Spaces that Matter: Gender In/visibility, Materiality and the Poetics of Organizational Space

1. Spaces that Matter: Gender In/visibility, Materiality and the Poetics of Organizational Space Melissa Tyler

2. Two moments of auto-ethnography … • ‘Workplaces matter to the ways in which we have to negotiate our gender identities at work’ (Halford and Leonard, 2006: 54, emphasis added). • Reflecting on our own ‘unprofessional and anti-feminist’ workspaces. • Recognising ourselves in Sofia Hulten’s video installation Grey Area.

3. Sofia Hulten’s Grey Area

4. Gender performativity, space and organization … • Butler’s (1988, 1993, 2000, 2004) analysis of the body as a site on which gender is ‘made to matter’. • Feminist accounts of a feminine mode of embodied spatiality (Gregson and Rose, 2000; Young, 2005). • Analyses of organizational space focusing on spatial control and resistance, and more phenomenological approaches to space as ‘media of meaning construction’ (Hancock, 2006). • Dale’s (2005) social materiality of organizational space. • Lefevbre’s (1991) account of the production of space. • Bachelard’s (1964) ‘poetics of space’.

5. Lefevbre’s (1991) spatial trialectics • Spatial practice– perceived space (routines and networks). • Representations of space– conceived space (planned, divided and engineered space). • Representational space– lived space (mediated, inhabited space, lived through symbols and images, dominated but reappropriated, projected space).

6. Researching Grey Areas … • Inspired by O’Neill’s (2002) work on ‘ethno-mimesis’ our intention was to use the images to ‘move’ respondents. • We sought to create a self-reflexive ‘space’. • University life is characterised by ‘a range of practices which render women’s participation undervalued, unrecognised and marginalized, leading to an overwhelming feeling of Otherness’ (Ramsay and Letherby, 2006: 26).

7. Living and working in Grey Areas • Spatial matters recurred in our group discussions of Hulten’s Grey Area and in the interviews that we carried out following these discussions. • Although not discrete categories, we describe these recurring themes as: spatial politics, representational spaces, spatial embodiment and the management of spatial boundaries.

8. Spatial politics • Spatial constraint/containment. • Play/re-appropriation – refusing to be negated. • Gendered allocations of space and status. • Perceived entitlement to space. • In/visibility: spatial negation / over-exposure. • ‘Space invaders’.

9. Representational Spaces • Resistance to institutionalisation. • ‘Bounded re-appropriation’. • The ‘contained presence’ of significant others. • Performing representational space for others. • Performative, ‘valorised’ spaces. • The research as a ‘reflexive’ space.

10. Spatial embodiment • Body consciousness in space. • Contained/constrained embodiment. • Exposure/vulnerability. • Presentation/performance of bodies in space.

11. The management of spatial boundaries • Fracture/fragmentation. • Dislocation – being an outsider/not belonging. • Spatial flexibility – surviving on invisibility. • Living and working in ‘grey areas’.

12. Organizational space as (a) gendered matter … • The performance of ‘representational spaces’ (Lefebvre, 1991), ‘valorised’ (Bachelard, 1964) in accordance with the norms of the heterosexual matrix, driven by the desire for recognition as a viable subject (Butler, 1993, 2000, 2004) and the display of competence in ‘gender switching’ (Bruni and Gherardi, 2002). • An important but relatively neglected aspect of the organizational materialization of the gendered self is the performance of ‘spaces that matter’.

13. Where next? … • Time for reflection on the methodology. • Developing our analysis of other emergent themes from the group discussions and interviews, including: age, dress, emotions, and the body. • More research – men, other settings??