[ecrea] cfp: CRITICAL THINKING AND ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATION

>CRITICAL THINKING AND ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATION
>
>
>
>Lille/Roubaix, France, July 5 & 6th 2011
>
>
>
>Call for papers
>
>
>
>This conference is about the use of critical 
>theories in the field of organisational
>communication. We intend to identify the 
>reciprocal links between critical thinking and
>organisational communication: how do critical 
>theories infuse the reflection on organisational
>communication? What does critical research in 
>organisational communication add to the
>critical tradition in social sciences? The 
>objective of this conference is therefore twofold:
>
>First, it aims at reviewing the various critical 
>approaches used by researchers in organisational
>communication: what is the current knowledge in 
>this field? What are the theories and
>concepts used in research? How do critical approaches help us to understand
>communicational and organisational phenomena? What communication fields and
>communicational objects does criticism 
>investigate? What understanding of organisations,
>work, society and mankind are critical approaches based upon?
>
>The second objective is to consider how theories 
>of communication can contribute to assert a
>critical thinking in the research in 
>organisational communication. If it cannot be denied that
>researchers in organisational communication rely 
>on critical sociology and social philosophy,
>it remains necessary to assess the contribution 
>of communicational analyses to the debates
>around critical theories: what is the 
>contribution of information and communication sciences
>to the field of critical theories? To what 
>extent could a better understanding of the
>communication phenomena at stake in 
>organisations contribute to or question critical
>theories? What are the theories and concepts 
>that both specifically belong to information and
>
>
>
>communication sciences and fall within a 
>critical approach? How does the field of
>organisational communication import and make use 
>of classical critical concepts?
>
>Organisational communication theories, as an 
>object of research, are understood here in a very
>broad sense. The diversity of the relationships 
>that exist between communication and
>organisations cannot be caught in a single word. 
>For instance, communication can be defined
>as an organising tool, and reciprocally 
>organisations can be defined as a place that produces
>many different forms of communication. 
>Considering this diversity and heterogeneity, what is
>important for us in this colloquium is to focus 
>on the research inspired by a critical
>orientation.
>
>What do we mean by critical approaches?
>
>A first answer to that question is to make clear 
>what type of criticism we are not interested
>in.
>
>First, we will not investigate criticism as the 
>simple activity of judging or questioning that is a
>founding principle in scientific research.
>
>Second, we don't mean by criticism a utilitarian 
>approach that would rest on methods and
>theories belonging to social sciences which 
>would identify problems, put forward
>explanations, and suggest recommendations for 
>possible changes in order to improve the
>organisational performance.
>
>The type of criticism at stake here1 refers to 
>the broad category of what can be called social
>criticism. Social criticism intends to unveil 
>and question social order by analysing the social
>practices and forces founding that order. It is 
>also a reflexive approach on the consequences
>and the implications of these practices and 
>forces on individuals and groups. The researchers
>in social criticism refer conceptually to a host 
>of categories that traditionally belong to critical
>thinking: alienation, reification, influence, 
>power, loss of freedom, meaninglessness,
>domination, subjection, contempt, injustice, and so on.
>
>1 For this section, cf. Luc Boltanski (Rendre la 
>réalité inacceptable, 2008 ; De la critique, 2009), Axel Honneth
>(La société du mépris, 2006), and the interview 
>by Olivier Voirol (Qu'est-ce que la théorie critique ?,
>nonfiction.fr, december 16 2008).
>
>
>
>The critical significance of those categories 
>originates, first and foremost, in the negation of
>what constitutes human beings from an 
>anthropological point of view. Their critical
>significance also emerges from their contrast 
>with other categories related to values or ideals
>connected with a social order whose conditions 
>would be acceptable to the members of a
>society, individually or collectively; 
>categories such as: justice, freedom, democracy,
>autonomy, equality, self-fulfilment, and so on. 
>These values or ideals lay the foundations -
>more or less explicit, more or less turned into 
>a theory- not only for criticism but also for the
>definition of an order that would be acceptable. 
>Furthermore, the suffering and pain associated
>to a given social order is a key to question 
>this social order from a critical point of view as
>well as the links between this suffering and the 
>categories used in the critical tradition.
>
>If social criticism leads to unveil social order 
>and to define a set of criteria that would make
>such an order acceptable, it is also deeply 
>related to emancipation as it enables individuals to
>change their representations of this order. To 
>understand that social reality is alterable entails
>the possibility of imagining a different society 
>and therein lies the significance of such an
>approach. It is the way Bourdieu was considering sociology.
>
>Since it builds on a theoretical understanding 
>of social matters, this approach also seeks to
>include the ethical criteria through which 
>pathological forms of society can be diagnosed. In a
>more positive way, it leads to make the criteria 
>of a successful social life explicit and to
>reflect on the necessary social conditions for 
>the emergence of a kind of life permitting human
>fulfilment. In that respect, scholars build a 
>conceptual framework in order to come to terms
>with the mechanisms of social domination. 
>Faithful to the tradition of the Frankfurt School,
>the critical approach must carry out a further 
>task by pondering over the social resources
>necessary to its critical progress (Honneth, 2006: 88).
>
>Eventually, such an approach places conflict and 
>power struggles at the very core of social
>life.This theoretical presupposition matters for 
>the researchers interested in organisational
>communication. If the researcher considers 
>organisations as places characterized by conflict
>and struggles, he can then consider 
>communication as a way to influence and even control
>power relationships and struggles. But the links 
>between organisational communication and
>power can also be considered as the unexpected 
>consequence of constraints brought up by the
>systems - economic, political, administrative, 
>and so on - in which organisations develop (and
>specifically the constraints that result from late capitalism).
>
> From a critical perspective, research in 
> organisational communication mainly analyses the
>implicit presuppositions, underlying demands and 
>potential effects and consequences of
>communication in organisations. The notion of 
>communication refers here to a heterogeneous
>
>
>
>set of practices, relationships, patterns, 
>media, tools, contents, networks, programs,
>technologies and so on that can either be found 
>in organisations or constitute them.
>
>Context and intentions
>
>This conference comes at a time when phenomena 
>such as growing precariousness, pain at
>work, reshuffling of organisations, economic 
>pressure, financial and ecological crisis,
>remodelling of the State, encourage critical approaches.
>
>This context is also characterized by the 
>growing centrality of communication in the
>organising and management of merchant and non 
>merchant organisations (via discourses,
>interactions, technologies). For instance the 
>omnipresence of technologies strongly impacts on
>organisations, on the contents of workplace 
>activities, or on relationships at work.This context
>also corresponds with the development of a 
>sociology that tries to capture the changes that
>have occurred in the relationships between the 
>individual and the society and that originate
>from economical, cultural, and ideological 
>transformation (for instance, A. Ehrenberg, P.
>Kaufmann, D. Martuccelli, R. Senett, C. Lasch, etc).
>
>We also wish to emphasize the efforts undertaken 
>by Axel Honneth in order to revitalize a
>tradition of critical social theory rooted in 
>the Frankfurt school. His theory of recognition is
>of special interest here as it reexplores the 
>link between communication and action.
>
>Eventually, we think on the growing influence of 
>pragmatic sociology on social sciences in
>general and on works in organisational 
>communication in particular. Social scientists inspired
>by this pragmatic turn have developed an 
>empirical and comprehensive approach that enables
>to study the critical sense of various actors 
>through the examination of the concrete
>organizational situations in which such critical 
>sense appears. Other researchers inspired by
>ethnomethodology study organisations through the 
>linguistic exchanges that occur in them
>and allow actors to make sense of everyday 
>reality. We would like to explore the potential of
>this approach from a critical perspective.
>
>In France a critical approach in organisational 
>communication is indeed vivid as it is attested
>by the number of papers published in reviews or 
>presented at scientific conferences. But it
>must also be not noted that it remains scattered 
>and therefore insufficiently visible. One
>motivation for holding the present conference is 
>to improve the visibility of this approach and
>to call together the researchers interested in it.
>
>
>
>Through this conference we would like to improve 
>the understanding of critical approaches in
>organisational communication, and to review 
>research practices and theories used, in France
>and abroad, by scholars belonging to information 
>and communication sciences, to
>organisation science or to any area of social 
>sciences concerned by this matter. We hope that
>debates and confrontation will take place, and fuel an editorial project.
>
>Suggestions for contribution
>
>Some of the challenging questions to address 
>include, but are not limited to, the following:
>
>1: Categories of critical thought and research in organisational
>communication.
>
>We welcome papers dealing with the 
>epistemological and theoretical foundations of critical
>approaches, their evolutions, their interest and 
>limits to approach organisational
>communication from a critical perspective, as 
>well as the consequences of this kind of
>research2.
>
>2 Many authors who belong to the critical 
>tradition are very interesting to engage in a critical reflection on
>organisational communication: Marx, Arendt, 
>Polanyi, Castoriadis, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Bourdieu,
>Habermas, Honneth, Butler, Boltanski...
>
>Papers should also focus on the contribution of 
>Information and Communication Sciences to
>the theoretical understanding of the categories 
>used in critical approaches and to their
>renewal.
>
>We also welcome papers that, in the wake of 
>pragmatic sociology, give the priority to
>observing, describing and interpreting the 
>situations in which people are engaged
>and build some common sense in organisations.
>
>2: Empirical studies
>
>We expect papers based on empirical studies of 
>informational and communicational practices
>in organisations as well as papers that, from a 
>critical perspective, enrich our understanding of
>how technologies, medias, discourses, or 
>management devices are used in organisations.
>
>3: Criticism of criticism
>
>
>
>Contributions are expected that provide a 
>critical reflection on critical approaches in
>organisational communication: what are the 
>theoretical incoherencies among them? What are
>their limitations? Papers should also deal with 
>the social and political implications of critical
>approaches, i.e. with the acceptability of the 
>different ways of living or working together they
>subtend.
>
>4: Critical approaches and emancipation
>
>Contributions will deal directly with the 
>critical discourses that the people who work in
>organisations themselves hold. They will also 
>deal with the resistance and emancipation
>potentials of communication within 
>organisations: do hidden practices, diversions, non-
>official uses of ICT help workers resist 
>desubjectivation or domination? When and how does
>communication help emancipation in organisations?
>
>5. Critical education
>
>Finally, we expect contributions that explore 
>such core questions as: how can critical
>approaches participate to education in the 
>fields of management and communication? What
>could be the impacts of such a critical 
>education on those who work in organisations? How
>could such an orientation be implemented in 
>pedagogical programs? The links between
>education and emancipation will be here specifically explored.
>
>Deadline and Submission Instructions
>
>Applications for contributions will be written 
>either in French or in English, the deadline
>being Oct.15th 2010. Papers should be sent to 
>Thomas Heller (Thomas.heller@univ-
>lille1.fr), to Romain Huet ((romain_huet /at/ yahoo.fr)) and to Bénédicte Vidaillet
>((benedicte.vidaillet /at/ univ-lille1.fr)). They will 
>be double-blind reviewed. For that purpose
>they must be saved under two separate files in 
>.rtf format. First file: title of the contribution,
>surname, name, institution, mail address, email 
>address. Second file: anonymous contribution
>(please make sure you cannot be identified in the file)
>
>Typing rules
>
>Title of the contribution: Times new roman, 
>bold, size 18 for the title, followed by the
>surname, name, institution, in bold, size 12
>
>Police: Times New Roman, size 12 for the text 
>and 10 for the footnotes, single line space.
>With no other typing variation than italics for 
>the text and bold for the titles.
>
>
>
>No indentation by tabulation at the beginning of 
>paragraphs, but an indentation of 0.75cm. Do
>not set up a style sheet.
>
>Length:
>
>For the application: 5000 signs (spaces included) max. (+bibliography)
>
>For the contribution: 30,000 signs (incl. spaces, +bibliography)
>
>Authors will receive a reply by November 30th
>
>The full text of contributions will be sent by April 30th (for pre-acts)
>
>
>
>Scientific committee
>
>
>
>Luc Bonneville (University of Ottawa, Canada),
>
>Jean-Luc Bouillon (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, France),
>
>Valérie Carayol (University of Bordeaux 3, France),
>
>Andrea Catellani (University of Louvain, Belgique),
>
>Olivier Chantraine (University of Lille 3, France),
>
>Patrick Chaskiel (University of Toulouse 3, France),
>
>Jean-Philippe Cobbaut (Université Catholique de Lille, France),
>
>Alessia Contu (University of Lancaster, UK),
>
>Patrice de la Broise (University of Lille 3, France),
>
>Lucile Desmoulins (University of Lille 3, France)
>
>David Douyère (University Paris XIII, France),
>
>Bernard Floris (University Grenoble 3, France),
>
>Eric George (University of Montréal, Canada),
>
>Thomas Heller (University of Lille 1 et Lille 3, France),
>
>Casper Hoedemaekers (Cardiff Business School, Wales)
>
>Romain Huët (Université Européenne de Bretagne, France),
>
>Christian Le Moenne (Université Européenne de Bretagne, France),
>
>Catherine Loneux (Université Européenne de Bretagne, France)
>
>Valérie Lépine (University Grenoble 2, France),
>
>
>Jacquie L'Etang (University of Stirling, Scotland, UK - sous réserve)
>
>Robert Mac Phee (Arizona State University, USA),
>
>Bénédicte Vidaillet (University of Lille 1, France),
>
>Olivier Voirol (Institut für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt Deutschland)

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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