Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory

Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory explores the relationship between the human body and the development of social theory about organisations and organising. The science of anatomy is taken as a pattern for knowledge both of the human body and/or organisations, and the twin symbols of dissection - the scalpel and the mirror - are used to understand the production of knowledge about organisations.

'Anatomising Embodiment and Organization Theory is an intriguing, deft and provocative overview of the emergence, embeddedness, and forgetfulness of organization studies in its interdependence with and constitution of a world premised on what the author terms an anatomising and ocular impulse towards the organic, and other, base metaphors of the field. The book questions the many binary divides, from Cartesian rationalism through to contemporary aesthetics of organization form and structure, that traverse and shape this field. It balances past normative masculine theorization of the field with a strongly argued feminization; it makes apparent implicit and covert social theories that appear as if they were asocial and, for those who take social theory seriously, it offers serious engagement.' - Stewart Clegg, Professor, School of Management, University of Technology, Sydney

'A well-researched, stimulating and provocative book that considers the 'anatomising urge' that characterises modern knowledge, of which organisational studies is a part. The author considers the production of knowledge that generates organisation theory and its foundations in dissection and fragmentation; privileging and hierarchy; and the implications this has for practices of exclusion. By illustrating the politics of claiming disciplinary boundaries, and challenging this by drawing from material more readily associated with medical sociology, anthropology, biology, and the sociology of thebody, the book destabilises conventional understandings of an area of study and is very welcome for this. Given the author's argument, any review must eschew the usual accolades of 'insightful', and 'going beneath the surface of' the subject, I hope, however, that this book will prompt a new body of research in a similar vein!' - Barbara Townley, Chair of Management and Organization Department of Business Studies and Management School, University of Edinburgh

KAREN DALE is Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour at the University of Warwick. She has previously worked in the NHS and Local Government.