A humanitarian organization in action

Organizational Discourse as an Immutable Mobile

Bibliographic Data

ID8090979
AuthorsFrançois Cooren (0000-0001-8954-4511, corresponding author), Frederik Matte (corresponding author), James R Taylor (0000-0003-2552-4196, corresponding author), Camilla Vásquez (0000-0002-3904-9878, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume1
Issue2
Pages153-190
Publication date2007-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse & Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-4813 • E-ISSN: 1750-4821
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1750481307075996
OpenAlexW2018899323
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited21

Following Alvesson and Kärreman's (2000) influential essay on the modes and interpretation of organizational discourse, this article reports on a longitudinal study of naturally occurring interactions that took place before, during, and after a meeting between representatives of Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), a well-known humanitarian organization, and representatives of local health centers in a region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This episode is used to exemplify the fruitfulness of adopting a view that incorporates two dimensions of discourse, that is, what Alvesson and Kärreman identify as its transient (autonomous) and muscular (determining) nature. The longitudinal aspect of our study allows us to show what interactants accomplish in particular settings, while illustrating a crucial aspect of the trans-local dimension of their talk. As shown in this article, a given Discourse must be embodied, materialized or even incarnated in discourses, that is, tokens of text or talk, in order for it to be reproduced, sustained and transported from one point to another, that is, to become what Latour (1987) calls an immutable mobile . A given Discourse can thus maintain its shape across time and space only if a lot of interactive work is done to assure the stability of its associations in the ordinary day-to-day activity of the people who embody it

Action (physics · Democracy · Dimension (graph theory · Discourse analysis · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Order (exchange · Point (geometry · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Education, sociology, and vocational training · Healthcare Systems and Practices · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Law · Philosophy

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