Writing Process After Reading Bakhtin

Abstract

This article focuses on the process of writing where the purpose is to explore how it is possible to write a research account that is inviting and “alive” so that, in reading, novelty unfolds. The account includes an illustration of how I struggled with writing and eventually found a way forward in reading Bakhtin’s work on the polyphonic novel. Inspiration from this genre opened up a kind of “listening writing”: an embodied and prospective form of writing that questions the traditional role of plot, because it calls for a letting go of predesigned structures. Instead, it suggests a writing driven by the interplay of voices, curiosity, and openness to the next possible word. The article contributes to the discussion on how writing matters and, in particular, how “unfinalizable” writing practices, in which the author tries not to be the final mediator of meaning, can enrich organization studies.