PhD | The Body Reorganized: The Role of Embodiment in Knowledge-Based Organizations

PhD-candidate | Ohad Ben Shimon
Institution: Utrecht University/ Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON)
Supervisor: Prof. Iris van der Tuin, Dr. Joost de Bloois

In mainstream organization theory and practice the body has been neglected firstly “under the weight of a tradition of mind/body dualism that has centered value, meaning and knowledge in the mind and largely dismissed the body as mere material – a container for the mind” (Dale, 2001: 20). Secondly, the body has been neglected in relation to the scientifically established organism in which the cut-up corpse has been laid bare for the rational, living, and operative mind to inspect and utilize. It is this universal disembodied view of the body which continues to haunt the body’s ghostly absent presence in current organizational life where “thinking for a living” (Davenport, 2005) is the dominant mode of production.

Influenced by recent work in philosophy, the humanities, and the critical social sciences, organizational studies are now in the process of moving away from the body as a container and distinguishing other ways of conceptualizing the body. This PhD project contributes to this movement in organizational studies, exploring the role of embodiment in knowledge-based organizations. It will do so by starting with what different, specific and living bodies experience in the relation with their environment.