Post on 14-Apr-2018
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The Work of Methodologies:
Seminar 2John Schostak
j.schostak@mmu.ac.uk
http://mmu.academia.edu/JohnSchostak
mailto:j.schostak@mmu.ac.ukmailto:j.schostak@mmu.ac.uk7/30/2019 The Work of Methodologies: Seminar 2
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Work as a central concept of radical
research
Christophe Dejours reconceptualises Arendtslabour, work and action division of the keyhuman activities
Arendt: each activity hierarchically organised Labour meeting biological needs
Work using tools, creating a world of artifacts
Action political decision making about what kind ofworld to be created
Dejours: each activity included in work in arelation of equality
Work as a place for the aggregation of powers
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Reconceptualising work (Christophe
Dejours)
The accomplishment of work requires co-operationand the communication of points of view as to itsorganisation, the solution of problems, the purposesof the work
Thus there is a need for a space of discussion
This prefigures public space(democratic)
Work is a form of cooperative living togetherand
prefigures democratic practice
HOWEVER..
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Key theme: creating the good society
but how defined? Creating the public through our powers of
work
Triangulation of voices involved in co-working, which leads to
Legitimisation of forms of organisation, validity and generalisation ofwhat is produced as acts that are characterisable as
Co-relationist (Meillasoux) or as intersubjectivitly shared worlds ofconsciousness (Husserl)
Crossroads of liberalism creates a point of crisis
Inter-view (gaps appear in the view of the real) Intentional networks
Intentionality: directedness towards .. Inscribing Architectures of the social, to produce
The real(s) of social life as a stable structure?
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Anti-democratic strategies managing
theworkof the real Prescribed organisation ofwork
Management by objectives, performance indicators,algorithms, schedules of procedures, measurement ofoutcomes .. new managerialism in the UK public sector
Realities of work precarity and resistance Filling in the gaps taking on responsibility at own risk
Overcoming problems
Threat of the work to rule: manifesting realities of work
The gap between prescription and reality is typically a
source of pain, suffering as work becomes intensified,risky, precarious, results in
The Phantom Public (Lippmann 1927); BehaviouralInsight Unit (UK)
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Body techniques & education
In all these elements of the art of using the human body, the facts ofeducation were dominant. The notion of education could be superimposedon that of imitation. For there are particular children with very strongintuitive faculties, others with weak ones, but all of them go through thesame education, such that we can understand the continuity of the
concatenations. What takes place is prestigious imitation. The child, theadult, imitates actions which have succeeded and which he has seensuccessfully performed by people in whom he has confidence and whohave authority over him. The action is imposed from without, from above,even if it is an exclusively biological action, involving his body. Theindividual borrows the series of movements which constitute it from the
action executed in front of him or with him by others.(Mauss 1973 :73)
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The ideal structure (closed)
From: Schostak, J.F. (2002) Understanding, Designing and Conducting QualitativeResearch in Education. Framing the Project. Open University Press
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The war of the Private and the Public
Neoliberalism dominance of the private Banality of evil Everyday toleration of the intolerable
Crisis of the public Destruction of collective action
Destruction of community under the name of
Big Society
The phantom public (Lippmann 1927)
Theres class warfare, all rightMr Buffett said, but its myclass, the rich class, thats making war, and were winning.
Warren Buffett, was at the time, 3rd richest person in the world
The critical focus is on the role of work in society, inparticular, the dirty work of hard decision makers, machomanagement.
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Co-option of Research and Theory
Economic
Market ideology (greed, competition)
Evolutionary, survival of the fittest
Political
Friend-enemy: Capitalism, Socialism
Enemy within
Socio-psychological
Public relations and the manufacture of consent
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When George Osborne linked the sickening case of Mick Philpott
now jailed for the manslaughter of six of his own children in a
house fire he started to the state of Britain's benefits system, he
knew what he was doing. A student of US politics, he wasdeploying a favoured technique of the American right, honed
during the decades-long culture wars. Dip your hands in the slime
of an episode that stirs revulsion and smear it all over your
opponent. In the role ofWillie Horton the rapist notoriouslyused by Bush the elder to discredit Michael Dukakis enter
Mick Philpott. Message: if you hate him and what he did, then you
ought to hate the "benefits culture" and the Labour party that
supports it.
(Freedland 2013; Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/05/labour-
draw-sting-welfare-or-lose-2015 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Yhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y7/30/2019 The Work of Methodologies: Seminar 2
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Evaluation and the plurality of
Pictures in the mind
Lippmann advocated the manufacture of consentby working on peoples pictures of the world thatthey held in their heads. Drawing on this, Bernays
believed:
Ours must be a leadership democracy administeredby the intelligent minority who know how to
regiment and guide the masses.
(Bernays 1928: 127)
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Dirty work of management
Making hard decisions Cutting corners
Pressuring workers
Making redundancies/lay-offs
Requiring:
Virility (macho management in taking hard desions) notcourage
Toleration of the intolerable Thus a particular kind of subejctivity, subjugation and becoming a
subject-of, is created
What is the dirty work of research, theory and theprofessional? Creating the conditions for predictablebehaviour
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The real structure: a stealth architecture
From: Schostak, J.F. (2002) Understanding, Designing and Conducting Qualitative
Research in Education. Framing the Project. Open University Press
Competing interest
groups
Alternative
practices
Different
resourcing
Unpredictable
outcomes
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Architecture of the social