When Shame Meets Love: Affective pathways to freedom from injurious bodily norms in the workplace

Download
Citations
Altmetric
Author
Pouthier, V; Sondak, HDate
2019-01-01Source Title
Organization StudiesPublisher
SAGE PublicationsUniversity of Melbourne Author/s
Pouthier, VanessaAffiliation
Management and MarketingMetadata
Show full item recordDocument Type
Journal ArticleCitations
Pouthier, V; Sondak, H, When Shame Meets Love: Affective pathways to freedom from injurious bodily norms in the workplace, Organization Studies, 2019, ForthcomingAccess Status
Open AccessAbstract
We explore organizational members’ affective experiences to elucidate how and when the reproduction of oppressive bodily norms can be interrupted. We leverage the exceptional access to hitherto overlooked affective dynamics in one organizational context made possible by the introduction of a video art installation in a commercial art gallery. The artwork enabled both the all-female staff and the researchers to observe, feel and reflect on both the invisible force of body shame and the empowering forces of communal laughter and reciprocal generosity. Our analysis reveals how the repetition of loving encounters around the artwork moved the staff away from crippling individualized anxiety and shame and towards more joyful and carefree possibilities. It further suggests that the organization’s feminist culture and climate of psychological safety facilitated the trajectory from shame to joy through love. By surfacing and explaining such affective pathways to freedom as an important form of emancipatory politics in the context of injurious, discriminatory bodily norms, we contribute to both scholarship on bodily discipline in the workplace and recent work on the critical potential of affect.
Export Reference in RIS Format
Endnote
- Click on "Export Reference in RIS Format" and choose "open with... Endnote".
Refworks
- Click on "Export Reference in RIS Format". Login to Refworks, go to References => Import References