عنوان

Politics of production? :

Number

TLets540364

Title Proper

Politics of production? :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Contu, Alessia

Title Proper by Another Author

working, learning and organizing in a new media company

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Manchester

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2004

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Manchester

Text preceding or following the note

2004

Text of Note

This thesis developed from various concerns and debates I have beenfollowing in the past few years in social and political theory, in particular thework of Ernesto Laclau with Chantal Mouffe, and that of Slavoj Zizek, andwhat I call the social theory of hegemony. It also concerns the debates in theacademic arena that go under the term of critical organisation andmanagement studies (COMS); in particular the questioning of traditionalepistemology, ontology and politics, for example, with the discursive turn, andthe critical realist "answer" to this questioning. And it also concerns research Ihave conducted for three years in a digital multimedia company in the north ofEngland.In this thesis I articulate all these terms in a way that engages with, andcontributes to, the discussion on new forms of working (project-basedteamwork) and organising (fluid, heterarchical and anarchic nature of work) inthe knowledge societies; subjectivity at work (including managerialsubjectivity) of highly committed professionals who are entrepreneurial, cool,creative and egalitarian but show how this is "not-all" by elaborating andunravelling on issues of resistance and consent at work.I articulate a position that by addressing politics of production as a questionand recuperating its most radical political inspiration, illustrates "what does notfit" - senseless signifiers that show the negativity and limit of social relations,signifiers that return to us the trauma and violence constituting the workplaceof our liberal capitalist democracies. More broadly, I argue for the im/possibleplace of the critique of ideology and the recuperation of illusion and fantasy aspolitical categories.

Contu, Alessia

University of Manchester

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

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