More than papers: Reveal, Reconnect, Reimagine, Rehearse and Revolt for Social Justice

Over the last 15 years, critically oriented management and organization studies community has increasingly turned to the creation of knowledge about the praxis of alternative relations, subjectivities, desires, economies and societies. The broadening of the scope of critical organizational studies reflects a rising awareness that, while denaturalizing, interpreting and critiquing the world are essential to the critical project, they will not in themselves automatically lead to increased solidarity and social justice. Scholars have increasingly adopted critical vocabularies from traditions and concepts conducive to better understanding praxes of prefiguration, mobilization, utopias, social change, and radical transformation. It has also decentered the firm as the archetypical organization – to be critiqued and corrected – to direct our attention more towards other forms of organizing, ranging from grassroots, social movements, (informal) associations, cooperatives, trade unions, public organizations, food banks, universities, sheltered workshops, refugee camps, voluntary organizations, and charities, to mention only a few. It is inside these locales, but also in their broader networks and political, social, environmental and technological ecosystems, that we have been looking for organizing the relations of production and social reproduction in more solidary, just, inclusive, caring, and sustainable ways.

 

Combined with in-depth critical analyses of persisting and new forms of oppression, control, exclusion, domination, and exploitation, this scholarship populates our imagination with potentialities for organizing life differently. We live in a world wrenched apart by capitalist dispossession, violence, war, occupation, authoritarian regimes, extreme ideological movements, as well as climate, social, economic, racial, gender, and other forms of injustice. As organizational scholars we are well placed to understand how organizational practices (re)produce and amplify these divisions, as well as to envision novel organizational practices that undo them. Against this background, we urgently need the international critical management and organization studies community to come together to explore, propose, and learn from new and multiple ways to reveal current realities, reconnect what is being divided, reimagine and rehearse more solidary organizing, and revolt to obtain social justice.

 

The inaugural Organization conference presents a timely opportunity to address these challenges. Our journal has been in the forefront of critical organizational debates for the last 30 years and has championed a greater connection between theorizing and activism, for instance through the creation of the Speaking Out and Acting Up sections, but also our involvement in initiatives such as CMS In Touch. Accordingly, this conference is meant to be sustainable and inclusive through its online, accessible, and boundary-breaking format. We invite you to contribute through one or more of the following:

• Reveal. Denaturalize and deconstruct taken-for-granted and ideologically manipulated understandings of reality, unveil power inequalities and their dynamics, domination and oppression, to show, denounce, raise awareness, and provide a theoretical and political language and grammar for seeing what is too often neglected, glossed over, or proactively covered up and mystified.  

 

• Reconnect. Bring together (again) what has been divided, reforge solidarity relations and actions that have been cannibalized, colonized, and co-opted, or otherwise broken; this may include considerations of how we as scholars, researchers, and educators can better contribute to the processes of reconnecting and repairing (for example, through more inclusive and engaged methodologies such as ethnographies, action-oriented, co-production, etc.).

 

• Reimagine. Envision radical utopias that engage with current struggles and challenges in ways that engage hope and determination to work towards better futures based on in-depth critical understandings of pasts and presents and on the voices of those whose experiences and perspectives have been dismissed and devalued in current regimes of understandings of organizing and sociality.

 

• Rehearse. Prefigure, experiment and engage with alternative, novel, more just and inclusive organizing practices, strategic alliances and ethico-political narratives that unsettle current relations and subjectivities, experimenting with how the social could and should be organized in more just ways.

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• Revolt. Analyze, critically reflect on, and learn from radical organizational forms, in their many guises, and multiple strategies and modalities of resistance, refusal, opposition, struggle, and antagonism to consider how they counter, undermine and erode unjust organizing practices and outcomes.

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We invite contributors to interpret these dimensions of critical scholarship broadly. We are open to all submissions that are theoretically informed by one or more critical traditions of thought addressing current concerns at planetary, global, societal, and/or organizational levels from a praxis-oriented perspective. By ‘praxis-oriented perspective’ we mean that we are interested in submissions with an explicit intent to create theoretical insights that can inform not only how we think about organizations and organizing sociality, but also how we can change them through various forms of praxes, activism, and solidarity. In line with reimagining praxes, we of course welcome submissions that advance and reflect on alternative methodologies and experiment with novel formats of writing and/or doing other aspects of academic work differently.

 

Conference format

To make the conference as inclusive, accessible, and sustainable as possible, the conference will take place in an online format. It will be structured around 90-minute sessions distributed throughout the week of December 9-13 scheduled at times convenient for the different time zones. We hope this will allow colleagues to take part regardless of their geographical location, career stage, or whether their institution is able to provide them with a conference travel budget. We also hope this format will make the conference accessible to colleagues who are unable to travel for health or other reasons or who are refusing air- and other forms of unsustainable travel for reasons of climate justice.

 

There will also be a few plenary moments. We will close the conference on December 13 with the launch of Organization’s new Manifesto.

 

This first Organization Conference will be limited to 100 participants.

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We will of course strive to maintain the diversity and inclusivity that is representative of our journal, particularly preserving spaces for doctoral students and early career scholars as well as participants from many geographies.

 

Submission formats

Submissions to the conference can take one of the following formats:

• Paper abstracts (up to 1,500 words - exclusive of references, tables, etc.). We ask for extended abstracts presenting core ideas (including the aims of the paper, the theoretical approach, an indication of the empirical material in case of empirical papers, and key contributions). Abstracts are expected to be developed into papers (written in a conventional or alternative format) before the conference. The conference organizers will cluster the papers based on the abstracts into thematic sessions. Authors will be provided with constructive, developmental feedback by the session chairs, other authors and the audience during the conference.

 

• Symposia and round tables proposals (up to 1,500 words). These submissions should include the core topics of the session, why they are relevant to the Organization community, the participants, and a proposal of structure for the session including various roles (e.g., organizers, presenters, panelists, facilitator). Symposia and round tables that are inclusive along geographical, career phase and any other lines of historical subordination will be given priority.

 

• Open-format session proposals (up to 1,500 words). We are open to any other proposal that will make use of this shared online space to advance the Organization community to work around the topics delineated above, and more broadly, to what the critical debates our journal for. Open-format proposals may also include ideas for innovative social sessions to help our community connect and interact more informally. Please submit your idea, indicating the audience you would like to reach out to, and how you intend to operationalize it. 

 

Submissions will need to be uploaded through: https://organizationmgged.wixsite.com/organization-confere

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The system will open on April 9

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Best Student Paper / Best Paper / Symposia / Open-Format Awards

The organizing committee will award a prize for the Best Student Paper, Best Paper, Best Symposium, Best Open-Format Session celebrating the contribution of its community to critical discussions and engagement based on originality and impact within the First Organization Conference.

 

Timeline

Submission of abstracts and activities proposal (up to 1,500 words): May 24, 2024

Notification of acceptance: June 24, 2024

Deadline for registration: November 1, 2024 

Submission of final papers (up to 10,000 words): November 9, 2024

 

Conference fee

There will be no fees for the Conference; participation will be free of charge.