Title: Gendered incorporations: critically embodied reflections on the gender divide in organisation studies

Authors: David Knights; Torkild Thanem

Addresses: Bristol Centre for Leadership and Organizational Ethics (BCLOE) Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK. ' Stockholm University School of Business, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 STOCKHOLM, Sweden

Abstract: Challenging yet extending extant efforts in organisation studies to disrupt the gender divide, we develop an embodied account to more fundamentally dissolve the binaries that divide conventional forms of female and male embodiment. Despite a proliferation of literature on the body and emotion in sociology and organisation studies, it is our view that much of it remains deeply disembodied, treating the body pretty much like any other sociological phenomenon, i.e., as a mere object of study. In seeking to dissolve the gender divide, we incorporate a number of vignettes in an attempt to write our own bodies into the text. While reflecting about our own masculine (David and Torkild) and transgender (Torkild) embodiment, we critically discuss how transgender, in particular, may constitute a vehicle for challenging and disrupting the gender divide.

Keywords: binaries; female embodiment; male embodiment; emotion; masculinity; transgender; gender divide; organisation studies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2011.045963

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 2011 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.217 - 235

Published online: 23 Mar 2012 *

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