No-Organization: Confronting the “It” of antiblackness in scholarship on Africa

Abstract

This essay explores anti-Blackness and how it structures knowledge production about Africa. It introduces “No-Organization” or the “it” as an invisible discursive frame that constructs the continent as a space devoid of Organization. I use No-Organization to reengage two scholarly approaches invested in decentering the West and addressing the erasure of Africa in Organization Studies. The first approach deconstructs Western-centric representations in the literature, while the second one generates studies better attuned to African contexts and theories. I claim that both approaches overlook the deeper antiblack knowledge structure in which misrepresentations and contextual research exist. I offer No-Organization as a third approach, which allows us to grasp the unpalpable and recover expressions of Black and African social life in scholarly work.

Introduction

I begin this essay with the “it,” rarely acknowledged or discussed in Organization Studies. “It” is invisible until I enter a room, write an essay, or interact with colleagues. If I am first as scholar and my scholarship is second, the “it” is third. I am a black African woman scholar who has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has received tenure in a field adjacent to Organization Studies for the past 2 years. The “it” is elusive but became apparent in my early career, surfacing in questions about my work, such as in this vignette:

I am interviewing for a dream job at a research university in the United States. I prepared for my campus interview, overthinking every detail. An African foreign woman, I often overprepare to counter racist prejudgments. I am wearing a black suit and my late mother’s leather dress shoes— too tight—for good luck. My application materials speak to my expertise in women’s organizations in West Africa. During dinner with the faculty, a white male scholar ambushes me as the conversation suddenly turns inquisitive. He asks a version of this question: “How is your work organizational and not just research on a failed state?” I am stunned. The word “failed state” cuts to the core as Africa is not just an abstraction to me but home. My job materials and publications delve into organizational practices, so where did he get this idea? Once more, the “it” showed up.

The mere mention of research in an African context neutralized my expertise. My future colleague could not fathom the possibility of Organization in my context despite my publications on “organizing.” Instead, my work could not be rightfully organizational, revealing antiblackness in perceptions of Africa.

The “it” overrides logic, empirical evidence, and well-crafted arguments as my interlocutor subconsciously stops listening and draws conclusions. “It” is where my blackness and Africa scholarship intersect. “It” is replete with interpretations superimposed on Black African bodies of knowledge (figuratively and literally). “It” is internalized and, escapes our awareness while shaping our awareness. “It” is made flesh through my presence in knowledge spaces. “It” is the thingification (Césaire, 2000) persisting from the colonial encounter until today, taking parts of me away from me and transforming them into non-being. The reinvention of these non-parts as “management knowledge” does little to make me feel whole; wholly human, speaking, seeing, and creating. It is from this being as non-being that I propose Africa as No-Organization. Before furthering this notion, I define key terms.

Antiblackness

Rooted in Afro-Pessimism, antiblackness highlights how liberal societies are built on chattel slavery (Hartman, 2022; Sexton, 2016), which was foundational to the settler capitalist American colony. As such, all aspects of liberal society exclude the expression and materialization of black social life. Still, they require blackness to pursue their internal logics, modes of governance, economic systems, and –as I argue – organizational integrity. Building on Frank B. Wilderson III, Walcott (2014: 93) explains that antiblackness is an ontological condition with material consequences for Black people, who experience a “social death.” Capital’s Organization and reach require the negation of Black life and assumptions of Black non-being (Bledsoe and Wright, 2019). Liberal societies materialize the Organization of life to dehumanize Black people and strip them of their freedoms, but also as Saidiya Hartman argues, these conditions render expansive imaginaries of freedom that enslaved peoples created for themselves. These imaginaries persist today through creative expressions of resistance always at the cusp of appropriation by capital. In Organization Studies, Rosenthal (2018) emphasizes slavery to understand the nexus of antiblackness and capitalism. Her business history traces modern accounting methods that calibrated modes of violence and control of enslaved people with “organizational innovations” developed for greater efficiency. While these works have examined antiblackness in the North American context, I broaden the scope to consider African contexts, where labor, antiblackness, and the colonial capitalist project are intertwined (Rodney, 2018). For example, Hochschild (1999) explores the brutal Belgian colonial plantation, where Black Congolese people were mutilated for failing to meet production quotas.

No-Organization

I argue that much of Organization Studies constructs Africa as a non-organized realm or “No-Organization.” The latter implies that Black Africans cannot organize without White Europeans or Americans. I use capitalization for “No-Organization” and “Organization” to identify them as discourses. The absence of capitalization for “organization” signals routine organizational processes. Where different others have been devalued, misrepresented, or brutally colonized, Africa is unique because of how antiblackness organizes capital systems to dehumanize Black people irrespective of race. I show how to recognize the “it,” in the backdrop of knowledge endeavors. This process has profound implications for scholars who need to grapple with the framing of Africa as an epistemological void. The question remains: How does the black scholar of Africa bring proof of black social life and livingness when producing knowledge in the antiblack system of capitalist academia?

Before proceeding, I tread carefully as I do not wish to reinscribe No-Organization through mere summoning. However, there is a critical distinction between Africa as a Western construct and the actual realities of the continent (Nkomo, 2013). In this essay, I engage with No-Organization, explain limitations of two existing approaches on Africa, and chart a third approach.

No-Organization

Growing research on Africa in the past three decades has explored topics like local associations (Lyon, 2006), colonial missions (Miller, 1991), and traditional workspaces (Carrim and Nkomo, 2016). African scholars have also created the Africa Academy of Management and the Africa Journal of Management to remedy the absence of the continent (Nkomo et al., 2015). However, the volume of studies doesn’t negate antiblackness. I trace the historical origins and contemporary iterations of No-Organization, which is one way antiblackness is preserved in scholarship. No-Organization differs from the framing of Africa as disorganized and chaotic, although both notions interlock in Western constructions of Africa as the dark continent.

No-Organization originates in the discourse of emptiness, across various periods in the West (Mbembe, 2017). Of note is Hegel, who constructs Africa as a space outside of human history in the 19th century (Mbembe, 2017). The discourse of emptiness frames Africa as an epistemological void (Mudimbe, 1988) and is fundamentally antiblack because it constructs Black Africans as incapable of contributing to humanity. Colonizers named Africa as “terra nullius” or nobody’s land (Mudimbe, 1988: 58), justifying Western colonization. Terra nullius is inextricable from No-Organization because colonizers saw Africa as having no Organization of its own, erasing the existence of endogenous organizational systems. Under this view, colonialism was the ultimate Organization. As Mudimbe (1988: 14) explains, “colonialism and colonization mean Organization, arrangement. The two words derive from the Latin “colere” meaning to cultivate or design.” Mudimbe adds that colonialism includes the management of older and newer organizations.

To become colonized was therefore to become organized as Africans underwent “development” to enter modernity (Mbembe, 2001). Colonial Organization is thus the blueprint for contemporary organizational arrangements on the continent. Nyamnjoh (2012) shows how African educational structures integrally resemble colonial models. Other scholars (Amadiume, 2015; Oyěwùmí, 2010) document how colonialism infiltrated and distorted indigenous institutions amongst the Igbo and Yorùbá of present-day Nigeria.

No-Organization also informs scholarship on Africa. Kabamba (2010) discusses the propensity to ignore indigenous organizations in the Congo due to a fixation on the failed state as the sole legitimate organization. This emphasis originates from the belief that Africa has nothing besides the state as normative colonial organization. This idea cancels other possibilities and forecloses our imagination. In response, Kabamba (2010) centers the Nande, an ethnic group who has replaced the state through solidarity initiatives.

In sum, African organizational forms exist beyond the state; however, scholars fail to register other forms because they recognize Organization when it resembles Western models. No-Organization and antiblackness inform which organizations are recognized and studied, and those that are misrecognized or erased. Given the extensive critique of Western-centrism in African contexts, scholars may avoid egregious iterations of No-Organization, or absolute nothingness. However, the epistemological void can appear subtly. I identify how common approaches to address the erasure of Africa in scholarship overlook the “it..”

Deconstruction, generative research, and antiblackness

Scholars of Africa highlight intertwined issues in Organization Studies; the absence of research on the continent (Girei, 2017) and the overreliance on Western approaches (Zoogah et al., 2020). They use two paths to address this issue; deconstructing Western stereotypes in scholarship and generating knowledge attuned to local contexts. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, as many studies combine both deconstruction and creation.

Deconstructive and generative approaches

Rooted in postcolonialism, deconstructive scholarship draws on Said’s Orientalism (1978), to examine representational discourses of the other (Fougère and Moulettes, 2012; Nkomo, 2011). Fougère and Moulettes (2012) expose the colonial logic in West/Non-West binaries while Ul-Haq and Westwood (2012) uncover discursive strategies that otherize Islam in Management Studies. Nkomo (2011) examines leadership discourses in dominant managerial literature and highlights the construction of Africa as a failure because it does not incorporate Western approaches. Scholarship incorporating indigenous African perspectives is equally problematic because it essentializes African by framing the continent as a space stuck in time. Jackson (2015) points to representational tropes in African management research (e.g. centralized authority, laziness, absence of personal responsibility). Similarly, Nkomo (2011) explains that researchers seem surprised about the existence of management in Ancient Egypt.

These analyses overlook antiblackness, yet it becomes evident when Girei (2017: 455) notes, “even the sub-field of cross-cultural management seems to ignore the entire continent [. . .].” I argue that an erasure of this scale cannot be a factual oversight or isolated incident. Instead, it is a systemic ontological and epistemological suppression hindering Africa from contributing to knowledge production. Similarly, Jackson’s point is connected to an antiblack historical legacy. The portrayal of Africans as lazy and perpetual children in need of authority is an infantilizing colonial trope. As Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ndlovu (2021) explain, infantilizing Africans was necessary for European and North American modernity to emerge as such. The endurance of these stereotypes in 20th and 21st century organizational scholarship reveals the entrenched nature of antiblackness. In sum, deconstructive scholarship critiques problematic representations inside an antiblack knowledge structure. In the process, it overlooks the frame and how it was designed to exclude Africa from the outset.

Like deconstructive scholarship, generative approaches are concerned with the twofold problem. However, instead of unpacking representations, they generate endogenous theorizing, better aligned with local histories. Although this scholarship encompasses a range of paradigmatical and theoretical perspectives, I will characterize them as contextual. For instance, Zoogah (2021) historicizes management and Organization in Africa looking at traditional, modern (14th century to end of 20th century), and post-modern contexts. The study documents the existence of management and Organization during these time periods, rejecting the notion that Africa did not produce anything. Zoogah et al. (2015) propose an emic model that adapts management theory—organizational effectiveness—to African contexts by centering their uniqueness (e.g. uncertainty, interconnections of formal and informal sectors). Like deconstructive approaches, generative work operates within the existing antiblack knowledge structure.

Hence, even contextually informed work that draws explicitly on African-based theories can unintentionally reinforce the “it.” Jackson (2012) draws on ubuntu, a relational philosophy from Bantu societies, to investigate south-south relationships between China and Africa. He discusses Chinese principles of ren-yi-li, stating: “The humanistic orientation included in the concept of ren-yi-li (humanity-rightness-conventions) and zhong shu (compassion), together with a community-orientation appears to provide common ground with African humanism expressed for example through ubuntu” (18). In this example, ubuntu is not fully defined, where ren-yi-li principles are. Managerial principles from China as a country are equated to ubuntu, purported to represent the whole continent, where it is limited regionally (e.g. South Africa, Kenya). I thus draw attention to a slippage in scholarship, working against Western-centrism and recentering Africa. The study implicitly reinscribes antiblackness by failing to flesh out ubuntu with depth and nuance while giving more prominence to Chinese principles. It contributes to positioning Africa as peripheral and China as central. In sum, contextual research can reinscribe No-Organization through study assumptions, design, and language.

More obvious examples about language include Valente (2012: 564), stating: “I chose Africa as the empirical setting because it represents an extreme context (Eisenhardt, 2000) where firms operate in regions of poor institutional infrastructure [. . .]” “Extreme context” reflects high uncertainty if taken on its own. However, it resonates differently in the case of Africa, constructed as a monolithic space of desolation and chaos across history. A second example, echoing emptiness is the use of “institutional void.” Wang et al. (2022: 5) state: “We chose Africa as the host context due to the severity of institutional voids within it which enable better observation of state-owned MNEs’ strategies to address these voids.”

Common counterarguments rely on empiricism and scholarly objectivity by claiming that these examples are factual. My response is that studies are inherently representational. Since Africa was never a neutral object, its representation is tied to violence, colonialism, and neocolonialism. This legacy, used to oppress Black African people and establish White European superiority, seeps into contemporary knowledge production. On this note, Alcoff (1991) argues that there cannot be scholarly objectivity when a group has been consistently devalued.

The “it” contribution

I thus suggest a third possibility: dismantling structural and systemic antiblackness within the knowledge structure. Mbembe (2017) explains that Africa and the Black man, occupy the lowest rung amongst disenfranchised cultural others. Similarly, Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ndlovu (2021: 26) characterize blackness as a “marker of sub-human” and discuss “dismemberment” or the removal of Black people from humanity. These claims do not imply that Black Africans are more oppressed than other racial groups. Rather, they speak to blackness as being imbued with a distinct property; its exclusion from the ontological category of being (Walcott, 2014). Starting research with this assumption can acknowledge a deliberate and dehumanizing investment in suppressing perspectives from the continent.

I build on “epistemic coloniality” (Ibarra-Colado, 2006: 4) to foreground epistemic obliteration or No-Organization as antithetical to Organization. Here, I use “obliteration” figuratively to mean systematic erasure instead of destruction. Ibarra-Colado (2006) defines epistemic coloniality as a colonizing process imposing Western knowledge in Latin America and erasing local realities. Applying the term in a copy-and-paste fashion is problematic because it is grounded in instrumental rationality under Western modernity. Modernity excludes pre-Hispanic organizing and overlooks local knowledge. In short, scholars deploy Organization unreflexively in contexts where it fails to resonate. I believe that epistemic coloniality is insufficient in the face of antiblackness and its ferocity. Instead, epistemic obliteration speaks to the unique character of blackness. The implications are significant because the term reframes mere exclusion or stereotyping in scholarly practices as intentional and endemic. Furthermore, it showcases the power of No-Organization in neutralizing carefully crafted studies and delegitimizing scholars of Africa.

Thus, I challenge both deconstructive and generative approaches. Deconstructing problematic representational discourses alone is insufficient to dismantle them. Representational discourses—positive and negative—function inside a system of representation. However, Africa exists outside of the system of representation and cannot be fully constituted as a theoretical space. By suggesting that we depart from distortions, stereotypes, and problematic representations, I argue for excavating a fundamental void. The latter cannot be filled by more research, even contextually grounded scholarship. Given the persistence of this issue, it is crucial to confront the essential hollowness precluding Africa—individuals, perspectives, scholarship—from being a full contributor to Organization Studies.

How do we confront this hollowness? I suggest excavating No-Organization systematically and growing scholarship outside of “it.” This endeavor is challenging because the frame is invisible and internalized and includes affective and interactional components. Because usual scholarly tools (e.g. logic, evidence) cannot fully apprehend this elusiveness, we can pair them with sensorial methodologies centering Black social life through experiences, counter stories, and oral traditions. I believe that both deconstructive and generative approaches can benefit from this third perspective, showcased through an example.

A third approach

In “Finding Viola: The untrue, true story of a ground-breaking female African Nova Scotian entrepreneur,” Williams (2021) examines a successful Black woman entrepreneur of African descent who encountered discrimination in Canada in the 1930s and 1940s. This article is noteworthy on multiple accounts. First, it envisions Black people as entrepreneurs outside of their cultural contexts. Rarely do studies imagine the possibility of African organizations or the practices of African and African-descended entrepreneurs outside of Africa (e.g. Europe, North America, Asia), an idea echoed by Frenkel and Shenhav (2006). This absence feeds the narrative that Africans cannot offer insights and experiences to the external world, let alone the West, hence sustaining antiblackness.

Second, Williams, a feminist historian, employs a sensorial component in her methodology. She uses fictocriticism and autoethnography by incorporating self-reflection and blurring fiction and critique. Methods outside of the dominant frame can disrupt antiblackness by allowing researchers to infuse life into Black women entrepreneurs, giving them back their stolen humanity. This re-humanization process can fill the epistemological void of No-Organization. Hartman (2008) also uses “critical fabulation,” merging fiction with archival work to flesh complex and multidimensional Black people.

Third, autoethnography allows Williams to reflect on her positionality as a white scholar in relation to antiblackness and the continual deaths of Black people. She incorporates these reflections in her article through pauses. Pausing in habitual scholarly practices (e.g. reviewing, thinking, teaching) can allow us to better grapple with the “it” by noticing moments when it recedes from view or becomes more visible. Finally, the piece models working with antiblack historical sources. Williams showcases how official sources depicted Viola as a criminal, illustrating what research on Black people can look like if we assume that we are functioning inside an antiblack knowledge structure.

Moving forward

I have discussed no-organization as a discursive frame that forecloses imagination and possibilities as a frame, by design, excludes certain elements and emphasizes others. Moving forward, I provide recommendations. First, we must attend to antiblackness in all scholarly endeavors (e.g. writing, reviewing manuscripts, conference presentations). Organizational journals should collaborate with editors, board members, and reviewers to develop training on deconstructing antiblack racism. Second, we need to build collective and digital resources to complement scholarly publications. These resources can be developed with antiblackness as a foundation and a deliberate intention to step outside of No-Organization. They can be cultivated with Black and African communities, incorporating oral histories of local organizers and organizations, visual and written artifacts used to resist antiblackness and capitalism, and collective stories. Feminist and LGBTQI zines, self-published materials by and for their communities, are excellent examples of such resources. With an endeavor of that nature, cooptation is a risk, and we must protect the most vulnerable.

The final recommendation is curriculum development. Teaching about history from a critical and antiblack perspective is key. We must diversify the sources and examples we use. As we consider Africa, mainstream histories were filtered through colonialism, nationalism, and patriarchy to name a few influences. Many accounts of rich and complex organizational lives disappeared in the process. For instance, precolonial women-based institutions in West Africa are often overlooked. In sum, expanding both content and methods can make No-Organization more noticeable and easier to address. Deepening our knowledge of Africa by reading outside of Management and Organization Studies (Zeleza, 2007) can be useful in this regard.