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Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry

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Year 2009 
Volume 8 
Issue 1

GENEALOGIES OF BECOMING – ANTENARRATIVE INQUIRY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Kenneth Jørgensen
Aalborg University, Denmark

David Boje
New Mexico State University

2009 8 (1) Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry

Abstract

We propose in this article to take a story approach to organizational analysis. This implies that organizational life is perceived as polyphonic, equivocal, dialogical, unfinished and unresolved. We describe this approach as antenarrative inquiry in that it seeks to question established truths and moralities embedded in the narratives of the present. Antenarrative inquiry thus suspends beginnings, middles and ends in narratives and gives room for other voices. We propose Foucault’s power analysis, genealogy, as a method for antenarrative inquiry. We demonstrate the ideas of genealogy by relating it to Ricoeur’s work on narrative and time where experience is portrayed as a mimetic circle where endpoints lead back to pre-narration. We argue instead that organizational life is result of complex chains of interactions, negotiations and struggles. Genealogical scrutiny thus shakes up the mimetic circle and opens up for new interpretations of organizational life by revealing the power relations embedded in the conditions in which this life is storied and re-storied.

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APA style

Mølbjerg Jørgensen, Kenneth & Boje, David M. (2009). GENEALOGIES OF BECOMING – ANTENARRATIVE INQUIRY IN ORGANIZATIONS. (2009). GENEALOGIES OF BECOMING – ANTENARRATIVE INQUIRY IN ORGANIZATIONS. Tamara: Journal For Critical Organization Inquiry, 8(1), 32-47. (Original work published 2009)

MLA style

Mølbjerg Jørgensen, Kenneth and Boje, David M.. “Genealogies Of Becoming – Antenarrative Inquiry In Organizations”. 2009. Tamara: Journal For Critical Organization Inquiry, vol. 8, no. 1, 2009, pp. 32-47.

Chicago style

Mølbjerg Jørgensen, Kenneth and Boje, David M.. “Genealogies Of Becoming – Antenarrative Inquiry In Organizations”. Tamara: Journal For Critical Organization Inquiry, Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, 8, no. 1 (2009): 32-47.