston Studies 128±9, 187±8 Bacon, F. 4, 103, 104±6 Barnard, C. 131 Baudrillard, J. 41, 194±5 Bauman, Z. 25, 112±13, 136±7, 149, 160±1, 163 Becker, H. 90 Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. 190 Bichat, M. 96, 117±19 blood 90, 95, 114, 139, 174, 223 body as organism 9, 12 body-image 65±8, 122 body-landscape 95 body use in action 52 Botton, M. 105 boundaries 63, 117±19, 188, 205 Bourdieu, P. 45, 55 Braidotti, R. 60±1, 64, 93, 156, 167 Braverman, H. 195±8 Burke, E. 177±8 Burns, T. and Stalker, G. 119±20 Burrell, G. and Morgan, G. 18, 128±9, 141±2, 179±80 Butler, J. 143±4 Byrne, Charles (The Irish Giant) 87

calculating hedonism 43 Cartesianism 4, 9, 10, 20±1, 33, 41, 69±72, 74, 83, 94±9, 101±4, 119, 125, 134, 148, 172 Cellini 178 chiasm 211±13 Chrestomathic principle 92 Clegg, S. 149 Clegg, S. and Dunkerley, D. 18, 194±5 Clegg, S. and Hardy, C. 128, 132, 150 Cockburn, C. 3 Collinson, D. 197 common sense 15 Comte, A. 110±11, 126 Condillac, E. 108 Cooper, R. 146±7 Cooper, R. and Law, J. 208±9 Copernicus, N. 95, 164 Crossley, N. 72±3 cultural tourism 30 culture of dissection 23±7, 101±6, 154, 160, 204±7 Cuvier, G. 117 cyborgs 41±3 Darwin, C. 33, 116, 124±6, 136, 184, 189 Dawkins, R. 208 de Garengeot, R. 91 death 2, 7, 31, 83, 84, 90, 101, 114, 135±8, 153 Derrida, J. 15 Descartes, R. 121, 156±7 (see also Cartesianism) Di Maggio, P. and Powell, W. 190 Dickinson, E. 83 disability 171±3 disciplines 14, 25 discursive formations 16, 60±1, 64 Donaldson, L. 143, 188 Douglas, M. 47±51

246

Index Durkheim, E. 126±7 ego-ideal 66 Elias, N. 54, 158±9 embodied subjectivity 12, 57±60, 207±10 embodiment 11, 64 Emerson, J. 162±3 emotional labour 22 Enlightenment 22, 26 eugenics 35, 184±5 Eustachi, B. 85 Falk, P. 53±4 Fanon, F. 68, 170 Fardon, R. 50 Featherstone, M. 45 feminist theories 30±1, 36±7, 60±1, 76±81, 134, 161±4, 198±202 finger factors 10, 168 fixing 114, 180, 203, 223 Flax, J. 210±12 flesh 70 fluid bodies 114, 139±42, 149±50 Foucault, M. 15, 22, 25, 29, 45, 58±65, 72±6, 84, 86, 111±12, 118, 154, 160, 205±6 Frank, A. 51±2 Frankenstein (and monster) 97 frenzy of the visible 164 Freud, S. 28, 66, 97, 126 Galen 85 Gatens, M. 198±9 Gates, F. 98 genealogy 60±3 genetics 10±11, 35±6, 99, 133, 148 Giddens, A. 39, 51 Gilbert, N. and Mulkay, M. 10 Goffman, E. 168±9, 171 Grosz, E. 20, 142 guild system in medicine 91 Haraway, D. 202 Harvey, W. 94±5, 96 Hassard, J. 19, 38, 128, 141, 160, 194 Heilbron, R. 14, 107±11, 117 historical body 11

247

Hochschild, A. 22 Hollway, W. 154, 183±4 homeopathic medicine 99 Hoskin, K. 157±8 Hoskin, K. and Mcve, R. 176±7 Hottentot Venus 170 Huczynski, A. 180±1, 188 Human Relations School 21, 131±2, 180, 183±6 human resource management 21, 74 Hunter, W. 87 Husserl, E. 69 Hyman, R. 29 ideal of assimiliation 205 identity 26, 43, 154, 158±61, 165, 169±71, 205 inside/outside 53, 66, 113, 125, 139, 150±1, 223 institutional theory 133, 189±90 Irigaray, L. 29, 79±81, 162±4, 213 isomorphism 190±1 Jackson, N. and Carter, P. 74, 142±3, 145 Jay, M. 157±8 Jones, S. 35 Jordanova, L. 4 Josipovici, G. 124 Kant, I. 108±10, 122±3 Kanter, R. 186 Keller, E. Fox 210 Kepler, J. 96 Knights, D. 196 Kristeva, J. 138, 167 Kuhn, T. S. 90 labour process theory 195±7 Langer, M. 69±70 Lavater, J. 34±5 Le Bon, G. 34 Leder, D. 78±9 Leonardo da Vinci 85, 94, 101, 177 Lingis, A. 114±15, 152 Malthus, T. 124 manufacturies 39 Martin, E. 7, 11, 32, 165, 201

248

Index

Marx, K. 125, 192±6 masculinity 3, 80, 97, 216 Mauss, M. 36, 47 McNay, L. 60 meat 41, 71, 191, 218 mechanical image of the body 122 Merleau-Ponty, M. 29, 65±75, 197, 206±7, 211±12 metaphors 120±1, 129, 142 mimetic consumption 46 mind±body dualism 20±1, 64, 131, 153, 211 mirror 23, 26±7, 46, 127±31, 153±73, 180±2, 192±8 Mondino 85 Morgan, G. 120±1 Morton, S. 34 Munro, R. 146 `murder act' of 1752 86 natural body 33±5 natural extinction 136 Neuromancer 43 Nochlin, L. 98 normalisation 160, 171±4, 183, 219 objectified disembodiment 12, 57, 185, 204±7 ocularcentrism 153±4, 156, 158, 170, 223 organic 119±20 organisation 8, 13, 14, 100±10, 115±24, 127±9, 149±54, 208±9 organisation studies 9, 12, 129, 205±6 organisation theory 13±27, 61, 186 organs without bodies 134 Oudshoorn, N. 99 Pacioli, L. 176±7 Padua 88, 177, 220 pantomimic body 93 paradigm debate 141±6, 179±80 Pareto, V. 186 Parsons, T. 49, 126±7 perspectival vision 157, 223 Pfeffer, J. 17, 143 phenomenologically lived body 11, 64±5

Pickstone, J. 117 Plant, S. 28 Polhemus, T. 33, 48, 81 population ecology 133, 189 pornography 41, 97, 163 post-bureaucratic 150±1 post-human 209 postmodern turn 15, 210 power/knowledge 59±61 pregnancy 30, 78, 81, 165±8, 201±2, 210, 213±15 production of science 4±6 Prometheus 1±3 project of the self 43 quest for order

25

rationality 4±6, 106±9, 136±7, 177±8 reconstitutions of the body 38±41 Reed, M. 15, 145 replication 27, 164±8, 174±98, 205±7 reproduction 27, 164 Revolutionary France 116±19, 136 Ritzer, G. 191±2 Romanticism 123±4 Romanyshyn, R. 3, 84, 93, 94±7, 157 Rorty, R. 155 Rose, H. 4 Rosen, M. 122±3 Saint-Simon, H. 8, 118±19 Salaman, G. 135 Sawday, J. 23±5, 85, 121, 163 scalpel 25±7, 127±30, 137, 153, 159 Scarry, E. 1 Schilder, P. 65±7 Schiller, F. 122±3 Sennett, R. 179 Shilling, C. 54±6 Simon, H. 132 Silverman, D. 16±17, 18, 131 Sobchack, V. 41 sociobiology 35±6, 47 Solomon's House 106 speculum 161±4 spiritual mechanics 102 Stakhanov 1

Index stigma 168±9 symbiosis 210±11 Taylor, F. W. 21, 180±5 technoscience 4 Turner, B. 49±51, 118, 148 Townley, B. 74 Valverde, J. 88 Venice 174±9 Vesalius, A. 85, 88, 94 war 6±7 weaving 28, 207

249

Weber, M. 13, 29, 109, 127, 134, 186±8 Weedon, C. 57 Weiner, N. 105 Weiss, G. 67±8, 145±6 `western science' 9, 10±12, 20, 29±30, 57, 82, 128, 134, 143 Whitford, M. 79 Williams, S. and Bendelow, G. 11, 20, 68±9, 117 Willmott, H. 145, 146, 196 Wordsworth, W. 83 Young, I. M.

76±8

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