Grounding in the unconscious

“The field” in psychosocial organizational ethnography

Bibliographic Data

ID20501033
AuthorsDidem Derya Özdemir Kaya (0000-0002-0442-1289, University of Sussex Business School, UK, corresponding author), Marianna Fotaki (0000-0002-2130-6936, Warwick Business School, UK)
Year2024
Volume31
Issue6
Pages929-951
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13505084221148640
OpenAlexW4319785966
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited88

Psychosocial research, which explores the unconscious and affective dynamics of organizational and social phenomena from critical perspectives, often adopts ethnographic methods. However, its locus, the unconscious, has an obscure, diffuse and dynamic nature that calls into question two central assumptions of conventional organizational ethnography: that an organization is a self-contained physical (research) site, and ethnographic research is best led by participant observation. The unconscious is produced by countless agents dispersed across time and space, making it impossible to readily identify a research site. Furthermore, psychosocial phenomena cannot be physically demarcated because a multitude of discourses, imagery, psyches, bodies, and objects are enmeshed in them. These raise contentious ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions for psychosocial researchers. In this article, we ruminate on “the field” in psychosocial organizational ethnography, seeking a robust epistemological and methodological approach to constructing and dwelling in an unconscious research site. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, we present a conceptual discussion of these issues and translate them into ethnographic methods illustrated by examples from the authors’ research. By critically re-evaluating the question of “the field,” we contribute to ethnographic studies of organizational phenomena with “fuzzy fields” without self-evident boundaries that draw on diverse onto-epistemologies

Epistemology · Ethnography · Multitude · Participant observation · Psychoanalysis · Psychosocial · Psychotherapist · Social science · Sociology · Unconscious mind · Anthropology · Global and Cross-Cultural Management · Management and Organizational Studies · Management Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access