This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of regulation and con... more This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of regulation and constraint. One tactic we suggest is moving outside of a creativity/conformity binary. Rather than understanding creativity and conformity as separate, where one is understood as excluding the other, we discuss the potential of examining the relationships between them. We use the theme of 'structure and play' to illustrate our argument. In the first part of the paper using various examples from art and design, fields generally associated with creativity, we explore the interrelatedness of creativity and conformity. For example, how might design styles, which are generally understood as creative outcomes, constrain creativity and lead to conformity within the design field? Is fashion producing creativity or conformity? Conversely, the ways conformity provides the conditions for creativity are also examined. For example, the conformity imposed by the State on artists within the comm...
The design literature theorizes design as the methodology of innovation, supposedly required for ... more The design literature theorizes design as the methodology of innovation, supposedly required for mediating the world’s separate entities, such as theory and practice, the human and the material, and subjective and objective knowing, coming “naturally” with the designer’s ways of knowing. But instead of taking such naturalizations for granted, we argue that through such positioning of design the specifics of design activity are obscured, along with the locations designers take within them. We propose that “design as a methodology” is an object produced by design. Investigating this object of design, and how it is made, will make visible what design activity is, and what locations the designers take within them.
In this paper I discuss the ways I’m using identity as a lens for exploring the complexities of p... more In this paper I discuss the ways I’m using identity as a lens for exploring the complexities of power in workplaces. I draw on the work of theorists such as Deetz (1992; 1994), du Gay (1996a; 1996b) and Miller and Rose (1993; 1995) who all use Foucauldian concepts to explore identity and power. I describe how I have been using Rose’s notion of ‘assembled selves’ (1996) to explore worker identities in a large public sector organisation in Australia. This analysis draws attention to the historical and cultural contingency of ‘the subject’ and the politics of identity. In the first section of the paper I theorise identity using concepts from Foucault. Foucault draws attention to the complexities of the relationships between power, knowledge and ‘the subject’ (Dean, 1994; Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Foucault, 1981, 1982, 1988; Ransom, 1997). Disrupting taken for granted understandings of ‘the individual’ as a fixed, cohesive, essential self, Foucault explores the ways subjects are produced (Foucault, 1981, 1982, 1988). Drawing on the work of Foucault, Rose points out: ‘capacities for action emerge out of the specific regimes and technologies that machinate humans in diverse ways’ (1996, p. 186). This view contrasts with much of the neo-human relations literature and critical management literature which both tend to understand human beings as possessing core or essential characteristics. Modern power operates through the construction of new capacities and Foucault says that we need to pay attention to the ways capacities are produced in order to gain a better understanding of the complexities of power (1982). This begins to draw attention to the politics of identity. Taking up the notion that our capacity to act is an effect rather than a cause, I explore the identities being produced in a contemporary Australian workplace. In this next section of the paper I draw on my involvement in a three year, Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project which examined everyday learning at work. I have been working with Rose’s notion of assembled selves (1996) as a way of theorising learning at work. My interest is in the ‘who’ we learn ‘to be’ at work. Rose suggests that through being assembled with particular devices, techniques, people, and objects that ‘selves’ are produced (1996; 2000). In this part of the paper I explore the assemblages that contribute to producing a ‘senior manager’ in this workplace. This analysis emphasises the everyday practices of the workplace and the capacities produced by these practices. It draws attention to the myriad of everyday activities and experiences where people are ‘addressed, represented, and acted upon as if they were selves of a particular type’ (Rose, 1996, p. 169). I suggest that the senior managers are both regulators and regulated. There are multiple networks of power in operation and the managers are not outside of these networks. While there are many examples of top-down power in this workplace, I contend that by focusing on this view we ignore the complexities of power at work. This analysis draws attention to the operation of other forms of power including disciplinary power and pastoral power in the workplace. I conclude the paper by discussing the potential that the lens of identity provides for analysing the complexities of power at work. Identity provides a lens for disrupting the prevailing view of power found in much of the organisational literature. In both the mainstream managerial literature and more critical approaches power is understood as coercive and repressive, as an illegitimate control, as ‘power over’. This approach is anchored in a tradition based on a sovereign understanding of power (Foucault, 1981). However, a focus on identity enables a conceptualisation of power that recognises the multiplicities of power. Here power is understood as both constraining and enabling (Ransom, 1997).
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 2014
The multiple reals of workplace learning are explored in this paper. Drawing on a Foucauldian con... more The multiple reals of workplace learning are explored in this paper. Drawing on a Foucauldian conceptualisation of power as distributed, relational and productive, networks that work to produce particular objects and subjects as seemingly natural and real are examined. This approach enables different reals of workplace learning to be traced. Data from a collaborative industry-university research project is used to illustrate the approach, with a focus on the intersecting practices of a group of professional developers and a group of workplace learning researchers. The notion of multiple reals holds promise for research on workplace learning as it moves beyond a view of reality as fixed and singular to a notion of reality as performed in and through a diversity of practices, including the practices of workplace learning researchers.
... Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Gane & Johnson, 1993; Gordon, 1991; Mills, 1997; Patton, 199... more ... Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Gane & Johnson, 1993; Gordon, 1991; Mills, 1997; Patton, 1994; Rabinow, 1984; Ransom, 1997; Weedon ... discussion around learning at work, The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990), and Cultivating Communities of Practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder ...
This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of increasing regulat... more This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of increasing regulation and constraint. One suggested tactic is to move outside of a creativity–conformity binary. Rather than understanding creativity and conformity as separable, where one is seen as excluding the other, the authors consider the potential of examining the relationships between them. The theme of ‘structure and play’ illustrates the argument. In the first part of the paper, using various examples from art and design – fields generally associated with creativity – the authors explore the interrelatedness of creativity and conformity. For example, how might design styles, which are generally understood as creative outcomes, constrain creativity and lead to conformity within the design field? Is fashion producing creativity or conformity? Conversely, the ways in which conformity provides the conditions for creativity are also examined. For example, the conformity imposed by the state on artis...
This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of regulation and con... more This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of regulation and constraint. One tactic we suggest is moving outside of a creativity/conformity binary. Rather than understanding creativity and conformity as separate, where one is understood as excluding the other, we discuss the potential of examining the relationships between them. We use the theme of 'structure and play' to illustrate our argument. In the first part of the paper using various examples from art and design, fields generally associated with creativity, we explore the interrelatedness of creativity and conformity. For example, how might design styles, which are generally understood as creative outcomes, constrain creativity and lead to conformity within the design field? Is fashion producing creativity or conformity? Conversely, the ways conformity provides the conditions for creativity are also examined. For example, the conformity imposed by the State on artists within the comm...
The design literature theorizes design as the methodology of innovation, supposedly required for ... more The design literature theorizes design as the methodology of innovation, supposedly required for mediating the world’s separate entities, such as theory and practice, the human and the material, and subjective and objective knowing, coming “naturally” with the designer’s ways of knowing. But instead of taking such naturalizations for granted, we argue that through such positioning of design the specifics of design activity are obscured, along with the locations designers take within them. We propose that “design as a methodology” is an object produced by design. Investigating this object of design, and how it is made, will make visible what design activity is, and what locations the designers take within them.
In this paper I discuss the ways I’m using identity as a lens for exploring the complexities of p... more In this paper I discuss the ways I’m using identity as a lens for exploring the complexities of power in workplaces. I draw on the work of theorists such as Deetz (1992; 1994), du Gay (1996a; 1996b) and Miller and Rose (1993; 1995) who all use Foucauldian concepts to explore identity and power. I describe how I have been using Rose’s notion of ‘assembled selves’ (1996) to explore worker identities in a large public sector organisation in Australia. This analysis draws attention to the historical and cultural contingency of ‘the subject’ and the politics of identity. In the first section of the paper I theorise identity using concepts from Foucault. Foucault draws attention to the complexities of the relationships between power, knowledge and ‘the subject’ (Dean, 1994; Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Foucault, 1981, 1982, 1988; Ransom, 1997). Disrupting taken for granted understandings of ‘the individual’ as a fixed, cohesive, essential self, Foucault explores the ways subjects are produced (Foucault, 1981, 1982, 1988). Drawing on the work of Foucault, Rose points out: ‘capacities for action emerge out of the specific regimes and technologies that machinate humans in diverse ways’ (1996, p. 186). This view contrasts with much of the neo-human relations literature and critical management literature which both tend to understand human beings as possessing core or essential characteristics. Modern power operates through the construction of new capacities and Foucault says that we need to pay attention to the ways capacities are produced in order to gain a better understanding of the complexities of power (1982). This begins to draw attention to the politics of identity. Taking up the notion that our capacity to act is an effect rather than a cause, I explore the identities being produced in a contemporary Australian workplace. In this next section of the paper I draw on my involvement in a three year, Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project which examined everyday learning at work. I have been working with Rose’s notion of assembled selves (1996) as a way of theorising learning at work. My interest is in the ‘who’ we learn ‘to be’ at work. Rose suggests that through being assembled with particular devices, techniques, people, and objects that ‘selves’ are produced (1996; 2000). In this part of the paper I explore the assemblages that contribute to producing a ‘senior manager’ in this workplace. This analysis emphasises the everyday practices of the workplace and the capacities produced by these practices. It draws attention to the myriad of everyday activities and experiences where people are ‘addressed, represented, and acted upon as if they were selves of a particular type’ (Rose, 1996, p. 169). I suggest that the senior managers are both regulators and regulated. There are multiple networks of power in operation and the managers are not outside of these networks. While there are many examples of top-down power in this workplace, I contend that by focusing on this view we ignore the complexities of power at work. This analysis draws attention to the operation of other forms of power including disciplinary power and pastoral power in the workplace. I conclude the paper by discussing the potential that the lens of identity provides for analysing the complexities of power at work. Identity provides a lens for disrupting the prevailing view of power found in much of the organisational literature. In both the mainstream managerial literature and more critical approaches power is understood as coercive and repressive, as an illegitimate control, as ‘power over’. This approach is anchored in a tradition based on a sovereign understanding of power (Foucault, 1981). However, a focus on identity enables a conceptualisation of power that recognises the multiplicities of power. Here power is understood as both constraining and enabling (Ransom, 1997).
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 2014
The multiple reals of workplace learning are explored in this paper. Drawing on a Foucauldian con... more The multiple reals of workplace learning are explored in this paper. Drawing on a Foucauldian conceptualisation of power as distributed, relational and productive, networks that work to produce particular objects and subjects as seemingly natural and real are examined. This approach enables different reals of workplace learning to be traced. Data from a collaborative industry-university research project is used to illustrate the approach, with a focus on the intersecting practices of a group of professional developers and a group of workplace learning researchers. The notion of multiple reals holds promise for research on workplace learning as it moves beyond a view of reality as fixed and singular to a notion of reality as performed in and through a diversity of practices, including the practices of workplace learning researchers.
... Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Gane & Johnson, 1993; Gordon, 1991; Mills, 1997; Patton, 199... more ... Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982; Gane & Johnson, 1993; Gordon, 1991; Mills, 1997; Patton, 1994; Rabinow, 1984; Ransom, 1997; Weedon ... discussion around learning at work, The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990), and Cultivating Communities of Practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder ...
This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of increasing regulat... more This paper explores possible tactics for academics working within a context of increasing regulation and constraint. One suggested tactic is to move outside of a creativity–conformity binary. Rather than understanding creativity and conformity as separable, where one is seen as excluding the other, the authors consider the potential of examining the relationships between them. The theme of ‘structure and play’ illustrates the argument. In the first part of the paper, using various examples from art and design – fields generally associated with creativity – the authors explore the interrelatedness of creativity and conformity. For example, how might design styles, which are generally understood as creative outcomes, constrain creativity and lead to conformity within the design field? Is fashion producing creativity or conformity? Conversely, the ways in which conformity provides the conditions for creativity are also examined. For example, the conformity imposed by the state on artis...
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Papers by Kerry Harman