This paper examines the relationship between gender performativity and organizational space. Specifically, it focuses on some of the ways in which gender is materialized in and through workspace in accordance with the dominant gender norms shaping organizational life, a theme that has been relatively neglected within organization studies to date. Judith Butler’s (1988, 1993, 2000 [1990], 2004) performative analysis of gender draws critical attention to the body as a medium through which the gendered subject is brought into being, or made to ‘matter’, as she puts it. This paper seeks to extend Butler’s analysis of gender performativity, focusing on the evocation and materialization of these norms through the gendered inhabitation of organizational space. Inspired by a piece of work by contemporary video artist Sofia Hulten called Grey Area, it develops Butler’s analysis with reference to data generated in a series of focus groups and interviews with women working in diverse roles within a university setting. The analysis of the findings of this research links Butler’s work on ‘bodies that matter’ to Lefebvre’s (1991) concept of ‘representational spaces’, arguing that an important but relatively neglected aspect of the organizational materialization of the gendered self is the performance of ‘spaces that matter’.
Alvesson, M., and Y. Due Billing1997Understanding gender and organizations . London: Sage.
2.
Baldry, C.1999‘Space - the final frontier’. Sociology33/3: 535-553.
3.
Borgerson, J.2005‘Judith Butler: On organizing subjectivities’ in Contemporary organisation theory. C. Jones and R. Munro (eds), 63-79. Oxford : Blackwell.
4.
Bruni, A., and S. Gherardi2002‘Omega’s story: The heterogeneous engineering of a gendered professional self’ in Managing professional identities: Knowledge, performativity and the ‘new’ professional . M. Dent and S. Whitehead (eds), 174-198. London: Routledge.
5.
Bruni, A., S. Gherardi, and B. Poggio2004‘Doing gender, doing entrepreneurship: An ethnographic account of intertwined practices’. Gender, Work and Organization11/4: 406-429.
6.
Bruni, A., S. Gherardi, and B. Poggio2005Gender and entrepreneurship: An ethnographic approach. London: Routledge.
7.
Butler, J.1988‘Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory’. Theater Journal40: 519-531.
8.
Butler, J.1993Bodies that matter. London: Routledge .
9.
Butler, J.2000Gender trouble. First published 1990. London: Routledge.
10.
Butler, J.2004Undoing gender. London: Routledge .
11.
Carr, A., and P. Hancock, editors 2003Art and aesthetics at work. London: Palgrave.
12.
Czarniawska, B.2006‘Doing gender unto the other: Fiction as a mode of studying gender discrimination in organizations’. Gender, Work and Organization13/3: 234-253.
13.
Cohen, L., P. Hancock and M. Tyler2006‘Beyond the scope of the possible: Art, photography and organisational abjection’. Culture and Organization12/2: 109-125.
14.
Dale, K.2005‘Building a social materiality: Spatial and embodied politics in organizational control’. Organization12/5: 649-678.
15.
Dale, K., and G. Burrell2008The spaces of organisation and the organisation of space: Power, identity and materiality at work. London: Palgrave.
16.
De Certeau, M.2002The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
17.
Fleming, P., and A. Spicer2004‘You can checkout anytime, but you can never leave: Spatial boundaries in a high commitment organization’. Human Relations57/1: 75-94.
18.
Fournier, V.2002‘Keeping the veil of otherness: Practising disconnection’ in Casting the other: The production and maintenance of inequalities in work organizations. B. Czarniawska and H. Höpfl (eds), 68-88. London: Routledge.
19.
Gagliardi, P., editor 1990Symbols and artifacts: Views of the corporate landscape. New York : Aldine de Gruyter.
20.
Gherardi, S.1995Gender and organizational symbolism. London: Sage.
21.
Gregson, N., and G. Rose2000‘Taking Butler elsewhere: Performativities, spatialities, subjectivities’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space18: 433-452.
22.
Halford, S., and P. Leonard2006Negotiating gendered identities at work: Place, space and time. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
23.
Hancock, P.2006‘The spatial and temporal mediation of social change’ . Journal of Organizational Change Management19/5: 619-639.
24.
Hancock, P., and Tyler, M.2007‘Un/doing Gender and the Aesthetics of Organizational Performance’. Gender, Work and Organization14/6: 512-533.
25.
Höpfl, H.2003‘Becoming a (virile) member: Women and the military body’. Body and Society9/4: 13-30.
26.
Höpfl, H., and S. Matilal2007‘The lady vanishes: Some thoughts on women and leadership’ . Journal of Change Management20/2: 198-208.
27.
Knights, D., and D. Kerfoot2004‘Between representations and subjectivity: Gender binaries and the politics of organizational transformation’. Gender , Work and Organization11/4: 430-454.
28.
Knights, D., and W. Richards2003‘Sex discrimination in UK academia’. Gender , Work and Organization10/2: 213-238.
29.
Kornberger, M., and S. Clegg2004‘Bringing space back in: Organizing the generative building’. Organization Studies25/7: 1095-1114.
30.
Lefebvre, H.1991The production of space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. First published 1974. Oxford: Blackwell .
31.
Lewis, P., and R. Simpson2007Gendering emotions in organizations. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
32.
Linstead, S., and H. Höpfl, editors 2000The aesthetics of organization. London: Sage.
33.
McDowell, L., and G. Court1994‘Performing work: Bodily representations in merchant banks’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space . 12: 727-750.
34.
McGregor, W.2000‘The future of workspace management’. Facilities18/3-4: 138-143.
35.
Minahan, S., and J. Wolfram Cox, editors 2007The aesthetic turn in management . Aldershot: Ashgate.
36.
Nippert-Eng, C.1995Home and work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
37.
O’Neill, M., S. Giddens, P. Breatnach, C. Bagley, D. Bourne, and T. Judge2002‘Renewed methodologies for social research: Ethno-mimesis as performative praxis’. The Sociological Review50/1: 69-88.
38.
Parker, M.2002‘Queering management and organization’. Gender , Work and Organization9/2: 146-166.
Poggio, B.2006‘Outline of a theory of gender practice’. Gender , Work and Organization13/3: 232-233.
41.
Pullen, A.2006‘Gendering the research self: social practice and corporeal multiplicity in the writing of organizational research’. Gender, Work and Organization. 13/3: 277-298.
42.
Ramsay, K., and Letherby, G.2006‘The experience of academic non-mothers in the gendered university’. Gender, Work and Organization13/1: 25-44.
43.
Soja, E.1996Third space. London: Verso.
44.
Strati, A.1999Organization and aesthetics. London : Sage.
45.
Taylor, S., and A. Spicer2007‘Time for space: A narrative review of research on organizational spaces’. International Journal of Management Reviews9/4: 325-346.
46.
Turner, B., editor 1990Organizational symbolism. Berlin: Aldine de Gruyter .
47.
Tyler, M., and L. Cohen2008‘Management in/as Comic Relief: Queer Theory and Gender Performativity in The Office'. Gender, Work and Organization15/2: 113-132.
48.
Warren, S.2006‘Hot nesting? A visual exploration of personalized workspaces in a hot-desk office environment’ in The speed of organization. P. Case, S. Lilley and T. Owens (eds), 119-146. Liber: Copenhagen Business School Press.
49.
Warren, S.2008‘Empirical challenges in organizational aesthetics research: Towards a sensual methodology’. Organization Studies29/4: 559-580.
50.
Young, I.M.2005On female bodily experience: ‘On throwing like a girl’ and other essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
