After Method in Organization Studies IV (AMOS): The epistemology of practice

Whilst an epistemology of possession treats knowledge as something that people possess, an epistemology of practice accounts for the knowing found in practice (Cook and Brown, 1999). In considering knowing as a situated activity and practice as a collective knowledgeable doing, practice-based studies (PBS) contend that the epistemology of practice is a posthumanist project that seeks to decenter the human subject and reconfigure the concept of agency within sociomaterial practices. In so doing, an epistemology of practice joins several conversations going on around relational ontology, political ontologies, communication as constitutive of organizations, assemblage theory and post-qualitative inquiry, in social sciences in general, and organization- and management studies in particular. The turn to practice, to sociomateriality, performativity, and affect, enabled by new materialism and posthumanism, elicits important questions about how we do research once we assume an ‘ethico-onto-epistemology’ (Barad 2007) or a ‘thinking with theory’ analytic (Jackson and Mazzei 2012).

The conference is organized as an occasion to travel through the movement towards a relational epistemology that is at the core of practice-based theorizing (Eikeland and Nicolini 2011, Gherardi 2001, 2016), agential realism (Barad 1998, 2003, 2007), and feminist materialism (Gherardi 2019, Ringrose, Warfield and Zarabaldi 2019, Sollfrank 2020). Within and beyond organization studies, a relational epistemology allows to look at the ongoing interaction between doing and knowing (Gherardi 2000), the knowing subject and the known object (Haraway 1988, Lenz Taguchi 2013), social and material (Orlikowski 2007, 2009, Woolgar 2002), humans and nonhumans (Law 1994). In other words, central to this epistemological argument is the notion that there is an ongoing situated process of ‘becoming together’ when the knowing subject, the object of knowledge, and the heterogeneous components that are involved in a practice are entangled. Entanglement makes all the categories of humanist qualitative research problematic. With Lather and St. Pierre (2013, p. 630) we may ask: “how do we determine the ‘object of our knowledge’ – the ‘problem’ we want to study in assemblage? Can we disconnect ourselves from the mangle somehow (Self) and then carefully disconnect some other small piece of the mangle (Other) long enough to study it? What ontology has enabled us to believe the world is stable so that we can do all that individuating? And at what price? How do we think a ‘research problem’ in the imbrication of an agentic assemblage of diverse elements that are constantly intra-acting, never stable, never the same?

As pointed out by Law, whose work inspired the initiation of the After Method in Organization Studies conferences, “if much of the world is vague, diffuse or unspecific, slippery, emotional, ephemeral, elusive or indistinct, changes like a kaleidoscope” (Law, 2004, p. 2), social science research needs to rethink itself and open to a methodological view that is “broader, looser, more generous, and in certain respects quite different to that of many conventional understandings” (p. 4).

After Methods in Organization Studies IV is meant to host a rich interdisciplinary discussion around what an epistemology of practice entails in studying organizational processes, sociomaterial practices, and the constitutive entanglement and becoming of heterogeneous components involved in research practices.

The conference welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers on topics including, but not limited to:

• Epistemic practices in PBS
• Elusive knowledges and research practices
• Practice-based studies and post-qualitative inquiry
• Non-representational practices and practice-based theorizing
• New feminist materialism and practice-based studies
• Practicing diffractive analysis in organizational studies
• The turn to practice and the turn to affect
• Writing as a research practice in PBS
• Art-based methodologies in practice-based research

Prospective contributors are invited to submit an abstract. Authors of an accepted proposal are invited to submit a full paper that will be discussed in thematic sessions.

Organising committee:

• Michela Cozza – Conference Chair
• Silvia Gherardi
• Silvia Bruzzone
• Inti Lammi
• Christoffer Andersson
• Magnus Hoppe
• Elin Stenius – Communications Officer

The conference is co-financed by FORTE-Forskningsrådet för hälsa, arbetsliv och välfärd /FORTE-Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare.

Studies of working practices have gained considerable traction within organizational studies and related fields. By an onto-epistemological re-conceptualization of social phenomena, studies of practice have also become a means for scholars to connect to a variety of assorted methodological debates such as post-qualitative methodology, sociomateriality, embodied knowing, new feminist materialisms, and more recently affect. In touching upon so many different relational epistemologies, a common concern is how organizational research attuned to the epistemology of practice is possible and the implications of pursuing such empirical research (Gherardi, 2019; Nicolini and Monteiro, 2016; Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015).

In this doctoral workshop, we invite you to join us in exploring how a practice epistemology can be develop into a coherent methodology and in a potentially publishable article. The workshop presents an opportunity to discuss your own practice research and how you, as researchers, relate to the practice you study. Holding on to the interdisciplinary nature of practice-based studies , the workshop is closely tied to the After Method conference in presenting a means for doctoral students to consider the multiple ways in which practice theories and associated methodologies can be drawn upon. Silvia Gherardi, renown scholar of practice and author of ‘How to conduct practice-based studies: problems and methods’, will lead/moderate this workshop.

How is the workshop organized?

Participants in the workshop are expected to present their own work as well as read and discuss the work of other participants. More information about the structure of the workshop will be provided in due time. Participation is eligible for 1,5 ECTS credits and a certificate of attendance will be given at the end of the event.

Who should attend?

This workshop is intended for 20 doctoral students across the social sciences who in some extend engage with the following topics:

• Sociology of practice, practice-based studies and practice theory
• Actor-network theory and performativity
• New materialism and affect
• Process theory and processual studies of organizing

The intention is for the workshop to be as welcoming as possible insofar as the theoretical and/or methodological interest is related to practice-based studies. Doctoral students outside of organizational studies are also invited.

When? Where? Cost?

The PhD workshop is held 15 June, 2022, the day before the After Method Conference. The venue is at Mälardalen University, Västerås.

Please note that your registration is only valid when you have paid the fee.

The fee for PhD students attending the workshop but not participating in the Conference is 1 000 SEK for participants from Swedish universities (VAT free) and 1 250 SEK for the other participants (including 25 % VAT).

The fee for PhD students attending both the doctoral workshop and the conference is 1 500 SEK for participants from Swedish universities (VAT free) and 1 875 SEK for the other participants (including 25 % VAT).

The fee includes: “Swedish Fika” (coffee/tea and something with it) on Wednesday (Doctoral workshop), and on Thursday and Friday (Conference); lunch on Wednesday (Doctoral workshop), and on Thursday and Friday (Conference); and conference dinner on Thursday.

The participants must secure own funding for traveling and accommodation.

Application and Deadlines

Abstracts for attending the PhD workshop should comprise 200-500 words and be submitted to aftermethods@mdu.se by 30 October, 2021. The abstract should state the paper idea in a clear way and must include a title of the paper, author(s) name, affiliation and e-mail address. The same abstract can be submitted as a proposal for the conference and the author is invited to specify this in the text.

Notification of acceptance is 4 December, 2021.

Full papers (7000-8000 words) must be submitted by 31 March, 2022 to aftermethods@mdu.se Before submitting the full paper, make sure you include: a title of the paper, author(s) name, affiliation, e-mail address, an abstract of 150 words (maximum) summarizing the content and contribution of the paper. Specify if the paper will be presented at the conference. The same paper may be submitted for the conference and for the workshop, since this latter represents an opportunity to deeper analysis and engagement.

Accommodation

Here are some suggestions for accommodation in Västerås. There are also other, cheaper options.

Please check:
hotels.com External link.
booking.com External link.
trivago.com External link.

for best prices.

There are also:

Airbnb accommodations in Västerås External link..