Towards an amodern, aesthetic and existentialist approach to subjectivity in management and organization studies

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to de-naturalize the overly mentalist, self-contained and singular depictions of subjectivity that populate the field of Management and Organizational Studies. To do so, my dissertation presents an original theoretical recipe that combines insights from Actor Network Theory (Latour, 1993, 1999a, 1999b, 2005; Latour and Woogar, 1979; Law, 1992) and Actor Network Theory and After (Law and Hassard, 1999; Mol, 1999, 2002), Foucault’s reflections on the “arts of existence” (1986, 1988, 1990; Foucault, Rabinow, and Faubion, 1997) and de Beauvoir’s (1967; 2001) and Merleau-Ponty’s existentialisms (1962). My goal is to offer an amodern method that aims at making present the embodied, multiple and relational textures of subjectivity and that accounts for the aesthetic endeavour of crafting personal styles of subjectivity. An example of how my proposed understanding of subjectivity can be performed in practice is illustrated by the exploration of the subjectivities of the mixed-martial artists that work for the world’s biggest combat sport promotion companies, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The contribution of this dissertation is twofold. From a theoretical standpoint, I set out to respond to those calls for more thorough problematizations not only of the ontological rooting of idea of individual, but also of the methodologies used to create knowledge about this construct in MOS (see Nord and Fox, 1996; Alvesson, Ashcraft and Thomas, 2008, Collinson, 2003). From an empirical perspective, I suggest how the complexity of subjectivity can be rendered in its multiplicity, relationality and aesthetic qualities by tracing how the crafting of one’s self occurs in material practices out of series of networked attributes and embodied performances.