Organization and Management Theory OMT

Call for Papers from: Organization: The critical journal of organization,
theory and society

Special Issue on

BOURDIEU AND DOMINATION WITHIN AND BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONS

Guest Editors:
Damon Golsorkhi, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France
Bernard Leca, Nottingham University Business School, UK
Michael Lounsbury, University of Alberta School of Business, Canada
Carlos Ramirez, HEC, France

Deadline for submissions: 3rd March 2008


From his earliest work on the sociology of Algeria to his late academic and
political publications, the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu can be labeled as a
sociology of domination. His theoretical apparatus has served first and
foremost the project of analyzing social hierarchies and to explain how they
are produced and reproduced. Meanwhile, in the past thirty years Bourdieu’s
theory and concepts have been gaining increasing currency in organization
theory, if one judges by the rate of citations in major journals in the
organization and management field. Cites to the French sociologist, in
particular to his practice-based approach, are everywhere, from knowledge
management to strategic management. .

There is, however, a paradox in the intersections between Bourdieu’s work and
the interests of organizational researchers deploying it. Throughout his
life’s work, Bourdieu’s theories had no interest in serving organizations. His
theoretical approach would consider organizations, at the very least, as a
screen that obfuscates real relations of domination. With this paradox in
mind, from our perspective, there is still much work missing in organization
studies that encompasses all of Bourdieu’s theoretical concerns and that
tackles essential issues behind Bourdieu’s intellectual endeavors. Among
those, some of his works are remarkably explicit on issues of domination,
including social judgement, the reproduction of inequalities, the maintenance
of dominant elites or masculine domination. His intellectual engagement with
neo-liberalism and globalization or his involvement in campaigns in support of
undocumented immigrants and the unemployed are congruous with his
enlightenment of domination mechanisms.

This special issue, therefore, intends to advance reflections on new insights
that Bourdieu’s work may bring to organizational analysis by taking on board
the French sociologist’s endeavors to uncover domination mechanisms and
develop a critical sociology. We would therefore welcome conceptual and
empirical papers that use Bourdieu’s focus on domination to examine issues of
organizational life. Some possible themes to consider include, but are not
restricted to:

- The naturalization of domination within and between organizations

• Why do/may agents repeatedly act against their interests?
• How does language become a means of domination?
• How does the organizational Doxa contribute to the naturalization of
domination?

- The production and reproduction of domination structures

• How to account for the existence of dominant agents in a field?
• What are the mechanisms behind struggles around different forms of
capital?
• How does the organizational illusio contribute to the reproduction of
domination ?
• Could dominated agents improvise and get around dominant agents?

- The expression of symbolic violence

• How is the symbolic capital constructed and transformed into symbolic
violence?
• What are the interplays between symbolic violence and symbolic capital
in organizational fields regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, religion,
and so on?

- The role of the macro-micro dynamic in the constitution of domination

• How do agents’ positions in a field constitute a dominant/dominated
position and determine their habitus and practices?
• How can dominated agents make evolve their positions in a field?
• How is the distribution of different forms of capital maintained in a
field?



Submission: Papers must be sent electronically by 3rd March 2008 to
organization@wbs.ac.uk as Word attachments, indicating “Bourdieu And
Domination Within And Between Organizations” in the subject line of the email.
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines published in
Organization and on the journal’s website:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalmanuscript.aspx?pid=105723&sc=1
Papers should be about 8000 words, and will be blind reviewed following the
journal’s standard review process. For further information contact either
Damon Golsorkhi damon.golsorkhi@groupe-esc-rouen-fr, Bernard Leca
Bernard.Leca@nottigham.ac.uk, Michael Lounsbury michael.lounsbury@ualberta.ca,
or Carlos Ramirez ramirezc@hec.fr