Interpreting the Maternal Organization (Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development, 4)

RECTO RUNNING HEAD

Interpreting the Maternal Organisation

This is the first organisational theory book to deal explicitly with the maternal aspects of organisation. Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in emotion in organisations, in diversity, ethics, care and the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. These concerns however, have consistently been reduced to issues of management and regulation. There is now a growing need to confront issues related to the dehumanisation of organisations. This book brings a number of such issues together, presenting an original construction of the organisation via an emphasis on the (m)other. This book is not a feminist tract, nor is it primarily about the experiences of women in organisations. Rather, it argues that conventional representations of the organisation are patriarchal, masculine, directed by the animus and that such representations reduce the notion of an ‘organisation’ to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour. In various ways, the notion of the ‘maternal organisation’ subverts the dominant social discourse of the organisation, challenging order, rationality and patriarchal regulation. What this contributes to organisational theory is the capacity to make transparent the effects of the production of meaning, to render explicit the paternalistic quest of the organisation, and to make problematic the notion of trajectory, strategy and purpose. This challenging book will be of essential interest to all critical management theorists. With its innovative, unconventional approach, it will also appeal to students, teachers, and all those looking for an approach to management that does justice to the complexity, ambivalence and violence of the organisation. Heather Höpfl is Professor of Organisational Psychology and Head of the School of Operational Analysis and HR at the University of Northumbria, UK. She is an Adjunct Professor of the University of South Australia, and holds visiting professorships in both Poland and the UK. She is a Fellow of the British Academy of Management and a former Chair of the Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism (SCOS). She is, with Stephen Linstead, editor of the journal Culture and Organisation, and has published both books and articles on critical approaches to organisations. Monika Kostera is Professor in Management and Organization Theory at Warsaw University, Poland. She is a visiting professor at a number of institutions, including Northumbria University, UK and Växjö University, Sweden. She has published articles in journals such as Organisation, Organization Studies, and Qualitative Sociology among others, and has published books in Polish and English.

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Author

Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development Edited by Monica Lee Lancaster University

HRD theory is changing rapidly. Recent advances in theory and practice, in how we conceive of organisations and of the world of knowledge, have led to the need to reinterpret the field. This series aims to reflect and foster the development of HRD as an emergent discipline. Encompassing a range of different international, organisational, methodological and theoretical perspectives, the series promotes theoretical controversy and reflective practice. 1 Policy Matters Flexible learning and organizational change Edited by Viktor Jakupec and Robin Usher 2 Science Fiction and Organization Edited by Warren Smith, Matthew Higgins, Martin Parker and Geoff Lightfoot 3 HRD and Learning Organisations in Europe Challenges for professionals Edited by Saskia Tjepkema, Jim Stewart, Sally Sambrook, Martin Mulder, Hilde ter Horst and Jaap Scheerens 4 Interpreting the Maternal Organisation Edited by Heather Höpfl and Monika Kostera

Also available from Routledge: Action Research in Organisations Jean McNiff, accompanied by Jack Whitehead Understanding Human Resource Development A research-based approach Edited by Jim Stewart, Jim McGoldrick, and Sandra Watson

Chapter title

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Frontispiece Motherhood. © Kasia Korzeuiecka (printed here with permission)

Interpreting the Maternal Organisation

Edited by

Heather Höpfl and Monika Kostera

London and New York

First published 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 2003 Selection and editorial material, Heather Höpfl and Monika Kostera; individual chapters, the authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-21655-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-27274-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–28574–7 (Print Edition)

Contents

List of figures Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Maternal organisation: deprivation and denial

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HEATHER HÖPFL

2 Who’s afraid of mothers?

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BARBARA POGGIO

3 The uniting mother and the body of the organisation

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IIRIS AALTIO AND MINNA HIILLOS

4 Organisation as body-in-contact

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INGRID MOLDEREZ

5 Metaphors of the mother

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SUSANNE TIETZE

6 The motherhood of the road: from Paradise Lost to Paradise

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JES SICA ENEVOLD

7 Maiden, Mother, Mistress, Monster: controlled and uncontrolled female power and the curse of the body in the early Victorian novel – implications of historical stereotyping for women managers

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ANDRENA TELFORD

8 The mother and the masquerade: Elizabeth – whole or unholy woman? BRID ANDREWS

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Contents

9 Images of Madonna and fugue: a microscopic interlude

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KL AUS HARJU

10 Postmodernisms of pregnancy

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MARIA LETICHE AND HUGO LETICHE

11 Foetus on screen

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LEENA ERÄSAARI

12 Triptychs of curating: conversations with mothers of the in-between

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PIERRE GUILLET DE MONTHOUX

13 Beyond the fetishism of the mother: a remark on the event as folded effects

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MARTIN FUGLSANG

14 Space and silence

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MONIKA KOSTERA

Index

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Figures

Frontispiece 0.1 0.2 1.1 1.2 2.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 8.1 9.1 9.2 10.1–10.6 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 12.1 13.1 13.2 14.1 14.2 14.3 Endpiece

Motherhood Florrie Turnross Heather Höpfl’s office staff Heather’s mother, Edna Heather and her boys Barbara Poggio’s twins Minna’s grandmother Ingrid and Jasper Susanne Tietze – a tomboy Eileen’s mum with her big sister Eileen’s mum on a night out Jessica drives A wet road in New Mexico Jessica’s mother Andrena age 6 Brid’s mother Klaus and his parents Klaus and his mother Maria Letiche’s drawings Female power in Finland ‘When I went to the ultrasound screening’ Grandma and the twins by Eskil Grandma and the twins by Aada Pierre Guillet de Monthoux Mrs Bridget Yates Martin’s White Wall Monika’s mother, Krystyna Monika in Stockholm aged 8 Monika in 2001 Lindsay and family

iv xvi xxiv 2 7 14 28 48 64 67 72 83 91 92 105 122 138 146 173 179 181 183 183 196 218 219 225 227 228 235

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Contributors

Iiris Aaltio (earlier Aaltio-Marjosola) studies the complex crossing issues between culture, management and gender. Her university background is in business administration and organisational psychology. She took an active part in SCOS organisation and conferences while preparing her doctoral thesis ten years ago. She is mother of two adult sons, Heikki and Jaakko. Among her recent work is the co-edited book Gender, Identity and the Culture of Organizations, and she is also guest editor, together with two colleagues, of a special issue of the journal Culture and Organization. She has been Professor of Management at the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland, since 1997. Brid Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Film at Bolton Institute. She trained as a teacher of theatre and film at Reading University and taught for several years in schools. Since joining Bolton Institute she has been developing degree courses in both theatre and film studies. Her interests include contemporary performance theory, psychoanalytic film theory and theatre production. Jessica Enevold Madesdotter is a Doctoral Candidate in English at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Blekinge Institute of Technology at Karlskrona, Sweden. She is currently a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Department of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA finishing her doctoral thesis on the transformation of the ‘road genre’ from masculinist buddy road trip to feminist voyage of the female ‘I’. Focusing on mobility and generic regendering she investigates the narratives of the road from Exodus to the road movie. She also studies popular culture phenomena such as ‘girl power’ and along similar paths explores the virtual subjectivity of what she calls ‘power girls’ and their movements in the new media. Her mom, Madeleine, is such a power girl, as are/were her grandmothers, who at fifty changed their lives in new automobile directions; Mariana emigrated to Spain, and Lillena got her driving license. Her article is dedicated to all three of them – they rock. Leena Eräsaari is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Tampere. Her research interests concentrate on the institutions of the public sector, quite

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often from the viewpoint of gender. Her PhD, published in 1995, is entitled, Encounters at Bureaucratic Stages. She uses a mixture of (auto)biographies and symbolic interactionism as well as other symbolic approaches. Her daughter Jenny co-works with her translating video-recordings into drawings and comic strips. Pondering on the visual data has led her to reflect on issues related to ultrasound screenings in prenatal health care as the chapter ‘Fetus on Screen’ suggests. The visual images in the article are have been drawn by her daughter. One comes from a letter she wrote while trying to recover from the shock of getting to know that she was having twins. The other visual image is also made by Jenny and refers to a painting in the illustrated Kalevala, the epic saga of the Finns. Martin Fuglsang – Writing has nothing to do with reminiscence, even though every author has a tendency to experience it as such, since the author is a noun and thereby reminiscence itself has this very dull and tedious habit to see itself as the primary cause of every enunciation. This, in spite of the fact that the author and the reminiscence only are external consequences of a writing-becoming-excrements taking the form of a blithering subject, whose actual cause always is the minimum real unit. The assemblage or, if one prefers, the infinite murmur of language, that white, white surface moving by the decrease or the increase of speed; this is writing as intensity! Therefore the only thing to say is that Martin Fuglsang is institutionalised and stratified as an Associate Professor in Organisational Philosophy, at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School and has written some books and, a number of articles regarding different themes, of which the only seemingly common ground is a favouring of the mother tongue, even though the writing occasionally finds itself in this fashion of ‘Remarks’, in this very language. Pierre Guillet de Monthoux holds a chair in general management at Stockholm University, Sweden, where he heads the ECAM (European Centre for Art and Management) research group investigating links between art and management. His work is partly supported by project FLOW financed by the Swedish National Bank tricentenary foundation for social science research. Professor Guillet conducts experiments in art and business links in Berlin, Geneva and Nice and is a research fellow at the Åbo Academy Finland and Universität Witten-Herdecke, Germany, Universität Innsbruck, Austria and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Eileen Hagan is the Senior Administrator for the School of Operations Analysis and HRM, Newcastle Business School, UK. Eileen has worked at the university for over twenty years and enjoys what she does. She is in charge of an office of five other staff, has been happy to be involved in the production of this book and to see it come to fruition. She teaches IT to adult education students and is married to David.

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Notes on contributors

Margit Harju had only one child, Klaus, who is currently Acting Assistant Professor at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland. He is interested in philosophy of management and organisation and particularly fond of his five-year-old son Axel. Minna Hiillos, born 1962 in Finland, worked first with management development and then had two chidren in a row. Her daughter Sara was born in 1993 and Santeri, a boy, in 1994. Imagining that a job in academia would offer better possibilities to combine work and family life, she started teaching and preparing a PhD at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki. She is now a doctoral student and still in quest of a balance between the two spheres of life. Her main interests are emotions in organisations, HRM, and gender studies. Heather Höpfl was brought up in Runcorn, a chemical town in the north west of England in the 1950s. She lived with her grandparents, Florrie and William Turnross, who selflessly looked after her until she left home to go to Bristol in 1967. She studied Business and Management and specialised in Operational Research. After that she worked in R&D in an engineering company and then became a teacher. She was awarded her PhD from the Management School, Lancaster University. With the help of her supervisor, Sylvia Shimmin and her examiner, Marie Jahoda, produced her first text with a thesis on ‘The Subjective Experience of Time’ in 1982. Her partner, Ken, the father of her first child, George, was killed in a road accident in 1986. She then met and, in 1989, married Dr Harro Höpfl, a political theorist. They have a son Maximilian born in 1989. She is currently Professor of Organisational Psychology and Head of the School of Operations Analysis and HRM at Newcastle Business School. She greatly values the support of her colleagues, is amazed by her children, and is grateful that her husband is long suffering and enjoys cooking. Monika Kostera, daughter of Krystyna and Józef, grand-daughter of Weronika and Jan on the maternal side, and Julianna and Stanisl⁄ aw on the paternal side. I am Professor in management and organisation theory and I like ethnography, aesthetics and spirituality of organising. I explore a variety of organisational experiences: from Polish state-owned enterprises to the emerging museum of Polish–Jewish history and culture. Heather Höpfl has inspired me very much since the day we met in June 1994, as a person and as an author. I am grateful to her for the possibility to participate in the mothering of this book. Hugo Letiche is ISCE Professor of ‘Meaning in Organisation’ at the University for Humanist Studies Utrecht. He is Director of the UvH’s DBA/PhD program and coordinates the MA in ‘Process Consulting.’ He teaches organisation and ethics at the Rotterdam School of Management. Of late he has written on

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complexity theory, organization and gender, postmodernism and the aesthetics of organising. His work on ‘serious play’ is in conjunction with the Imagination Lab, Lausanne. Currently he is working on a book on ‘emergence and coherence’ and one on ‘care and healthcare organisation’. Recent articles have appeared in the Journal of Organizational Change Management, Gender Work and Organization, Emergence and Consumption Markets and Culture. Maria Letiche is visiting lecturer in ‘Art, Creativity and Organisation’ at the University of Northumbria, UK. She has had recent exhibitions at the Ministry of Transport (The Hague, Netherlands), the Beurs van Berlage (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Gallery Arteforum (Voorburg, The Netherlands) and Gallery Victoria (Naples, Florida USA). Her work includes drawings of the human nude and abstract canvases. Prior to devoting all her working time to her art, she lectured in art education at the VL–VU Amsterdam. She has her BA from Nijmegen University in pedagogics, an MEd from the Nutsseminarium, University of Amsterdam and artistic training from the Art Academy Amsterdam. Lindsay McCulloch is Heather Höpfl’s personal secretary. She is the contact person for a wide range of activities from conference organisation to publishing. Lindsay looks after Heather Höpfl’s diary which is not as easy as it might sound. She spends a great deal of time sorting out travel plans for Heather and the staff. She has recently started work on her Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies and is finding it interesting to see what life is like from the other side of the desk. Ingrid Molderez, born in 1966, wished to be married before her thirties and to be a mother after completing a PhD and before the age of 35. It all happened without a major setback. Theo De Vriendt has been her husband since 1995. He was with her when she was doing an MA in Social Theory and Organisation at Keele University, UK, in 1995–1996. Her PhD in Management was obtained in 1999 at Limburg University, Belgium. Baby boy Jasper was born in 2001. She is now lecturer at EHSAL Business School, Brussels, which is associated with Leuven University. Her main interest has remained the same all these years – sustainability. That concerns her research as well as her social life. Barbara Poggio works in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at Trento University, Italy. She is interested in gender and organisation studies and in narrative analysis. She has only just become the mother of two gorgeous twins, Cecilia and Gaia. Their first cries were the soundtrack of the last revisions to the chapter presented in this book. Their birth represents an interesting challenge to the work and academic careers of Barbara and her husband, Alberto, who are now both trying to find a new and fair balance between family and work. For Barbara, whose doctorate looked at the relationship between family and work events, this is a chance to learn by doing.

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Notes on contributors

Andrena Telford is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Operations Analysis and Human Resource Management, Newcastle Business School, at the University of Northumbria. With a first degree in English and History from Bishop’s University, Québec, and a Master’s degree in literature (specialising in the nineteenth-century novel) from Edinburgh University, she survived a brief but lively stint of secondary school teaching. Her doctoral research, begun at Oxford and completed many years later at Durham, was on ‘Community Education and the Conflict of Ideals in the History of English Adult Education.’ Her current research brings together, in a richly satisfying way, both her early fascination with the novel and her more recent interest in women and organisations. Andrena has been married for 31 years to Dr Bill Telford, a Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Newcastle University. They are both interested in the cinema and the relevance of film depictions to their respective areas of research. Susanne Tietze believes that organisations have seen more fathers and patriarchs than is good for them, but sees no reason to replace them with matriarchs. Rather, she thinks that organisations need more ‘mothering’ and ‘fathering’. Her personal family background was father and mother to such beliefs. Susanne is a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University where she teaches and researches. Her primary interest is in the blurring of boundaries between cultural categories such as work and home, public and private, work values and family values.

Preface

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Acknowledgements

The editors would like to gratefully acknowledge a number of people who have made the publication of this book possible. First, Professor Yiannis Gabriel of Imperial College, London, whose sensitive and generous reading of the outline of the book provided the editors with the encouragement and affirmation to carry the idea through to completion. We would like to thank Professors Zygmunt Bauman, Gerda Roper, Richard Weiskopf, Georg Schreyoegg and Jim Cashman for their support and kindness to us both. Thanks also go to Nigel van Zwanenberg, Ron Beadle, Antoni Oz˙yn´ski, Ulla Johansson, Alison Linstead and Wendelin Keupers for being the sort of people they are. Special thanks go to Andrena Telford for reading and advising on some of the papers from non-native English speakers and to Harro Höpfl for his valiant attempts on others. Thanks also to Eileen Hagan for her unstinting commitment to the completion of the manuscript and to Lindsay McCulloch whose efforts brought all the bits together at the right time. The editors would also like to thank Richard Pears from Information Services at Northumbria University who has been gallant in helping with missing references and citations. We are grateful to Joe Whiting and Annabel Watson at Routledge and also to Dr Richard Willis of Swales and Willis for all the various ways in which they have helped us to complete this project. Finally, given the scope of this book, we would like to thank our respective mothers, Edna and Krystyna and those closest to us, Harro, George and Max and Jerzy. Finally, we remember Florrie Turnross, to whose goodness this book is dedicated.

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Figure 0.1 Florrie Turnrose 1902–1978, Heather Höpfl’s grandmother, to whose goodness this book is dedicated.

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Introduction

The idea for this book came from a paper which I presented in Warsaw in 1997. The occasion was the annual conference of the Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism in 1997, which had as its theme ‘The Empty Space’ (Kociatkiewicz and Kostera 1999). The conference was inspired and organised by a committee set up by Monika Kostera at the Academy of Entrepreneurship. My paper, ‘On Being Moved’, had as its point de départ a painting of Aloysius of Gonzaga which is to be found in the church of the Sacred Heart in Budapest. Broadly, the paper dealt with compassion and caring and their absence from organisations in the face of purposive rationality. I had also tried to deal with the rhetorical construction of organisational values as a travesty of compassion and caring. The paper attempted to offer an alternative notion of the matrix, of matrix structures, and of categorical closure in structures where the primary concern is with location and place. One of the notable issues which this piece raised was the idea that without an image of the mother, the organisation denies the pain of labour, with all appropriate connotations of these terms in play (Höpfl 2000; Tietze 2002). The textual matrix becomes a mechanism for male reproduction and regulation. The human matrix (uterus) is subordinated to this control. After the conference, Monika and I began to look at these issues in practice. The absence of maternal imagery and the absence of compassion, the loss of contact with the notion of the organisation as a collectivity or community. These ideas helped to guide the construction of the book. It is not a feminist tract in the conventional understanding of the term. It does, however, and against those who would criticise it for its implicit essentialism, offer a notion of the feminine which, following Kristeva (1987), argues for a new discourse of maternity which brackets both men and women in their ability, indeed responsibility, to understand the nature of the other by a recognition of ‘the other within’. The book has been a great pleasure to work on and has brought together a range of perspectives and interests. It was always intended that we would take literally the challenge to restore the body to the text, albeit representationally, by remembering images of the mother, children and ourselves within the text. This part of the production has proved both heartening and poignant. All the contributors including the two administrators, my secretary Lindsay McCulloch

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and the senior administrator for the School, Eileen Hagan, have contributed images of one sort or another. Even Martin Fuglsang who famously responded, ‘no cats, children, daughters . . . just a white wall’ offered us his space for inclusion. Some of the images that have been selected convey their own sadness: some joy. The images are in the main presented with little or no explanation. However, they hold a privileged place in the construction of this book as a recognition of how the text stands in relation to real people, with real bodies, real lives. The editors are grateful to the contributors for the spirit which they have brought to bear on the production of this work. We are especially grateful to Professor Yiannis Gabriel, Imperial College, London, for his generous spirit, his support, encouragement and perceptive comments. The academic world is richer for his like. This book argues that conventional representations of the organisation are patriarchal, masculine, directed by the animus, and that such representations reduce the notion of ‘organisation’ to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour. In contrast, this book seeks to restore the (m)other to the text and to examine the organisation as embodied experience. In organisational terms, the strategic direction of the organisation involves the construction of the organisation as a purposive entity with a trajectory towards a desired future. Consequently, organisational change as an indicator of movement towards this future is about the way in which such a desired state can be reached. In such movement in the organisation, the action takes precedence over the individual and any ambivalence experienced by the individual about the purpose of the action must be concealed. This book seeks to privilege the individual by giving emphasis to what is here termed, with appropriate qualification and explanation, ‘the maternal organisation’ as an emergent paradigm of organisation and by giving primacy to embodied experience. Of course, there are any number of ways in which the organisation constructs itself in textual and representational terms: the explicit use of rhetoric in marketing the products and images of organisations is one such construction. It is also present in the construction of statements, strategies and structures, in its use of representation for regulation. The fundamental characteristic of the organisation as a purposive entity is its directedness and, clearly, there is a relationship between the direction (as orientation) and direction (as command) of the organisation and the rhetorical trajectory. In a specific sense, the organisation as a rhetorical entity wants something of the employee, the customer, the competitor, the supplier, the general public. It requires that its representations – images and texts – are received as convincing by its various audiences. Organisations are replete with images of their founding fathers. In committee rooms and corridors, in brochures and leaflets, in the actuality of the organisation and in its representations, the images of great men are all around us. The message, both tacit and explicit, is the same: justify yourself, work harder, show improvement, move forward, achieve. Recent years have seen the elaboration of the rhetoric of organisational change in support of these exhortations, directed towards employees as a need for the pursuit of greater commitment, improved performance, invocations to quality and in the construction of ornate narratives of organisational performances.

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In contrast, the maternal organisation is concerned with the very ambivalence which is concealed and regulated by the organisation as text and phallocentric quest. This book is an attempt to restore the ambivalent voice by taking its starting point from the equivocality of embodied experience rather than from representational views of the organisation as models, abstract relationships and textual matrices. Consequently, the book seeks to render problematic the construction of the organisation as a phallocentric pattern of relationships and to disturb assumptions about the purposiveness of the organisation as a representational entity. In putting together the book, we have sought to encourage the contributors to bring to the text something of the personal – some photographs of themselves as children, their mothers, their own children, aunts, sisters and so on. In the course of putting the book together a number of children were born and some of them enter the text in their own right. This is a text of organisation which has sought to remember the body in this way. Here, the authors are remembering themselves as human beings and not presenting themselves as human resources. At the same time, the book is a piece of collaboration that extends beyond those who have contributed text and so the administrators and office staff are rightly accorded a full place in the production: their mothers and sisters are also to be found in the book. Indeed, there has been a kinship in the production of the book which we have tried to show. In various ways, the notion of the maternal organisation subverts the dominant social discourse of the organisation to challenge order, rationality and patriarchal regulation. What this contributes to organisational theory is the capacity to make transparent the effects of the production of meaning, to render explicit the paternalistic quest of the organisation and to make problematic the notion of trajectory, strategy and purpose. So by dealing with the construction of the organisation as maternal, the book seeks to break the body of the text in order to allow reflections on the mother/ motherhood/maternal imagery to enter the text. Thus, the embodied subject speaks of division, separation, rupture, tearing, and blood whereas the text of the organisation speaks of regulation and representation, of rational argument and rhetorical trajectory. By breaking the text, the implications of ‘the sterile perfectionism’ of the patriarchal consciousness (Dourley 1990: 51) is made transparent. So, the book stands against the way in which conventional accounts of management are presented, poses alternative ways of understanding organisation and offers insights into the organisation as embodied experience. The book is the first management/organisational theory text to deal explicitly with the organisational discourse of maternity. The very fact that the term is unsettling is evidence enough of its significance. The book takes the view that the questing behaviour of the organisation is essentially male and, at heart, arises from an attempt to restore, recover or, in some accounts, appease, the mother. Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in the emotion in organisations, in diversity, ethics, care, and, of course, the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. However, the concern has invariably reduced to issues of management and regulation, to capture via regulatory matrices, taxonomies and proliferating classifications systems. Ironically, those who confirm their

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commitment to the ‘real world’ engage almost entirely in metaphysics moving more and more into mere abstractions which are disconnected from their implications. However, there is a need to deal with issues related to the dehumanisation of organisations and to confront aspects of asymmetrical imagery. This book seeks to bring these issues together to present an original construction of the organisation via an emphasis on the (m)other. The book is introduced by Heather Höpfl’s chapter, ‘Maternal organisation: deprivation and denial’, which uses the space opened up by Kristeva’s (1987) Tales of Love, in order to identify the place where the various chapters in this book are located, that is, between the Body and the Law: between embodied experience and its regulation. Consequently, this chapter introduces some of the themes which are explored in the collection: bearing and carrying, the contest for control of the matrix, the notion of the boundary and estrangement, physicality, the journey, the pain of labour and so forth. In particular, this chapter describes a space between the representational and the corporeal, a site of performance, a site of ambivalence and a site of potential: ‘the catastrophic-fold-of-“being” ’ between the Body and the Law (Kristeva 1987: 248–9). This is followed by a chapter by Barbara Poggio, ‘Who’s Afraid of Mothers’, in which she examines the representation of motherhood in organisations and the hostility which is attached to such representation. Drawing on Jungian archetypes to explore her theme, Poggio offers a range of theoretical observations on why the mother is cast in such a way, why the mother as an emblem in organisational life is feared and the implications for organisations of this construction. Iiris Aaltio and Minna Hiillos bring the themes from the two previous chapters together in an insightful analysis, ‘The uniting mother and the body of the organisation’. This chapter discusses the notion of the mother archetype in work-life and its role as a cipher for harmonisation, nourishment and caring. Like Tietze and Poggio, Aaltio and Hiillos discuss why mothering is not considered to be appropriate in a business context. In their analysis they point to the problem of the organisation without a mother: to the lack of physicality and the lack of care, to the pervasive sense of loss and the relentless questing for perfection. Ingrid Molderez, in her chapter, ‘Organisation as body-in-contact’, starts to explore this space and to articulate it through the notion of the body-in-contact and the concept of ‘hand-made space’ (Fisher 1991). Her chapter gives specific emphasis to the body as an organism and to the relationship between this and the way in which organisation is perceived. Consequently, she argues that tactility and physicality are means of moving against the privileging of the visual and the speculative in the conception of organisation (cf. Irigaray 1985). Susanne Tietze, in her ‘Metaphors of the mother’, discusses how the concept of mother and motherhood unfolds in the metaphorical use of language in organisations. She takes the view that ‘the very essence of being a mother is problematic in modern organisations’ and seeks to explore the implications of this for organisational life. In particular, she gives attention to the construction of the abject and puts forward the argument that organisations need to have some notion of the mother if they are to care for and nurture their members.

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This is a theme which Jessica Enevold takes further in her analysis of the relationship between movement and motherhood, ‘The motherhood of the road’. The chapter explores the ‘quest for a place of rest’ within the Judaeo– Christian tradition and draws on literary examples to support her case. Enevold introduces two original concepts to uphold her analysis, ‘materotopology’ and ‘materotopia’ which she uses to discuss the nature of loss, to map a place of arrival, to describe a locus amoenus. Andrena Telford’s study, ‘Maiden, mother, mistress, monster’, also takes a literary standpoint. Her examination of the portrayal of women in the Victorian novel and the contemporary parallel of this leads to an assessment of the use of stereotypes of women managers. In her chapter she seeks to draw attention to ‘deeply-embedded assumptions and prejudices which permeate our thinking about men and women . . . and male and female approaches to management’. In ‘The mother and the masquerade: Elizabeth – whole or unholy woman’, Brid Andrews looks at the award winning film, Elizabeth, in order to explore the relationship between woman and motherhood from a psycho-analytical perspective and to make some observations on Germaine Greer’s (1999) book, The Whole Woman. Starting from an examination of the notion of the Virgin Queen as a ‘phallic, castrating woman/mother rather than as the reassuring figure of the “masquerading daughter” ’, to Elizabeth married to England, she moves to an image of Elizabeth I as the Madonna, mother to her people and discusses the implications of this imagery. Andrews concludes with an examination of the contemporary status of the mother in social life. The theme of the Madonna is taken up by Klaus Harju in ‘Images of Madonna and fugue’, who, by omitting the definite article, leaves the term [the] Madonna ambiguous – the pop star/the Mother of God – and looks at the position of Madonna in Christian history and, in particular, looks at the tectonic aspects of this for management and organisation. So, he observes, ‘the pietà, the passionate devotion and nurturing of Madonna is absent in the praxis of management’. Consequently, he argues, management is insecure (L. sine cura), in other words, in the pejorative sense of being without care, careless. Management lacks compassion. The chapter which follows looks at caring in the context of pregnancy and its representation. ‘Postmoderisms of pregnancy’ by Hugo Letiche and Maria Letiche offers a comparison of the modernist representation of the pregnant body in a series of drawings by Maria Letiche with the post-modern depiction of pregnancy in the work of Cindy Sherman. In the chapter, the authors explore the lines which define the pregnant body in Maria Letiche’s drawings against the contrived and ambivalent imagery of the Sherman representations which, on the pretext of destabilising a conventional image, become part of a displacement which distorts the physical and privileges the representational. In Harju’s terms, Sherman’s images are deliberately insecure with all the implications that this observation carries. The chapter examines the implications of this analysis for the perception of organisation in performance and performance metrics.

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Pregnancy is the theme of Leena Eräsaari’s chapter, ‘Foetus on screen’. This chapter addresses the relationship between the physical body and its mediated representation via medical technology in presenting the mother with the image of her unborn child. The chapter examines the implications for the mother of the ability to assess the viability of her unborn child and the power relations in which this ability resides. In part, the chapter is a study of the moral implications of foetal diagnostics and issues concerning the control of the maternal body. As such, the chapter has interesting links with the chapter by Hugo and Maria Letiche in that it looks at the regulation of the representation of pregnancy and, therefore, throws light on the depiction of attributes of the mother in organisational life. Pierre Guillet de Monthoux is also concerned with the recurrent theme of caring (L. curare, to care) and what this means for the curator. His chapter, ‘Triptychs of curating’, offers a charming narrative analysis of what it means to ‘care’ for the work of art, to look after a gallery, to manage as someone who cares - in this very specific sense – to be a curator, a carer. This provides an alternative way of understanding the task of management and the protection of resources. Within a book which has sought to flaunt its difference, Martin Fuglsang’s, piece goes further. In ‘Beyond the fetishisms of the mother’, he adopts a position of strenuous recusancy. He will not be conciliated into the text, be drawn into the spaces which have been defined, indeed, resists all definition and capture. Martin Fuglsang’s remarks, his third piece in a quartet of published remarks, is relentless and insistent in its equivocality: a piece to be pondered. As Eliot has it, ‘At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is’. From this simultaneity and simultaneous contradiction, from a space that is full of words which both seek to cohere and seek to dislocate, it is a natural progression to move to the concluding chapter in the book, which deals with silence. In her chapter, ‘Space and silence’, Monika Kostera explores the relationship between space and silence in order to draw attention to the political power of silence and its capacity to subvert the totalising discourse of the organisation. From a starting point which described a space between the Body and the Law, a space which can only be filled with words, this chapter seeks to describe the empty space in terms of silence and empathy, shared experiences and embodied feelings. This is a fitting conclusion and a tentative move towards interiority and a political praxis drawn from an embodied ethical position. Heather Höpfl Newcastle upon Tyne January 2002

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References Dourley, J.P. (1990) ‘The Goddess, Mother of the Trinity’, Lewison: The Edwin Mellen Press. Fisher, P. (1991) Making and Effacing Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Höpfl, H. (2000) ‘On Being Moved’, Studies in Cultures, Organisations and Societies 6(1): 1–122. Kociatkiewicz, Jerzy and Monika Kostera (1999) ‘The anthropology of the empty spaces’, Qualitative Sociology 22(1): 37–50. Irigaray, L. (1985) ‘Speculum of the Other Woman’, trans. G. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kristeva, J. (1987) Tales of Love, trans. L. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press. Tietze, S. (2002) ‘Metaphors of the Mother’, in Interpreting the Maternal Organisation, Höpfl, H. and Kostera, K. (eds), London: Routledge.

Figure 0.2 The office staff of the School of Operations Analysis and Human Resource Management. Top left to right – Sherree Hope, Andrew Ho, Lindsay McCulloch and Hélène Dacres. Bottom left to right – Eileen Hagan and Lesley Mitchell.

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Maternal organisation Deprivation and denial Heather Höpfl

Without an image of the mother, the organisation denies the pain of labour.

The pervasiveness of paternal imagery For one reason or an another, I am a member of the Vice Chancellor’s working group on Fairness and Diversity at the University of Northumbria, UK. Meetings of this group, which are chaired by Professor Monica Shaw, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, are normally held in the University’s Boardroom. This is an impressive room of heavy, polished wood, furniture and chairs which are actually too low for the massive table they encircle. So much so that one always feels small, as if one had happened upon a room furnished by giants. On the walls of the Boardroom are a series of portraits of ‘great men’, dignitaries, previous Vice Chancellors and officers of the University. They variously smile or frown down on the assemblies which meet under their watchful eye. They are irrefutably the founding fathers of the institution. They are all men. This image should not be unfamiliar to academics of other institutions across the world. When I was elected as the new Chair of SCOS in 1995 in Turku in Finland, we had our SCOS Board Meeting in a room at the university not dissimilar to the one I have described above. ‘Great men’ looked down on our deliberations, their tacit approval or disapproval hovering like a spectre over our agenda. These images establish a powerful paternalism which may or may not be benevolent. Moreover, these representations function to regulate and to reinforce a set of values, to remind us of a disciplined regime, to show hierarchy and achievement, to implicitly remind us of our place. They exercise a comfortable and implicit assumption of power. They deprive us of a notion of the mother and of those values which remind us of our common humanity, community and mutuality. When an organisation disposes or, as I will explain later, reconstitutes the image of the mother as a masculine representation, by implication, it denies the pain of labour. As structure and trajectory, organisations do indeed deny the pain of labour or seek to establish it as a property of the alienated province of the individual. The pain of labour is thus abstracted and rendered an abstraction.

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Figure 1.1 Professor Heather Höpfl with her mother Edna Dale, 1948.

An abstract notion This chapter argues that conventional patriarchal representations of the organisation reduce the notion of ‘organisation’ to mere abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour. In this context, organisation is synonymous with regulation and control primarily via definition and location. Organisation then functions in a very specific sense to establish a notion of good order, to establish what is ‘ordinary’ in administrative and managerial practice. In contrast, this chapter seeks to explore ways in which it is possible to restore the (m)other to the text of organisation, to restore the body. Consequently, the chapter considers the contribution of Julia Kristeva and her concern to establish a discourse of maternity and moves from this position to examine conceptions of

Maternal organisation 3 matrix reproduction and conditions of exile. The chapter concludes with the consideration of the implications of these positions for the possibility of the political.

A maternal body . . . Although it concerns every woman’s body, the heterogeneity that cannot be subsumed in the signifier never the less explodes violently with pregnancy (the threshold of culture and nature) and the child’s arrival (which extracts woman out of her oneness and gives her the possibility – but not the certainty – of reaching out to the other, the ethical). Those particularities of the maternal body compose woman into a being of folds, a catastrophe of being that the dialectics of the trinity and its supplements would be unable to subsume. Silence weighs heavily none the less. (Kristeva 1987: 259–60)

Organisation sans peine In organisational terms, the strategic direction of the organisation involves the construction of the organisation as a purposive entity with a trajectory towards a desired future. Consequently, organisational strategy as an indicator of movement towards this future is about the way in which such a desired state can be reached. In such movements, purposive nature of the action takes precedence over the individual and any ambivalence that he or she might experience. The organisation constructs itself in textual and representational terms. These range from the explicit use of rhetoric in marketing its products and images to the more subtle construction of the organisation as a fictive entity in the construction of statements, strategies and structures, and in the use of representation for regulation. The fundamental characteristic of the organisation as a purposive entity is its directedness and, clearly, there is a relationship between the direction (as orientation) and direction (as command) of the organisation and the rhetorical trajectory. In a specific sense, the organisation as a rhetorical entity wants something of the employee, the customer, the competitor, the supplier, the general public. It requires that its representations – images and texts – are received as convincing by its various audiences. Recent years have seen the elaboration of the rhetoric of change as directed towards employees in the pursuit of greater commitment, improved performance, invocations to quality and in the construction of ornate narratives of organisational performances. In such representations, the organisation is an abstract entity removed from the activities of the physical bodies of which it is made up. Without a body, the pain of labour itself becomes an abstraction so that embodied pain is exiled from the organisation as a site of production. For this reason, Kristeva’s work on the discourse of maternity makes an important contribution to the task of restoring the body to the text of organisation. ‘A mother is a continuous separation, a division of the very flesh. And consequently a division of language – and it has always been so’ (Kristeva 1987: 254).

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Abstractions and other erections The notion of a discourse of maternity subverts the dominant social discourse to challenge order, rationality and patriarchal regulation. What this contributes to organisational theory is the capacity to make transparent the effects of the production of meaning, to render explicit the patriarchal quest of the organisation and to make problematic the notion of trajectory, strategy and purpose. Therefore, by presenting the organisation as maternal, the chapter seeks to break the body of the text in order to allow the mother/motherhood/maternal body to enter. Thus, whereas the text of the organisation speaks of regulation and representation, of rational argument, perfect and perfectible relationships and rhetorical trajectory, the embodied subject speaks of division, separation, rupture, tearing, blood and the pain of labour. According to Jung, the pursuit of ‘sterile perfection’ (Dourley 1990: 51) is one of the defining characteristics of patriarchal consciousness. Order and rationality function to exclude the physical. Whitmont puts forward the view that the control of passions and physical needs traditionally have been valorised because they idealise maleness (Whitmont 1991: 243) and gives emphasis to the ‘merely rational’ [italics added] (Whitmont 1991: 243). Organisations then, as expressions of collective expectations, render physicality ‘dirty’ and corrupting. Indeed, the corollary of this emphasis on rationality is a distrust of natural affections and the loss of compassion (Whitmont 1991: 245). Note that the word passion is derived from the Latin (patior) meaning to bear, to suffer, to support, to undergo, to allow, permit, endure and, in an obscene sense, to submit to oneself to another’s lust. Hence, compassion involves a shared suffering, support, endurance and so forth. Without compassion, the organisation cannot admit the suffering that is caused by the pursuit of rationality.

Homologues and ciphers The paternal discourse of organisation, dominated by the rationality and the rejection of dependency, reduces the notion of the maternal to nurturing, domestic and servicing functions. For an organisation the loss of the maternal leaves the questing behaviour of organisations as unrelieved rationality and power motivation. Whitmont argues that historically it has been fear of the feminine, (as disorder or hysteria), which has led to the degradation of women but he also goes on to say that there is a contemporary problem of masculinisation. This he argues has resulted in abstract dogmatic mental attitudes and a sterile and overrationalistic social world (Whitmont 1991: 200). It is precisely in this excessive rationality and the preoccupation with measurement that the issues confronting organisations addressed in this chapter are to be found. Put another way, men never grow out of their boyhood fascination with comparing the size of their equipment (Cozens 1995: 69–71). The totalising discourses of the organisation are precisely totalising because they can never offer completion. They need to be totalising so as to preclude the

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possibility of otherness. Therefore, they seek to exclude and, more precisely, they seek to exclude the possibility of the maternal. This is because the maternal threatens to disrupt the discipline and sterility of the paternal logos. The maternal poses a threat to the logic of the self-serving and totalising narratives of the organisation. At a simplistic level, this is one reason why organisations, as collective expressions of one-dimensional patriarchy, have been keen to turn women into homologues of men. Women who claim that they have never experienced discrimination, career-set backs or other exclusionary practices in their working lives do not perhaps sufficiently reflect on the extent to which they have become mere homologues within the male world of work. However, patriarchy also turns men into ciphers of masculinity through the relentless pursuit of perfectionism and rationality. By containing women within the purposive logic of futurity, organisations as directive entities have sought to defend themselves against the threat posed by their very presence, ambivalence, and physicality. Likewise, men with a healthier balance between their masculine and feminine sides are often regarded as lacking commitment – much in the same way as this is applied to women. Yet, the result of all this purposive striving and collective questing is, nonetheless, an inevitable sterility. This is because the patriarchal logos substitutes words and exhortations and their reproduction as text for bodies, physicality and embodied reproduction. In privileging constructions over experiences, organisations lose contact with their physicality. Consequently, the organisation comes to reproduce itself as text and understand itself in metaphysical terms as the product of its own reproduction.

Paternal reproduction In recent years, organisations have been obsessed with metrics and monitoring. This section of the chapter deals with the matrix. The argument about the matrix has been developed elsewhere (Höpfl 2000a, 2000b). However, it is necessary to represent these ideas in order to draw together the strands of the argument presented above. The matrix, formerly the term used to apply to a female breeding animal and not used to apply to women, in late Latin came to be the term used for the human uterus (Hoad 1986). However, this is not the sense in which we understand the concept of the matrix today. The matrix, as in matrix organisation, matrix algebra, is a term that refers to a set of relationships identified and described by their cellular configuration. Hence, in terms of the purposive rationality of the organisation, represented by phallogocentric discourse, the matrix is indicative of a male logos. The capture of the matrix and its conversion into a space of regulation is easily demonstrated by recourse to any contemporary use of the notion of a matrix as the ordering principle for ideas, locations, positions and so forth. Embodied reproduction is then replaced by the reproduction of text and the fertility of the site is surrendered to the fertility of words and regulation. Consequently, the matrix is regulated so that its cells show location and defining characteristics on the basis of power relations. This power derives from the ability to define, to authorise

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and regulate the site of production. In the substitution of words for the natural products of the matrix, the space itself is regulated, and the reproduction of homologues guaranteed. Men and women in the service of the organisation, reproduce themselves in their own image and, therefore, produce only sons. Embodied reproduction is then replaced by the reproduction of concepts and the fertility of the site is surrendered to the fertility of concepts and theoria. So, the matrix is an instrument of regulation that locates and characterises relationships on the basis of power. The physical matrix reproduces from itself and matter is made incarnate. The appropriated matrix, however, deals on the level of the abstract alone. It is not sufficient but seeks to construct for itself icons of what it experiences as lack. For the paternal matrix, perfection comes from striving. Consequently, the matrix gives birth into a world of obsessive reproduction and insatiable desire. Paternal reproduction arises from the sense of lack that only the acknowledgement of the maternal matrix could satisfy. In other words, the desire behind all striving is for the affirmation of the mother. Hence, to achieve in its desire to build and structure, the paternal matrix is concerned with logic and order and rationality, with location and hierarchy, with allocation and definition. In contrast, the maternal matrix knows in embodied experience and this knowledge is sufficient to itself when it finds expression in embodied action.

Exiled maternity The very fact that the term the maternal body is unsettling is indicative of its subversive significance. The organisation as an abstract entity is not a place for physical bodies that produce menstrual blood, breast milk and maternal smells. The idea of a maternal organisation suggests these very physicalities. However, since the physicality of the real body is too threatening, the lack of the body is compensated for in organisational terms by the construction of a representational body. Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in the emotion in organisations, in diversity, ethics, care, and, of course, the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. However, these concerns have invariably been reduced to issues of management and regulation, to capture via regulatory matrices, taxonomies and proliferating classifications systems. So, for example, the movement from the problem of emotional labour to the secure capture of emotions in the service of organisations occurs over a period of no more than ten years. Similarly, from concerns about the ethical behaviour of companies to the capture of ethical issues within statements of intent again takes no more than ten years to achieve. From issues of quality to statements about quality a similar movement can be seen. There is an ever-increasing concern with cosmetic constructions of perfection and sublime representations of the social world, with mere abstractions which are disconnected from the conditions to which they are supposed to apply: a rigorous and relentless pursuit of order. Diversity is another candidate for this collection and, more recently, we can see the move occurring in discourses of organisations and spirituality. Everything which is other is rendered subservient to rational trajectory and purposive futurity.

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Figure 1.2 Heather Höpfl aged 4 and her children, George (18) and Max (12).

Changing the order of things Julia Kristeva (1941– ) has been one structuralist ideas. In particular, she about the constitution of subjectivity. to restore the body to discourses in

of the most important contributors to post has been influential in advancing theories Of particular relevance here is her concern the social sciences and her interest in the

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maternal. Kristeva’s writings have exerted a significant influence on both feminism and postmodernist ideas. Despite this, Kristeva is not a feminist in the sense that the term is generally understood. Indeed, she has been highly critical of those feminists whom she regards as seeking ‘phallic power’ (Kristeva 1980: 208). She has frequently argued for a ‘new discourse of maternity that acknowledges the importance of the maternal function in the development of subjectivity and culture’ (Oliver 1993: 94–114; cf. Bynum 1982). However, to be clear, she is not arguing for a simple understanding of the maternal function as the province of mothers, women, and the feminine. Rather, she puts forward the view that women and men can fulfil the maternal function. This is an important prolegomena to the argument which follows and has important implications for the contribution of Kristeva’s work to theories of management and organisation. Her work came into prominence in the 1970s via the translation of her articles in journals such as Semiotext(e), Diacritics, Sub-Stance and so forth. From her early days in Paris, she had been particularly influenced by Roland Barthes and his work in semiotics. This concern with semiotics and the implicit regulation of language was significant in terms of the development of Kristeva’s writings although it is clear that she was already formulating a different position. Barthes said of Kristeva that she ‘changes the order of things . . . [that] . . . she subverts . . . the authority of monologic science and filiation’ (Moi 1986: 1). In particular, it is her challenge to order via her work on the maternal body that is considered here.

The stranger’s estrangement A few words concerning Kristeva’s biography help to throw light on the relationship between her experiences, her theorising and her praxis. Kristeva had gone to Paris to study Bakhtin. She had been thoroughly instructed in Marxist theory, spoke fluent Russian and had lived under the constraints of Eastern European communism. She had a formidable intellect, knew Latin and Greek, spoke French, Russian, German, as well as Bolgarian, her mother-tongue Bulgarian, and, at the same time, she carried powerful experiences which, with simplification, one might set against her intellectualism. Clearly such tensions find expression in her ideas and in her writing. She was a foreigner and a foreigner exiled from her native land: estranged from her own country and estranged from the theoretical ideas to which she was exposed. The notion of strangeness/ estrangement was to play an important part in the development of her ideas. At the same time, in the mid-1960s, Kristeva was a woman in the masculine world of French intellectuals. It seems that in virtually every respect Kristeva was confronted by repressive structures, by difference and by estrangement. Yet, it is precisely these experiences which provided the tensions from which her ideas spring. There is also another recurrent theme and one, which in various ways, she has tried to relate to political praxis: the concept of revolution. So, together with estrangement and exile, there is the notion of subversion and revolution in Kristeva’s writing. There is also the border. The border plays an important role in Kristeva’s theorising. Given her background and experiences, this is not particularly surprising. Her concern to examine the borders of subjectivity

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seems, not least, to derive from her own homelessness and exile. And, this must be related to her conception of the maternal body. For Kristeva, the maternal body is an examplar for all subjective relations, of the other within, of the subject-in-process. For this reason alone, it is worth considering the organisation and the maternal body and to examine Tietze’s provocative assertion that the ‘very essence of “being a mother” is problematic in modern organisations, where the emotive is the abject, the pain of labour denied, the jouissance and horrors of intimacy rejected’ (Chapter 5, p. 65). This idea is also explored by Harju in Chapter 9. He looks at the position of the Madonna in Christian history and, in particular, looks at the tectonic aspects of this for management and organisation. So, he observes, ‘the pietà, the passionate devotion and nurturing of [the] Madonna is absent in the praxis of management’. Consequently, he argues, management is insecure (L. sine cura, without care), in other words, careless. Management lacks compassion. However, it does not have to be this way. Medieval monastics, notably but not exclusively Bernard of Clairvaux, frequently described themselves as the mother of the community, described God as mother, ‘it is then you, above all, Lord God, who are mother’ (Anselm’s prayer to St Paul in Bynum 1982: 114–15). The idea of men accepting and valuing their feminine qualities was not considered strange within a community of nurturing. However, there are broader issues here which require careful analysis. Eagleton counsels that while there is an ideal of ‘compassionate community, of altruism and natural affection . . . which represents a threat to rationalism . . . the political consequences of this are ambivalent’ (Eagleton 1990: 60). On the other hand, for the feminine, this site of ambivalence might be the very starting point of a political praxis within the discourse of maternity.

Desire and the absence of consolation In this context, it is not surprising that organisations function at variance to the bodies who work in and for them. Consequently, people in organisations are always struggling with issues that arise from the substitution of textual matrices for physical ones. They are rendered abstract by loss of contact with their physicality as organisations reduce them to categories and metrics. But, from the point of view of the maternal, the position is more serious. In the relentless pursuit of future states, organisations as purposive entities seek to construct for themselves the empty emblems of the object of the quest. In part, this is because the purposiveness is without end and, therefore, the notion of any real completion is antithetical to the idea of trajectory. Strategy gives birth to more strategy, rhetoric to more rhetoric and text to more text and so on. The sublime is never attained. The individual in the organisation is always constituted in unworthiness, always deficient in relation to the constructed sublime. This means that for this questing to continue, the organisation must construct an emblem of the lost object of consciousness. This melancholic gesture restores the illusion of completion but, of course, cannot satisfy and is not intended to satisfy. This is rather similar to the idea put forward by Baudrillard in his critique of rationality in which he argues that the reduction of male and female to

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categories has produced an artificial distinction which objectifies the feminine. By this line of argument, the feminine is now constructed as a category of the masculine and, by implication, the power of the feminine to manifest itself in ambivalence is lost. Baudrillard sees femin-ism, per se, as ensnared within the construction of a phallic order (Baudrillard 1990). In organisational terms, these constructions of the feminine are intended to console in the absence of the hope of restoration. The vicarious and representational has more seductive power than the physical and disordered other. These emblems function as an anamnesis to register the loss as representation. For this reason alone, the emblem of loss is melancholic and pervades the organisation with melancholy. It cannot offer consolation because ironically it can only recall that there is a loss. So, the emblem of the lost object provides a false reassurance that completion can also arise from a construction. So, when an organisation lays claim to caring for its staff, its customers and so forth, it constructs a notion of care which serves its strategic ends. This is how the constructed feminine is produced to assure against loss and it is a travesty. However, logically, it is undeniably male.

The representational feminine is ordered and logical The feminine/ frequently the maternal is constructed in the image of paternal desire to meet the needs of sterile perfectionism and rationality. It is a feminine which in this form is tidy, logical, entirely representation and without power, ambivalence and sexuality. Indeed, it is merely the speculum of the feminine (Irigaray 1985). This is precisely the argument used by Kristeva to explain the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Assumption which became dogma of the Church and parallels the homologation of the ‘other’/‘the feminine’ into the symbolic order (Kristeva 1987: 248–9). The Virgin Mother is a contradiction in terms and constructed as a steril-ised representation of the body of the mother now made safe and deprived of power (Höpfl 2001). In other words, the Virgin Mother, as representation, is the Law, that is to say, synonymous with regulation. So, the organisation constructs itself in diagrams and charts, texts and metrics which seek to uphold the representation of the body but which inevitably achieve a cancellation. It is not surprising then that notions of quality and care and the ubiquitous valorisation of staff, have more in them of melancholy than of matter. Care as representation, is the Law and, as Eagleton argues, ‘The law is male, but hegemony is a woman; this transvestite law, which decks itself out in female drapery is in danger of having its phallus exposed’ (Eagleton 1990: 58).

Subtexts Undoubtedly, the restoration of the body is important since it implicitly challenges the rhetorical trajectory of the patriarchal discourse. However, there are also problems associated with this. Whenever an area of experience is identified as being different from or in opposition to the trajectory of the text, it is rapidly

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specified as a problem and the disorderliness it presents is subjected to further regulation. ‘The problem is that as soon as the insurgent “substance” speaks, it is necessarily caught up in the kind of discourse allowed by and submitted to by the Law’ (Moi 1986: 10, italics added), that is to say, within the discourse of regulation. The desire to confront this problem of inevitable capture is fundamental to Kristeva’s work and yet she acknowledges that to attempt to use language against itself is untenable. Hence, to specify is to endanger, to conceptualise to capture and to reveal to subject to regulation. How then is it possible to take up any position in relation to the potency of the patriarchal discourse? Docherty has pointed to Kristeva’s identification of the experimental writer and specifically, as Docherty says, ‘crucially, women’ [original italics] as types of dissident. What these two share, he argues, ‘is the impetus towards marginalization and indefinition; they [dissidents] are in a condition of “exile” from a centred identity of meaning and its claims to a totalized Law or Truth’ (Docherty 1996: 68). It is this, according to Docherty, which creates the possibility of the political. The argument presented here makes the case for a greater understanding of the way in which men’s fear of women as dissident, disorderly and disjunctive operates in organisational dynamics. That women are not so easily seduced into the illusions of future satisfactions and abstract relations causes a number of tensions and oscillations. These occur between the purposive nature of organisational trajectory and progress into the future and the ambivalence of women as dissident members. The paradox at the root of this argument is one of power. Women cannot easily be seduced by corporate promises and by notions of perfectibility. Men find personal satisfaction and rewards in work and need to reinforce the supporting rhetoric even if only in paying lip service to organisational values. Women threaten these definitions and therefore men seek to control the extent of their participation. These positions cannot easily be reconciled. Yet women’s ambivalence, albeit the product of gendered constructions, is a powerful political knowledge with significant import for changing the nature of work. Docherty is optimistic that women and experimental writers ‘construed as writing in and from exile, serve to construct the possibility, for perhaps the first time, of elaborating the paradigmatic reader of these new novels as feminized’ (Docherty 1996:68). Hence, there is a possibility of an ethics of alterity and the opportunity to explore what it means ‘to speak from the political disposition of the Other’. After all, ‘What we designate as ‘feminine’, far from being a primeval essence, (is the) ‘other’ without a name (Kristeva 1980: 58). What then does the idea of the maternal body of the organisation contribute to organisational theory? In part, it is to do with borders and their demarcation, exile and homelessness, strangeness, estrangement, the boundary of the body and sociality and love; it concerns ethics and motherhood. These are complex issues which deserve further elaboration. Certainly, the writings of Kristeva are a good place to start. Maternity, motherhood and the maternal body play a significant part in the dynamics of her psychoanalytical writing. Kristeva sees motherhood as a mode of love which is directed towards ultimate separation and she uses motherhood as the model of love which governs psychoanalytical

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practice. The client–patient relationship is rooted in love and characterised by, what she terms, ‘herethics of love’ (Kristeva 1987: 263) an implicit ethical practice. These are ideas which sound strange within contemporary constructions of organisation. They are writings from exile. There is a need for an analysis which would look at the organisation as the maternal body and, in particular, explore its capacity to produce sons who both fear and loathe it yet make it sublime. In this way, it might be possible to rediscover the pain of labour.

References Baudrillard, J. (1990) Seduction, London: Macmillan. Bynum, C.W. (1982) Jesus as Mother, Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages, Berkeley: University of California Press. Cozens, J. (1995) To Have and To Hold: Men, Sex and Marriage, London: Pan Books. Docherty, T. (1996) Alterities, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dourley, J.P. (1990) The Goddess, Mother of the Trinity, Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press. Eagleton, T. (1990) The Ideology of the Aesthetic, Oxford: Blackwell. Hoad, T.F. (1986) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Höpfl, H. (1994) ‘Learning by Heart: The Rules of Rhetoric and the Poetics of Experience’, Management Learning 25(3): 463–74. —— (2000a) ‘On Being Moved’, Studies in Culture, Organizations and Societies 6(1): 11–22. —— (2000b) ‘The Suffering Mother and the Miserable Son, Organising Women and Organising Women’s Writing’, Gender Work and Organisations 7(2): 98–105. —— (2001) ‘The Mystery of the Assumption: Mothers and Measures’, in M. Lee and R. Monro, The Consumption of Mass, Oxford: Blackwell. —— (2002) ‘Strategic Quest and the Search for the Primal Mother’, Human Resource Development International 5(1): 11–22. Irigaray, L. (1985) Speculum of the Other Woman, trans, G. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Jung, E. and von Franz M.L. (1998) The Grail Legend, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kristeva, J. (1980) Powers of Horror, trans. Leon Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1984a) Revolution in Poetic Language, New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1984b) Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, trans. T.S. Gora, A. Jardine, and L. Roudiez, Oxford: Blackwell. —— (1987) Tales of Love, trans. L. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press. Lechte, J. (1990) Julia Kristeva, London: Routledge. Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1994) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (authorised English translation in Canada), Ottowa: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Publication Services. Moi, T. (ed.) (1986) The Kristeva Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. Oliver, K. (1993) Reading Kristeva, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sievers, B. (1994) Work, Death, and Life Itself: Essays on Management and Organisation, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Whitmont, E.C. (1983 ) Return of the Goddess, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Whitmont, E.C. (1991) The Symbolic Quest, Basic Concepts of Analytical Psychology, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Who’s afraid of mothers? Barbara Poggio

Who’s afraid of mothers? In my research experience in organisational settings I have found motherhood frequently cited as the true and only reason for gender differences in the labour market. Entrepreneurs and managers often describe the organizations of today as gender neutral places from which discrimination has been eliminated. But there remains this original, natural and therefore ineradicable difference that makes women – as potential mothers – constitutionally unsuited to a career. Labour market statistics show that the likelihood of pursuing a career is often associated with the foregoing of motherhood (Nicholson and West 1988; Billing and Alvesson 1994). Analyses of mobility highlight the strength of the link between the absence of children and career prospects (Felmlee 1984; Bison, Pisati and Schizzerotto 1996). It seems so that only by renouncing their maternal part, or by sublimating it in other roles, can women obtain legitimation within organisations and compete in the career stakes. This chapter explores some of the symbols and recurrent patterns in representations of motherhood, evidencing how the barriers raised against mothers and women in general – as potential mothers – derive also from fears profoundly rooted in the collective unconscious, fears that can be described by the archetypes of the female goddesses of ancient mythology.

Organisational hostility to mothers Organisational development in the modern age has been characterised by a distinction between work and non-work settings, in contrast to pre-industrial societies. The weberian concept of bureaucracy has stressed the separation between the public sphere of work and the private sphere of personal and family life (Weber 1922). Impersonality is institutionalised in a bureaucracy, and all emotional, non-rational and personal elements are banished (Bologh 1990). The assertion of the dichotomies between public and private, rational and emotional, work and family has produced and consolidated a further separation between male and female, thereby helping to legitimate the segregation of women in the labour market – or worse, their exclusion from it (Mumby and Putnam 1992; Knopoff and Martin 1996). So organisations as public places devoted to

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Figure 2.1 Cecilia and Gaia, little twin goddesses of music and joy, born during the writing of this book.

production have been regarded as male preserves, and the entry of women into them has long been considered an anomaly or an exception – unless they are involved in caring and helping roles, as in the case of nurses or cleaners, or support staff like secretaries. One feature that has been crucial in the spheres of distinction between men and women in the workplace is motherhood. Indeed, until only a few decades ago the law allowed employers to dismiss pregnant women, and still today the spectre of motherhood conditions the chances of women entering employment. Often, in fact, job interviews involve questions concerning a woman’s childbearing intentions, and in many organizations the possibility that a woman may opt for maternity is a reason for no longer investing in her. It not infrequently happens, moreover, that when women return from maternity leave they find themselves allocated to roles and positions of less prestige and responsibility. Finally, there are situations in which women are asked to sign a blank letter of resignation, to be used if they become pregnant, thereby circumventing the protective rules. This is not to deny that absences for reasons of pregnancy and childbirth by female employees do not cause difficulties, especially in small firms. But it is surprising to note that today, in an age – and country like Italy – where fertility levels are at their historical low and the amount of life-span devoted to

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reproduction is becoming more and more circumscribed, motherhood is blamed for career asymmetries between men and women in the labour market. In the course of several research studies, I have heard it claimed, for example by employers and heads of personnel, that there is no longer discrimination between men and women in organisations, that opportunities are now equal, but that maternity remains a problem. Among the interpretations that have been offered for this phenomenon, some have concentrated on the functional division of family roles, arguing that natural differences in respect to reproduction influence professional outcomes (Becker 1964). Moreover, given that it is women who give birth to children and then are more suited for looking after them, a functional distribution of roles has come about within the family in order to maximise resources and minimise costs. Women therefore tend to invest more in family tasks and to devote fewer resources to work, so that they end up with fewer career opportunities in organisations. Other interpretations seek instead to emphasise the existence of structural constraints in the labour market to the disadvantage of women (Rubery 1978). Some of these studies view gender discrimination in organisation as stemming from the status of ‘token’ women, as they are in the minority (Kanter 1977) or highlighted that the structuring of career paths in organisations tends to harm the female component (Rosenbaum 1989). In light of the changes that have taken place in the woman’s status and workplace gender relations in recent decades, of particular significance are cultural approaches: theories that concentrate on organisational culture as a system of meanings that are produced and reproduced in social interaction. In this perspective, gender is treated as a cultural construct; indeed, it emerges as a distinctive characteristic of organisational culture (Gherardi 1995). In every organisation, in fact, one finds gender meanings and symbols that are taken for granted. Regarded as unproblematic, they are produced and used in everyday work interactions. This paper starts from this point of view to understand dynamics involved in the construction of gender cultures hostile to the presence of women. It analyses archetypes and symbols that underlie the maternal image and to some extent influence the way in which the female presence is perceived within organisations. It therefore departs from the linear high road of economic-rational thought and social-structural analysis to explore subterranean paths of the unconsciousness and myth.

The maternal in the collective imagination When research is conducted into the construction and definition of gender in organisations, the theme of motherhood emerges as a salient theme in the accounts of organizational actors, men and women. Despite the great changes that have improved the woman’s status in the labour market, and despite the significant shortening of the life-period devoted to childbearing, motherhood remains a preoccupation of organisations and employers. The collective imagination tends to associate the female image with maternity. A woman who enters an organisation is not ‘only’ a woman, she is also a potential mother. That is to say,

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she brings with her a potential which is perceived by the organisation and its members as risky. It is no coincidence, then, that several men I met in my research work and who have encouraged the hiring of women tend to describe themselves as ‘risk takers’. Better understanding of the attitudes of organisations and their members to the presence of women-mothers is yielded by a distinction frequently drawn in dynamic psychology: that between external and internal object (imago): the imago is a kind of stereotyped mental picture that forms in the unconscious, reflecting not only real experiences with the object, the mother, but also all sorts of early experiences that, given the relative lack of differentiation between the subject and the mother and between the mother and the world in general, are experienced as having been caused by the mother. (Chasseguet-Smirgel 1994: 115) This distinction helps us understand that the matter may not reside solely in the potential of motherhood, as the external object, to cause difficulties for work organisation but in the potency of the socio-cultural norms tied to being a mother, and even more so in the symbolic and archetypal hinterland evoked by the image of the mother. In order to elaborate on these considerations I explore the way in which the maternal is represented in mythological thought and religious cosmology. These images, in my view, lie at the origin of our culture and today imbue psychic processes. Freud and Jung, from not always coincident points of view, analysed the meanings of the psychic and symbolic representations of motherhood. Freud (1913) identified three figures of women from the man’s point of view – the true mother, the loved woman chosen in the image of the mother, and the mother earth that takes him back to her bosom. Jung (1939) investigated the maternal complex, identifying a number of pathological types of maternity: the hypertrophy of the maternal, the hypertrophy of the Eros, total identity with the mother, and the negative maternal complex. In the first case Jung was referring to women who sacrifice Eros for motherhood, in the second to women who are constant rivals of their mothers and are attracted by unattainable men, in the third to daughters who identify totally with their mothers, ‘dependent and selfunaware Persephones’ (Lagorio 1996: 16), and in the fourth to women who devote all their mental energies to defending themselves against their mothers, giving rise to the characteristic figure of the woman intellectual. An important difference between Jung’s and Freud’s thought is that Jung did not view the maternal complex as being caused solely by the female psyche, by a shortcoming or a negativity of women; rather, it was determined by the interaction between the personal mother (the external object) and the child’s unconscious fantasies (internal object). Thanks to fantasies and projections of individuals, female/maternal figures acquire meanings that extend beyond them and interweave with the myths and personages of fairy tales (Klein 1928). But what are these meanings? The first

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aspect to emphasise is the marked ambivalence displayed by the maternal images of cosmologies: as Freud (1913) pointed out, the goddess-mothers of the ancient eastern religions were figures of both creation and destruction, female divinities of life and death at the same time. Rhea, Hera and Demeter in Greece, Isis in Egypt, Ishtar in Assyro-Babylonian culture, Astarte for the Phoenicians, Kali in India: life and death are correlated in all these goddess-mothers (Chevalier and Gheerbrant 1969). The mother-earth, in the thought of the ancients, receives both seeds and the bodies of the dead: hence the custom of sowing grain on burial sites. ‘Origin and end came to coincide in the mother’s womb, where opposition merged into the cyclical alternation of the seasons’ (Lagorio 1996). Birth is exit from the belly; death is re-entry to it. The co-presence of fertility and destruction is a constant feature of maternal divinities. In the Greek cosmogony, for example, we find an Orphic myth in which the Titans invite the gods to a banquet and offer a child as the food. All the gods refuse except Demeter, who tastes the child’s little finger. It is thus precisely the goddess of birth who is represented as an anthropophagous divinity (Lagorio 1996). The mother therefore represents the security of protection, nourishment and warmth, but also the risk of suffocation, oppression and castration. In Indian iconography, the goddess Kali is a woman of repulsive appearance, with a lolling bloody tongue, who dances upon a corpse (Chevalier and Gheerbrant 1969); the divine mother is represented as embodying the three aspects of life: creation, conservation and destruction. In the Capua Museum there are three large statues named Matres Matutae. Carved from tufa, dating back to the sixth or seventh century BC and representing maternal divinities; these are busts almost entirely devoid of facial expression as they gaze into the void. They contain life but are not alive. They are the pivot of the rotating motion of life and death. Not even the abundance of children causes them joy, as if the generative process passes impersonally through them.

Goddesses as archetypes According to psychoanalytic theory the first experience of every person is his or her mother. This experience is characterised by two aspects, one constructive and one destructive. The mother is the locus of supra-individual experience, the source of all the instincts; because of her character of origin she plays the role of ‘a devouring mother, indifferent to the individual, utterly absorbed by the cycle of creation’ (Adler 1957: 54). In Jung’s theory maternal symbols assume the value of archetypes or primordial images – unconscious representations of typical life experiences shared by all individuals (Jung 1939). The goddess-mothers may therefore become metaphors to describe models of femaleness, or to define female cultural models in social contexts like work organisations. The psychiatrist Jean Bolen says that the female stereotypes that arise in different cultures are positive or negative images of archetypal divinities: for example, patriarchal societies valued the figures of Persephone, Hera and Demeter (daughter, wife and mother), while Aphrodite was condemned as a ‘prostitute’ or ‘temptress’ (Bolen 1984).

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Gherardi’s (1995) analysis of archetypes of femaleness proposes a metaphor of organisations seen as small Olympuses in which gods and goddesses are engaged in battles, alliances, reprisals and vendettas. Drawing on Bolen’s work, Gherardi distinguishes between virgin goddesses (Artemis, Athena and Hestia) and vulnerable goddesses (Hera, Demeter and Persephone). If we use some of the elements described by these studies to analyse the goddess-mothers, we see that the image of the Olympian gynaeceum – and of the female presence in organisations – displays a dichotomy between women who develop their female part and those who neutralise it through separation from men (Artemis), identification with them (Athena) or aloofness from them (Hestia). The growth of Christianity then merged these two opposites into the figure of Mary – icon of the mother and virgin at the same time – but the archetypes of the Greek female divinities are still current in organisations, where a foregoing of motherhood is the signal of commitment to the company and work. The goddess-mothers are identified in Bolen’s interpretation by their vulnerability: Hera and Demeter, like another great mother, Rhea, have in fact suffered carnal violence by male divinities. Inherent in motherhood, therefore, is the sign of a violence suffered, of overpowering by a male. Historical analysis shows that this violent element was the consequence of the Indo-European invasions from the fifth millennium BC onwards. The new populations replaced worship of the Great Goddess – the female life force, symbol of nature and fertility, responsible for the creation and destruction of life – with male divinities. The subjugation and deflowering of the Great Goddess symbolised the supremacy of the invaders, but also the devaluation of the social role of women in the new dominant culture (Stone 1978). The archetypes of motherhood became characterized by submission, passivity, victimism and humiliation with respect to male figures. Let us therefore examine the archetypal and symbolic elements prevalent in the four important goddess-mothers of mythology: Hera, Demeter, Rhea and Aphrodite.

Four maternal archetypes Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, the twin sister of Zeus. After courting her without success, Zeus deceived her by transforming himself into cuckoo shivering with cold. Hera warmed him at her breast, whereupon Zeus shed his disguise, raped her and forced her to marry him. Zeus and Hera quarrelled constantly. Irritated by his infidelities, Hera plotted vengeance on the other women and goddesses with whom Zeus betrayed her and her children. She bathed every year in the spring of Canatus to restore her virginity. The Hera archetype mainly expresses the desire to be a wife and to enjoy the social status that derives from that position; and it likewise expresses the anger and pain felt in the absence of that status. Hera had numerous children, but being a mother was for her only a consequence of being a wife. Hera’s distinctive features were her faithfulness, jealousy and vindictiveness as a wife. She had little

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maternal instinct, given that she had constantly to sacrifice the interests of her children to those of her husband. She meted out especially harsh treatment to the children born by the ‘other women’ as a consequence of Zeus’ affairs. In fact, she never directly blamed Zeus for his infidelities: her wrath was usually directed at the women. On these occasions Hera became the most destructive of the female divinities: she condemned and punished the other women and their children, and therefore acted as both judge and executioner of women who did not correspond to her model. It is not difficult to find women who match this pattern in organisations. In Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s work on the male and female in organisations, two images of the Hera woman emerge: the wife and the secretary (Kanter 1977). Both devote their resources to the career of their husband/boss. The wives career is matrimony and flanking a husband who enhances their femaleness. Their primary concern is devotion to their husband; paid work is of minor importance. They invest the archetypal expectation of their fulfilment in their husband (Bolen 1984). The husband is the centre of their life and takes precedence over everything else. Like the American First Lady they help to construct their husband’s success, furnishing both valuable professional assistance and emotional support. Papanek’s (1973) concept of ‘two persons one career’ describes precisely this type of situation. Secretaries, too, often resemble this archetype. I personally have met the archetype of Hera in offices. They are women who look after their bosses like solicitous wives, offering them not only their labour but emotional support: they act as filters, they protect and nurture their bosshusbands, they follow their careers (Pringle 1989; Pierce 1995). The ‘office wife’ secretary is particularly valued in patriarchic organizations, because she consolidates the division of roles. The women who match this archetype show little solidarity with career women because they feel that their gender identity is under threat. Demeter was the goddess of corn and the harvest. She did not have a husband but was instead closely bonded with her daughter Persephone. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Demeter lost her natural gaiety and searched for her daughter for nine days and nights without eating and drinking, followed by Poseidon who was infatuated with her. In the end, exhausted she transformed herself into an ass and set to grazing. However, Poseidon saw through her disguise and raped her. Infuriated (to the point that in some areas she was also worshipped as Demeter the Fury) she wandered the earth preventing the trees from bearing fruit and the grass from growing, until mankind was threatened by starvation. In the end, Zeus allowed her to have Persephone with her for nine months of the year. Demeter is the archetype of the mother. She represents the maternal instinct that finds fulfilment in pregnancy or in giving physical, psychological or spiritual nourishment to others. Compared with the other maternal divinities, Demeter’s relationship with her daughter is of central importance: indeed, to find her, Demeter sought ceaselessly and relentlessly for her. She expresses her fury by

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denying her generosity and her functions: hers is a passive wrath, but it is nevertheless threatening in that her denial means the end of fertility and the onset of famine. It is possible to find this kind of archetype in the ‘traditionally female’ caring professions. For instance I found it in some women running non profit cooperatives and associations which they themselves had founded and in which they perform the role of ‘great mother’. They were protective, generous and altruistic women, considered by their colleagues as solid and trustworthy persons. They tended to behave maternally towards their male and female colleagues. They avoided competition and were untouched by envy or jealousy. They welcomed new arrivals, protected people in difficulty, and shouldered the problems of others. But as ‘mother-hens’ in their endeavour to protect the children, sometimes they exerted excessive control and increased the children’s dependence. In work these women hold the know-how, refuse to delegate and seek to act on their own as far as possible, sometimes suffocating their colleagues’ creativity and self-confidence. They are highly energetic, but they are so omnipresent and volcanic that they prevent their colleagues/children from emancipating themselves and growing. The Demeters that I have met are often greatly liked by the member-sons of the organisation, where their generosity and helpfulness is exploited. Yet, with time, they come to be regarded as dangerous because their ubiquity restricts the space and autonomy of other members, and they themselves risk suffering from burn-out. Rhea was the sister and wife of Cronus and mother of Zeus. Cronus devoured Rhea’s offspring every year, having been warned by a prophecy that one of his children would seize his throne. When Rhea gave birth to Zeus she entrusted him to Mother Earth and in his place gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed. When Zeus reached adulthood, Rhea helped him wreak vengeance by giving him an emetic to administer to his father, who disgorged all his brothers and sisters. Whereupon Zeus took power. Thereafter, foreseeing the troubles that Zeus’ lust would provoke, Rhea forbade him from marrying Hera. Zeus responded by transforming himself into a snake and raping his mother. The myth of Rhea provides a negative and exaggerated picture of a patrimonial marriage: the husband is a powerful and domineering male who resents competition from his children. He prevents his wife from fulfilling herself, and she reacts by raising passive resistance, harbouring secrets and resorting to deceit. Hers is a sad story: she sustains the cause of her son Zeus against her husband, but she does not even receive Zeus’ respect, only his violence. According to Robert Graves’ interpretation, Rhea did not want Zeus to marry because at that time monogamy was unknown and a woman could have as many lovers as she wished (Graves 1979): Zeus’ marriage introduced a new regime for women (but not for men: Zeus was assuredly not a faithful husband). Zeus’ violence against his mother was exemplary punishment against those who opposed the new rules.

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I found the Rhea archetype in some women that were dissatisfied with their role and subordinate status, particularly in low positions in administrative departments in the public sector or large companies. There they formed shifting alliances with their colleagues (usually other female colleagues), seeking to alter existing power relations. One of the most effective means at their disposal is ‘bitching’, a communicative practice employed as a strategy of control and resistance (Sotirin and Gottfried 1999). Bitching is used to generate micro-dynamics of control and resistance in an endeavour to manipulate others by means of the exchange, monopoly, manipulation or denial of specific knowledge. On the one hand they help reproduce stereotyped and devaluing images of female identity; on the other they give women satisfaction which compensates for the oppression they suffer. Sotirin and Gottfried (1999) have shown that this communicative tactic enables secretaries to challenge the impersonality of bureaucratic relations, but on the other hand they isolate and fragment the power of women and compel conformity to dominant subordination patterns. This type of practice can, in fact, be found among both men and women, but its negative significance is associated with women. Its covert growth and spread makes it dangerous in the eyes of men, who combat it by devaluing both the practice and the women who use it. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. She possessed a belt which brought love to all those who wore it: she sometimes lent it to the other goddesses. According to Hesiod, she was born of the sea, after Cronus had thrown in the genitals of his father Uranus. When she emerged from the sea on the island of Cytherea she was welcomed by the assembly of the gods. Unlike the other goddesses, Aphrodite was free to marry whomever she wished: she chose Hephaestus, the ugly god of fire. She had no children by him, although she bore many by other gods and mortal men. The Fates assigned only one divine task to Aphrodite: love. One day Athena surprised her as she was weaving on a loom. Aphrodite apologised and thereafter lifted not even a finger to work. Like Hera, Aphrodite bathed in a spring, that of Paphos, where she regained her lost virginity. Aphrodite is the symbol of seduction and sexual attraction. Her attractiveness and extrovert character arouse contrasting feelings in the people who surround her: men fall in love with her but fear her unfaithfulness and freedom; women are afraid of her and jealous of her, and are made to feel inadequate. Aphrodite is an immense force for change and creativity. She conveys attraction, union and conception. Creativity springs from intense and passionate involvement, as evidenced by artistic production. However, work does not involve her emotionally: she hates it and may even achieve only mediocre results. She represents the instinct for procreation and has numerous children, but her relationship with them is difficult and erratic. She disappears and reappears, and her children grow up to be insecure and with feelings of inadequacy. In organisations Aphrodite women do not have careers. Organisations, in fact, tend to neutralise excessively seductive attributes. One of the risks attendant on

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the hiring of female personnel is sexual mingling and attraction: when women arrive, couples form and gender alliances break down. In order to neutralise any reference to sexual difference, the first women to work in certain organisations, banks for example, were required to wear black smocks. The women that remind me of the Aphrodite archetype are usually allocated to marginal roles, like shopgirl or secretary, where external impact is important and the hierarchical relationship is clear. As this kind of work is not always emotionally satisfying and involving for women, often they seek to perform it with the minimum effort possible. They direct their resources to other life-ambits, thus confirming prejudices against them. The four archetypes discussed are not intended to furnish a definition of personality. They are rather an interpretative expedient for consideration of the cultural models of femaleness which women activate at various moments and in different roles and contexts within organisations, but which organisations also use as lenses through which they look at women-mothers and justify their exclusion from positions of responsibility. The models highlight a range of attitudes and features that are considered female in our culture. On the basis of Jung’s theory of animus and anima (Jung 1953), one may say that these archetypes represent only the persona, or the attitude that people adopt in response to situations and in order to act in a manner socially suited to the external environment. They entirely lack the anima, that is, the set of interior attitudes which dialectically offset external pressures. In the organisational performance staged for women-mothers, therefore, they are assigned parts which emphasise female elements in a vicious circle which further consolidates stereotypes of them.

The mystery of omnipotent motherhood The maternal divinities considered do not represent archetypes attractive to women who pursue careers in organisations. In fact, career women in organisations more often resemble the virgin goddesses Athena and Artemis than the goddess-mothers like Hera, Rhea, Demeter and Aphrodite. Like Athena and Artemis, they are women who devote their lives to the organisation, goddesswarriors and huntresses, sisters and daughters (of fathers), but not mothers. They are women who accept the competitive system, who compete and win, but often sacrifice their maternal side. According Karen Horney: if the grown man continues to regard woman as a great mystery, in whom is a secret he cannot divine, this feelings of his can only relate ultimately to one thing in her: the mystery of motherhood. (1932: 131) This, then, is the matter: however much modern times may have attenuated the mystique of motherhood, the fear of maternal power has not failed (Benjamin 1994).

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In psychoanalytical thought, the idea that men must denigrate or dominate women in order to compensate for their dependence on their mothers, and their envy of their ability to bear offspring, has been present since Freud’s earliest works. Since men must separate themselves from their mothers and abandon their original maternal identification, attraction to the mother is seen as constituting a threat to the male independent identity (Stoller 1975). Various psychoanalysts, moreover, have regarded the transfer of power to the father as the only way in which the male child can free himself from impotent subjection to an omnipotent mother and therefore grow. One of the shortcomings of Freudian psychoanalytical theory, however, is that it is unable to consider mother and child separately and examine their relationship from both points of view. For Jessica Benjamin, infantile dependence alone does not suffice to explain the infantile position of men in their fantasies with respect to the mother figure. The idea of maternal omnipotence is an intra-psychic condition, not the immediate and original state envisaged by oedipal theory (Benjamin 1994). This is a condition that arises during the early conscious experience of independence from the mother, in the separation/individuation phase. A mother who withdraws to go to work or to leave the house compels the son to recognise his independent status. When the mother is unable to satisfy her son’s desires, she probably no longer appears to him as a person, but rather a figure endowed with every power, who omnipotently controls and suffocates with her fragility. This generates a process of differentiation characterised by conflict between the son’s desire to exert complete control over the mother, and the mother’s need to distance herself. According to Winnicott, something paradoxical occurs in this phase: an attempt is made to destroy the other person only to discover that the other person is able to survive. The paradox resides in the fact that only by affirming omnipotence does one discover the Other as the external centre of experience. The imagined destruction of the other and the absolute affirmation of self allows us to discover that the Other lies beyond our mental powers (Winnicott 1989). In the search for an interpretation that goes beyond oedipal theory and also considers the mother’s subjectivity, two elements emerge which specifically concern the behaviour of mothers: the refusal to abandon the fantasy of maternal omnipotence, and the dream of perfect fulfilment. The refusal to abandon the fantasy of maternal omnipotence – especially if it is tied to the image of a sexually provocative female object (Aphrodite) – is displayed by women’s defence of their power to give and maintain life. According to Dinnerstein (1976), women’s faith in maternal omnipotence is partly responsible for their social subjugation. Perhaps the terror aroused by their power over the child, and the consequent hatred that mothers inevitably feel, is responsible for their desire to be controlled by a male counter-power. The theme of female omnipotence has a further aspect, namely the dream of achieving perfect symmetry, of finding complete fulfilment, of striking a perfect balance between being a mother and being a worker. The acceptance of imperfection is a necessary step towards deconstruction of this fantasy of maternal omnipotence.

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Conclusions In a context of great social change, with women increasingly oriented to work commitment and determined to devote significant time and resources to it, and now that the division of domestic labour is growing less asymmetric, it is necessary to find interpretative keys that explain the persistence of situations of gender segregation. Besides the structural constraints and microeconomic factors that influence the opportunities for women to enter organisations in other than traditionally female roles, I have sought in this chapter to show the action of archetypal and symbolic elements tied to the maternal image. Traditional explanations of the division of family roles and structural constraints seem unable to account for the persistence of hostility and suspicion towards women-mothers. Accordingly, I have deemed it appropriate to examine some deeper lying reasons that may account for resistance raised by organisations and their members against motherhood by highlighting the archetypal features of maternal female figures. An archetype is a device which reproduces typical representations which have developed together with human consciousness. Manifest in the symbol and then in the myth, an archetype tends to direct the attitudes and behaviour of individuals, and it induces the repetition of collective experiences. Reference to four archetypes of maternal femininity from Greek mythology has highlighted four different relational models available to women within organisations. Hera represents the trusted woman–wife–secretary dedicated to the success of her husband/boss, and irascible and vindictive towards other women who attract her husband’s attention. Demeter is the mother par excellence, protective and possessive of her children, capable of transforming herself into a destructive fury when she loses them. Rhea is the woman who weaves plots to defend herself against the overweening power of her husband/boss. Finally, there is Aphrodite, the seductive woman feared and envied by other women, who is uninterested in work that does not involve her emotionally. The distinctive feature shared by these four figures is the co-presence of life and death, fertility and destruction, features which emerge as oxymorons implicit in the maternal condition. Psychoanalytical theory offers various explanations for the fear of mothers and their omnipotence. Here I have emphasised those that do not treat the theme of omnipotence – and of fear in general – solely in terms of the oedipal dynamic, but which instead emphasise the intersubjective component in the mother/son relationship, and the factors responsible for the psychic construct of the omnipotent and devouring mother. Construction of the image of the omnipotent mother is not solely the inevitable outcome of an original conflict where the male child suffers the pain of his mother’s distancing by finally asserting his separation and difference from her. It is also a consequence of specific attitudes on the part of the mother: the emphasis on her power to give and maintain life, and the syndrome of perfection. Ceding to her children’s claims for exclusive possession, rather than withdrawing to then return, or rebelling by definitively detaching herself, are actions which give rise to different mother/child relation-

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ships, different experiences of separation and frustration, and different images of omnipotence. At the same time, the female archetypes in organisations are not totally independent of the actions of women-mothers: these too are intersubjective constructs. Through their behaviour and attitudes women may accentuate or diminish certain aspects, assume one single model or several, give form to the spectres and fears of the organisation, or implement repair strategies, give priority to the persona or the animus or strike a balance between the two. Particularly in organisations women can exorcise their maternal power by sublimating it into other roles, or by denying it outright: like the virgins Athena and Artemis, they may thus find the space for advancement. But if they do not immediately and explicitly opt for virginity, they are compelled to grapple with the image of the mother and its evocative power. They will therefore be perceived through the maternal archetypes available in the culture and to which they will be compelled to conform. In the Olympus of organisations, there are no sacred springs like those in which Hera and Aphrodite bathed to regain their lost virginity.

Acknowledgements I wish to thank Silvia Gherardi for her encouragement and Patricia Yancey Martin for her careful suggestions about this text.

Bibliography Adler, G. (1957) Etudes de Psychologie Jungienne, Geneva: Georg. Becker, G.S. (1964) Human Capital, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. Benjamin, J. (1984) ‘The Omnipotent Mother: A Psychoanalytic Study of Fantasy and Reality’, in D. Bassin, M. Honey and M. Mahrer Kaplan (eds), Representations of Motherhood, New York: Yale University Press. Billing, Y.D. and Alvesson, M. (1994) Gender, Managers and Organizations, New York: de Gruyter. Bison, I, Pisati, M. and Schizzerotto, A. (1996) ‘Disuguaglianze di genere e storie lavorative’, in S. Piccone Stella and C. Saraceno, Genere. La costruzione del femminile e del maschile, Bologna: Il Mulino. Bolen, J.S. (1984) Goddesses in Every Woman. A New Psychology of Women, New York: Harper & Row. Bologh, R. (1990) Love or Greatness: Max Weber and Masculine Thinking – A Feminist Enquiry, Boston: Unwin Hyman. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1994) ‘Being a Mother and Being a Psychoanalyst: Two Impossible Professions’, in D. Bassin, M. Honey and M. Mahrer Kaplan (eds), Representations of Motherhood, New York: Yale University. Chevalier, J. and Gheerbrant, A. (1969) Dictionnaire des symboles, Paris: Jupiter. Dinnerstein, D. (1976) The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise, New York: Harper and Row. Felmlee, D.H. (1984) ‘A Dynamic Analysis of Women’s Employment Exits’, Demography 21: 171–83. Freud, S. (1913) Das Motiv der Kästchenwahl (trans. The Theme of the Three Caskets, in Standard Edition, 12, 1953), London: The Hogarth Press. Gherardi, S. (1995) Gender, Symbolism and Organizational Cultures, London: Sage.

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Graves, R. (1979) The Greek Myths, New York: Penguin. Höpfl, H. (forthcoming) ‘The Maternal Body and the Organisation: The Influence of Julia Kristeva’, in S. Linstead (ed.) Postmodern Organisations, London: Sage. Horney, K. (1932) ‘The Dread of Woman’, in Feminine Psychology, New York: Norton. Jung, C.G. (1953) Métamorphoses de l’âme et ses symboles, Geneva: Georg. —— (1939) ‘Die Psychologischen Aspekte des Mutter-Archetypus’ (trans. ‘Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype’, in Collected Works of C.G. Jung, 8, 1968), Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kanter, R,M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation, New York: Basic Books. Klein, M. (1928) ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict’, International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 9: 167–80. Knopoff, K. and Martin, J. (1996) ‘The Gendered Implications of Apparently GenderNeutral Organizational Theory: Rereading Weber’, in A. Larson and E. Freeman (eds), Business Ethics and Women’s Studies (Ruffin Lecture Series, vol. III), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lagorio, S. (1996) ‘La questione dell’eterna provvidenza’, in S. Lagorio, S. Vegetti Finzi and L. Ravasi, Se noi siamo la terra, Milan: Il Saggiatore. Mumby, D. and Putnam, L. (1992) ‘The Politics of Emotion: A Feminist Reading of a Bounded Rationality’, Academy of Management Review 17: 456–86 Nicholson N. and West, M.A. (1988) Managerial Job Change: Men and Women in Transition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Papanek, H. (1973) ‘Men, Women and Work. Reflection on the Two Persons Career’, American Journal of Sociology 78: 852–72 Pierce, J.L. (1995) Gender Trials. Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pringle, R. (1989) ‘Bureaucracy, Rationality and Sexuality: The Case of Secretaries’, in J. Hearn, D.L. Sheppard, P. Tancred-Sheriff and G. Burrell (eds) The Sexuality of Organization, London: Sage. Reskin, B.F. and Padavic, I. (1994) Women and Men at Work, Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Rosenbaum, J.E. (1989) ‘Organization Career System and Employee Misperception’, in M.B. Arthur, D.T. Hall and B.S. Lawrence (eds) Handbook of Career Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Rubery, J. (1978) ‘Structured Labour Market, Worker Organization and Low Pay’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 2: 17–36. Sotirin, P. and Gottfried, H. (1999) ‘The Ambivalent Dynamics of Secretarial “Bitching”: Control, Resistance, and the Construction of Identity’, Organization 6 (1): 57–80. Stoller, R.J. (1975) Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred, New York: Basic Books. Stone, M. (1978) When God Was a Woman, New York: Harvest. Weber, M. (1922) Wirtshaft und Gesellschaft, Tübingen: Mohr. Winnicott, D.W. (1989) Psycho-analytic Explorations, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Chapter Title

3

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The uniting mother and the body of the organisation Iiris Aaltio and Minna Hiillos

Organisations as bodies Introduction Organisational language has its own metaphorical nature (Morgan 1986), which has been studied from various perspectives, among them the gender perspective (Calas and Smircich 1991 1996). These studies have revealed the relatedness of organisational language to expressions used in the army, like the word ‘strategy’ (Garsombke 1988). The words ‘body’ and ‘mind’ are organismically orientated metaphors, and also used to describe organisations. The word ‘body’ is often used when formal structures of organisations or committees, etc., are described, whereas organisational climate or culture, in contrast, are seen as their opposites, as their ‘minds’. This is a bipolar way of grasping organisational realities, and a closer look at the picture raises a few question marks. It is evident that structures such as the bodies of organisations can hardly exist as such, as stable and visible. One line of thought in organisation theory suggests that the contemporary discourse that has developed in the area, from industrial times to post-industrial times, instead of celebrating stability and standardisation more often emphasises the uncertainty and paradox of the post-industrial phases (Hatch 1997: 24–7), further breaking the image of the stability of organisational structures. In addition, there are multiple ways to approach organisational realities theoretically – for instance, they become alive cognitively in the minds of the organisational members. In cognition, these realities are shaped by the member’s position in the organisation, acting as a way to grasp power relationships, or they may be shaped by the opportunity to work innovatively and with initiative within the organisation. Now it is the ‘mind’ of the organisation that creates the structure, not the other way around. The whole dichotomic understanding of organisations as separate bodies and minds is problematic, as the above description shows. Organisations differ from other objects of research in social sciences. When organisations are studied, an understanding is not gained straight away, by experiencing them as such, an sich (Sanderlands and Srivatsan 1993), but always by using concepts and theories. While organisations do not exist as such, neither can they be experienced or theorised unambiguously. ‘Organisation’ does not conform to any definite experience, and thus, the study of organisations is deprived of this life-giving dynamic, as Sanderlands and Srivatsan (1993: 1–3) have noted. Any description of organisations must be based on the language by which they can be objectified (like Cooper and Burrell 1988; Giddens 1979). An

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Figure 3.1 The nurse in the picture is Minna Hiillos’ grandmother. She is standing with some soldiers in front of Hotel Aulanko which was converted to a military hospital during the war in 1940.

ethnographer, on the other hand, uses her/his senses, sight, hearing, even smell, when engaging in organisational fieldwork, to examine the various sides of the object of research. Some solid ground is always needed, even in the social sciences, on which to base the argumentation. For an organisational researcher this ground may consist of the premises where organisations work and the time during which the multiple processes inside them evolve. Different categories for understanding are created within organisation theory, and unique studies are needed to strengthen them. In the realm of conceptual considerations of organis-

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ations, a specific language is being developed that is aimed at grasping the ambiguity of organisational life and breaking the trap of dialectic object-subject relations to form solid ground for any effort to understand them. Moreover, we can study the bodies and minds of organisations in the light of rationality and emotionality. The structures in this discourse work as the rational side of organisations, whereas their minds are the emotional side. While rationality has to do with logic, splitting, dividing and ordering the elements of the organisation, emotions imply intuitiveness and unifying functions within its sphere. This conceptualisation again falls into the trap of dichotomising. Stereotypically, it is the feminine and the masculine that are seen in the terms of either/or, the feminine carrying the emotional, intuitive and uniting elements and the masculine as the carrier of logic and order (Gerzon 1992). These roles come together in the private and professional sphere, so that work segregation between men and women guides men into technical professions and women into positions of caring (Acker 1990; Acker and Van Houten 1992; Veikkola 1999). In family dynamics as well, women easily acquire the role of caring, focusing on the wellbeing of the family members and joining them together, whereas men lead the children into the concreteness of the world, play with them, and give them elements for individualisation, and also take the role of breadwinner in the family (Sommer 1993). Feminist discourse argues that within the psychoanalytic approach mothers are pronounced guilty for their sons’ personality disorders – not the fathers, who are unavailable (Bly 1990). The old images of an ideal father and of modern organisational man share common features such as orderliness, rationality, efficiency and unemotionality, and to develop another kind of ideal means reconstructing both fatherhood and organisational ideals (Aaltio-Marjosola and Lehtinen 1998). Myths and organisations Myths, mythologies, values and ideals cross each other in multiple ways and are not easily separated from each other. However, the nature of mythology can be seen in the in-depth understanding of realities. Mythology originates from very ancient times but still influences the present, while values work as today’s categories, giving meaning to perceptions here and now, and also change more easily. Within organisational studies, there are a few empirical explorations that reach toward a mythological understanding of realities and give ground for today’s organisational life and management. Aaltonen (1997) conducted an empirical study for which he interviewed college students on their images of the leader, searching for connections between leader images and old Finnish mythology. He found remarks in their stories derived from the old leader myth that tells about the difficulties that automatically arise when the leader is missing, and show the crucial meaning of leadership to any community. In such images, leaders bring order to group dynamics and organise action. The findings of the study point at connections to old epics that legitimise the existence of a dominant class and its position, by ‘explaining the presence of leaders as natural and necessary – when there is a group of people they always have to have a

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leader’, because man is ‘a gregarious animal’ and all men ‘must have a leader’ (like Gemmill and Oakley 1992; see also Aaltonen 1997: 184–5). There have always been leaders and there will always be leaders, is the argument. The essays collected by Aaltonen indicated a readiness to present the leader as a man, but upon reconsideration also a woman was seen to be competent for a leadership position by the students, being the object of the study. In their study on the contents of fairytales, Ingersoll and Adams (1987) found common ground for beliefs controlling business management across national boundaries. These included belief in the rationalisation of work processes, in efficiency and in the fact that means are more important than ends. This again is a mythology which privileges certain views on organisations and their life, while marginalising others. Mythologies consist of the sphere of collective unconsciousness that deals with myths common to all human beings and originate in diverse cultures and eras (Storr 1973: 35). Barthes (1994) shows the variety of myths that are present in everyday life, found in talk but also deriving their content from films, advertisements and photographs. Close to the concept of myth is the concept of archetype introduced by Jung (De Laszlo 1959). In the archetype there is a tendency to form images on a certain subject in similar ways. An archetype collects together certain themes by which to grasp individual cases. Various professions have their own archetypes that are shaped by representations which may not have a lot to do with each other concretely but which share a common undercurrent. Individual cases, like physicians, are seen as representatives of an archetype of the profession. Stereotyping may, in fact, be the product of an archetype. The structure of an archetype is inherited, but it can also change as the environment and history change (like Franz 1991; Samuels 1986). Myths and mythology can give insights to understanding present organisational practices and the society that surrounds them. We can apply these insights for understanding certain occurrences within organisational realities, like segregation of work between male and female organisational members, established globally in organisational structures. We now ask whether mythology also creates ground for understanding the division of labour and segregated work in organisational structures. The aim is not to search for exact consequences derived from mythological understanding, implying that in mythologies we might find ‘reasons’ for the segregation of work between men and women as it appears nowadays. This would be far too simplistic. But by studying mythology as an outcome we can find connections between segregated organisational structures and the fragmented life spheres of men and women within organisations. The lives of men and women in fairytales and in epics, for instance, are separated from each other. Moreover, all the three divinities in the Finnish epic Kalevala were male, but there were powerful women at the same time. But the tasks that men and women fulfil in mythology and epics differ from each other. The classical mother’s role with its unifying and caring functions is presented in mythology in multiple ways. We explore and apply this understanding to a few actual cases of organisational life, especially cases in times of crisis when the identity of organisations becomes questioned in the minds of the people working there.

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We base the relevance of our approach to exploring organisations in the light of mythology on the following two cornerstones: 1

2

The concept of the body refers to structures and is in relation with the discourse of rationality and order in organisations, whereas its polar concept, the mind, has to do with irrationality, chaos and disorder. ‘Mothering’ acts between these polarities as an action that joins, unifies, and nourishes. The ‘body’ of the mother gives birth to the child, a new creature, and this nourishing, creative function of giving birth and serving new life is also very central in mythologies. Metaphorically, birth means not only a reproduction of the body, but also breaking the old body for new life and the new creature. Birth, hope and trust in the future are all combined. The new ‘body’ is not just a combination of old units – instead, it is holistic and unique.

Mythology and archetypes of mothering Motherhood or mothering implies many connotations. One is its practical meaning: the role of women who are mothers, who have an impact on the history of the society. In itself, motherhood and mothering are of crucial meaning in one’s life, extending to the spheres of childhood and its special world of sensations. ‘I remember the warmth of her body, the way she held me to her, her unselfish love, her infinite kindness, a memory in the flesh’ (Kristeva in Moi 1986: 176; see Höpfl forthcoming). Everyone is someone’s daughter or son. Many women, if not all, have been mothers for their children, daughters or sons. To be a woman in the society is loaded with expectations related to sharing the female experience of mothering. As an action, mothering differs from other actions. We can explore the symbolism behind motherhood and mothering on many levels, comparing and searching for its essential nature. In this article we approach motherhood and mothering especially from the standpoint of its action-related meanings – its uniting, caring and comforting role in social life. It is the opposite of warring and destructive behaviour. Mothering has a special role in all mythologies: it means giving birth and working as a spiritual element between heaven and earth, working for hope in the future. Fathering, as an action, can be seen as its metaphorical opposite. We will now study the interrelationships between mothering and specified functions in organisations, trying to learn something about organisational realities and the role of women and men within these spheres. We will particularly examine personnel management and the tasks it fulfils in the organisational structure. Mythology, at the same time, gives a broader perspective for studying these questions, and shows ways in which the ideas about mothering are rooted in understanding and managing everyday life.

The meanings of myths Often myths and dreams are seen to be close to each other. Even if we try to avoid the sense of romance and glamour that is associated with them, it is

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undeniable that mythology triggers diverse sides of thinking and appeals to the emotions. Myths and mythologies are a nourishing undercurrent in our understanding of the world, appearing in visions and dreams, and giving meaning to the scattered ideas that combine various life spheres (Campbell 1988; Jung 1980). Moreover, dreaming has a vitalising meaning for mental wellbeing. As suggested in Jung’s writings, dreams may be diverse but many of them are somehow related to the mythologies that tell about people and life in universal terms. Myths touch the ‘heart’, that is, our emotions (Pettersson 1996), and not only our rational abilities. In its extreme forms, dreaming can be seen as a way of escaping the realities people are not willing to face, as an individual defencemechanism. Mythologies contain elements of heroism and of how to become a hero. Vocation is needed, and a call for adventure is the basic line in mythology. This calling is crucial to the myth in all mythologies, the theme of a visionary search in which a person follows his/her own inner path based on vision. Hero stories tell about this adventure in diverse ways. The search for a vision means crossing one’s own limits and fighting ‘demons’ on the way. There are archetypes behind the stories and mythology as well. These archetypes are in the collective unconsciousness representing ‘a field of energy’. The hero myth is a transpersonal, archetypal arena, describing the universal with its basic essence. The hero presents a figure that symbolises the hidden strength of the individual to cross the everyday life consciousness. The hero searches for a maiden to liberate her. According to Neumann (1973), this maiden is a transpersonal, collective picture having a female figure, and the hero searches for the feminine part in himself to combine it to his essence. To reach this part of oneself, one has to probe deep into one’s mentality and face the collective elements of unconsciousness – also typical of the Freudian psychoanalytic approach. As Jung sees it, it is fear and anxiety that one has to face when one dives deep into one’s mind. So the part of the hero is not only to make an outer voyage but also an inner, psychic voyage from consciousness to unconsciousness. There is a great deal of heroism in the stories both of the Finnish Kalevala epic and among the Greek gods. There is war, there are victories and losses. One of the researchers who introduced the concept of ‘myth’ in organisational research as early as 1979, was Pettigrew. Since that time the concept of myth has been often mentioned in the organisational culture literature but in a definitional sense, not as an organising principle or analytical frame (Miller, forthcoming). In organisations, heroism is mostly seen in success stories. Unique organisational ideals may have their origins in these success stories (Czarniawska 1986). We can doubt whether there is such a thing as generalised, ungendered heroism: to become a hero as a woman is a paradox in itself, since heroes are, by definition, men. The other side of the hero coin is the heroine. Obviously, different standards apply to heroes and heroines. Women’s prestige is historically associated with activities required for the survival of the culture (Koprowski 1983). Heroines possess the qualities of the archetypal mother (Jung 1980), who nourishes and protects life, while male heroes sometimes even have to destroy or kill to be able to fulfil their given tasks.

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Scattered parts of the body and the uniting mother in the Kalevala epic Mythologies like the Kalevala epic, translated into at least fifty-eight languages by 2000, can be seen as a collection of stories and myths from ancient times, compiling pieces of stories into a mythology where the stories told give meaning to the whole history, not only of the nation, but of mankind having therefore a true mythical nature. The Kalevala epic consists of a collection of runes, which can be called Finnish folk songs. The author, Elias Lönnrot, gathered and combined the stories, published in 1835. The original stories were collected as he wandered among people in the eastern part of Finland, called Karelia, mostly by writing down what the local people were singing. So the runes have similarities with folk songs, even if the music used for presenting the runes is not very expressive as such and served mainly as a memory aid. The heroes of the epic are present in Finnish art and literature as well as in music, like in the compositions of Jean Sibelius. The Kalevala has images of both men and women. The three mythical heroes in the epic are Väinämöinen, Lemminkäinen and Ilmarinen. Pohjola is an unknown, frightening country in the North. There is a long digressive poem which relates the adventures of the three mythical heroes. As Caraker (1996) argues, the characters in the Kalevala are supernatural but they also present men and women living their ordinary everyday lives in ancient times. The women, in particular, can be recognised as ‘real people’ with their own hopes, joys and sorrows, and their lives can be understood even in the cultural context of today. One of the central stories which has especially inspired Finnish artists is the story of Lemminkäinen and the Tuonela river (The Kalevala: 168–86). This story, entitled ‘The Resurrection’, tells about the wanton Lemminkäinen who gets into an adventure when trying to prove himself worthy of one of the daughters of Louhi, the mistress of Northland. He disappears. The luckless mother does not nor the mean one who bore him know where her flesh is moving where her own blood is rolling whether on a piny hill heathery heathland or was he on the high seas on the froth-capped waves or in a great war a dreadful revolt in which blood reaches the shin redness is knee-deep. The mother of the wanton Lemminkäinen leaves to search for her son. She arrives in Northland and asks the mistress, Louhi, whether she knows where her son is. First, the mistress is unwilling to answer but finally gives up. She replies:

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Iiris Aaltio and Minna Hiillos Suppose now I tell the truth: I set him to ski for elk flay the king of beasts bridle great geldings and to harness foals; I made him search for the swan hunt the holy fowl. Now I cannot imagine what has come by way of ruin by way of hindrance turned up that he is not heard coming to ask for a bride to beg for a girl.

As in many fairytales, the structure of the story follows this pattern: the hero is searched for by a loyal friend, in the Kalevala by the mother who sets off on the journey to find her son. She ends up on a small road, beneath the moon and the sun,1 asking them where her son is. Finally the sun answers. O small road, God’s creature, have you not seen my son my apple of gold my staff of silver?. . . Darling moon, God’s creature, have You not seen my son My apple of gold My staff of silver?. . . O sun, creature of God, have You not seen my son My apple of gold My staff of silver? Your son, luckless you has been lost, been killed down in Tuoni’s black river the Dead Land’s ageless water – gone through the rapids roaring with the currents in a flash towards furthest Tuonela to the dales of the Dead Land. The mother bursts into tears, goes to the smith Ilmarinen and asks him to forge an iron rake, upon which Ilmarinen fulfils the request. She takes the iron rake and rakes for her son along the Tuonela river. She manages to drag her son’s shirt, socks and hat. She steps further down to the dale of the Dead Land, and the third time she drags, a mass of entrails comes up with the iron rake. ‘Could a man still come from this, a new fellow recover?’ She begins to join flesh to flesh, fitting bones to bones and limbs to limbs, sinews to fractures of sinew.

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Thus Lemminkäinen’s mother made the man, formed the fellow with the life he had before with the looks he used to have; she had the sinews all told the sinew-ends bound but had not the talking not the child speaking. To get Lemminkäinen to talk, the mother asks for help from the bees. First, she asks the bees to find honey from Forestland Tapiola, ‘from many flower petals, from the husks of many grasses, to be ointments for the sick, and to heal the ill!’ Again, she asks the bees to bring honey from Thor’s new cabin, and from the heaven above nine heavens. Then Lemminkäinen’s mother lulled the one she knew to the shape he had before to the looks he used to have till he was a bit better even, fitter than before. Then the wanton Lemminkäinen went home straight away with his dear mother beside his honoured parent. The mother is the combining, uniting, caring figure, but she needs help: the iron rake and the bees’ honey to unite the scattered parts of the body, and to make an even better man than Lemminkäinen used to be. A resurrection has taken place. The mother has given birth once biologically, now she does it again. This kind of mothering can be understood not only metaphorically but also in terms of real life contexts. The same mother figure is seen in the history of eastern Finland and its Karelia region. When Karelia was ceded some 55 years ago to the Soviet Union after World War II, the dislocated Karelian immigrants were scattered all over Finland. Among these immigrants the mothering function, the action that united the scattered pieces of the family together, was of crucial importance. This function was carried out by means of short enquiries – how these people were, who was getting married, who had been ill, who was moving – that is, by taking a caring look at people’s lives. The Finnish author Laila Hietamies describes this uniting mother function in her novels about families and life in the Karelia area (e.g., a novel from her abundant production Abandoned Houses (1982) was also filmed recently by Lauri Törhönen). Like the metaphor of the womb again, it is the coffee table – a place of harmony and warmth, with home-made cakes and pleasant chatting – where her characters often end up in her books. To take another example from world literature, the metaphors of the uniting mother and a farmhouse share common features. In the film Gone With the Wind,

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it is the farmhouse that has a central place in Scarlett O’Hara’s heart. The film ends with her yearning to go back there again – every problem will be solved there, in the house of the mother, the mammy and the nanny. The farmhouse is like a womb: nourishing, safe and warm again, a place of harmony, as interpreted by Helen Taylor (1989). The uniting mother is a metaphor, but even more important, an archetype of all mothers. To become a part of one’s mother again, to live in the farmhouse, which is like a womb, means to unite oneself with the archetype. The social control of the definition of femaleness is evident throughout the male and female discourse. There is the feminine mystique that confines women to the women-only group, within the womb of the mother again. As Gherardi puts it, the eroticism of the mother’s body is threatened by separation and by diversity, its pleasure lies in the fusion of the indistinct, and protection is given in exchange for obedience (1995: 63–66). As pointed out by Gherardi (1995), archetypes of femaleness are instruments of knowledge and experience. An archetype enters the collective imagery, projects inner experience and replicates the history of knowledge in general. In working life and in organisations, cultural models of femaleness are presented and can be identified which, as regards their archetypal features, fashion different patterns of womanhood and structure diverse relationships. Gherardi refers to Greek mythology and its female and male divinities, and shows their embodiments in modern organisational cultures. The ‘mothering’ archetype is Demeter, the goddess of harvests and abundant crops. Demeter is a ‘nurturer’ and symbolises the joy and the pain that the caring instinct can bring (ibid.: 79–81). The wanton Lemminkäinen is a man, a hero with magical talent, but to be saved he needs his mother. This is not the typical case where the maiden is rescued by a man, but instead the other way round. But the mothering activity is present throughout story: the uniting, the harmonising, the creative and birthgiving. The dismembered parts of the body, when joined together again, are not the former Lemminkäinen, but an even better man is made out of the scattered fragments. In this piece of the Kalevala mythology, the uniting and nourishing role of the archetypal ‘mother’ is very clearly evident.

Mothering in the enterprise Mothering in the meanings given here is the opposite of warring. This metaphor is often used when describing occurrences in business life. The success of an entrepreneur is seen to depend on his ability to ‘kill’ and an executive’s reputation depends on how many men he has ‘shot down’ on his way to the top (like Morill 1992: 58). There are many references to the concepts of war in business language – for example, the word ‘strategy’ is drawn from war terminology (Calas and Smircich 1991). Sievers (2000) states that organisational analysis reveals warring in and between organisations while emphasis could be put also on other kinds of aspects of them as well. Thus the metaphor of ‘mother of the organisation’ – a metaphor for any activity that suggests uniting, nourishing and caring – is the opposite of splitting, scattering and, in fact, organising, for

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dividing things to get them managed, like in the classical Taylorian ideology (like Merkle 1980). However, well aware that this can also be regarded as a stereotype, we do not claim that men have no role in these combining and unifying aspects as well. Yet, it is – both metaphorically and as an archetype – the mother in the family who is the uniting force, keeps the family together, gets the family through crises, and seeks harmony. Data still show that women have more to do with socialising roles in families than men (Kinnunen and Mauno 1998: 157–77). Statistical data indicate that in Finland there are more women than men working in personnel management tasks, in excess of 50 per cent, and that this is the only area in management where women outnumber men. Personnel departments in enterprises sometimes seem to act as emotional processors in times of crisis (Hiillos 1999). Aspects of this kind of archetype may favour the selection of women to managerial positions in personnel management. The life experience of female managers may also be supportive of them being chosen to these positions, and their own motivation may help to explain this as well. Let us continue to study the archetype of the uniting mother and her children. Dreams of everlasting harmony may accompany this admiration of the mothering function, and betraying such expectations remove the female manager from the idealised position of a female manager in the organisation. Often female managers are not only seen to represent their own position as a manager, but at the same time, they are seen as representatives of ‘the woman’. In her archetypal soul the female manager herself may feel that she is betraying her ‘true’ nature, the obligation to care and unify. In her study on organisational downsizing, Lämsä (1998) found that downsizing is, in fact, an emotional task, and emotions like empathy, fear and guilt seem to arise in relation to the human beings instead of the task involved. If any feeling of closeness – physical, social or psychological – is experienced with the laid-off persons, emotions will arise. Managers who refrain from talking about ‘company benefit’ or ‘obligations of the professional manager’ in their explanations may be expressing some kind of role distance: they begin to consider downsizing from the standpoint of the laid-off individuals. Lämsä (1998) also noted certain differences between female and male managers. Female managers more easily felt and explained their experiences as ‘feminine’ and ‘stereotypically’ emotional. We can understand this on the basis of the general idea that a management position in itself is gender neutral, that is, rational and unemotional, and emotions are a sidepath, a female characteristic in the eyes of this norm, and a kind of falsification of the whole idea of management. Nevertheless, both among male and female managers there was a conflict between the caring emotions and laying people off in downsizing situations. Moreover, if we study emotionality together with the discourse on charismatic leadership, gender questions will inevitably arise. It is generally believed that women are the emotional sex – emotionality is seen as the essence of womanhood. The implicit assumptions (Fischer 1998: 83) are that emotionality is a natural disposition rather than a reaction based on gendered socialisation practices, that emotionality cannot exist with intellectual capacities but operates to the exclusion of rational and abstract thinking, and that emotionality is not a

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very desirable trait and is even considered problematic as it implies losing control. There are various gender issues related to charismatic leadership and charismatic followership. The image of a charismatic female manager might come close to that of a witch, whereas a charismatic male manager is more or less a ‘nice guy’. Manipulation, seduction and deceit are the gloomy sides of charisma, and they work differently in the male and the female. And what is more, charismatic female managers cannot be heroes (Aaltio-Marjosola and Takala 2000). Charismatic followers may show a tendency to be misled by their emotions and to completely lose their rationality – again an image typically more suitable for female followers. Charisma, divine origin, and the Demeter-kind of mothering function all resemble each other. The mothering function in the enterprise is the opposite of managing, governing and using rationality to keep things together. Emotions may help to unify the scattered members of the organisational body in a different way. The uniting mother metaphor, when used in the context of management and leadership, is therefore close to the very functions of administration and governing – a matriarch keeping the family, or any community, together. The many nuances of femininity may become lost in this powerful mother archetype, birth-giving and, thus, essential for human existence. Applicants for female manager positions may be valued in terms of their fit with this archetype. As gendered realities, organisational cultures can both be understood in terms of the archetypes they carry, or vice versa, to see them as being carried by different archetypes.

The uniting mother in times of crisis at the workplace From warring to constructing emotions What happens if the body of the organisation is scattered? This is like a situation in a war, accompanied with feelings of anger, fear and loss. We studied this situation by asking twenty personnel managers what a situation of crisis meant to them in their work. Most of them described a ‘dismembered’ organisational body. The most recurrent crises mentioned were related to restructuring or downsizing. Many special matters have to be dealt with in severe crisis situations, described as ‘dead-end’ situations by the interviewees, and they tended to be delegated to the personnel department, often regarded as the ‘handyman’ of an organisation, fixing human relational problems, whatever they may be. [. . .] Well, mostly in this job you take care of other people’s matters, you are like a Jack of all trades, and of the matters of the company . . . I feel, that nearly, yes nearly, all those matters that have just a little to do with personnel end here [at the personnel department]. I am asked to participate in a great number of meetings and projects and it is actually very useful to participate, because then you know what is happening in the house and you can, if needed, combine the facts in a way that you are, so to say, a contact person between various projects [. . .]. Personnel manager (1)2

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In general, the role of personnel managers is considered ambiguous, located somewhere between the management and the employees (Watson 1977). Perhaps it is precisely this ambiguous label of personnel work that allows for certain freedom in acting as a personnel manager. This kind of a job description may appeal more to women – used to operating in ambiguous arenas, combining home and working life activities – than to men. Women may feel more comfortable with fluid job descriptions than men, due to their ambivalent nature. Höpfl (forthcoming) maintains, when interpreting Kristeva and her concept of the abject daughter, that it is difficult for organisations to have daughters, to have to admit women, since women, by their very being, introduce ambivalence. Accordingly, if we think that females introduce ambivalence, we may quite as well think that the organisation itself may be pushing women to the ambiguous role of personnel manager. In fact, the descriptions of the role of a personnel manager by the managers themselves are quite flexible, often described as a liaison officer, contact officer or mediator. Due to the fluid boundaries of their job description, personnel managers have the possibility to observe and to scan an organisation. This appears to give them a unique opportunity to assemble bits of information, feelings, or organisational scenes into a whole and, hence, to react in crisis situations based on their knowledge of the whole, a ‘gut feeling’ of the whole. The challenge for the personnel manager is precisely to balance personnel and management, to create an atmosphere of harmony and trust in which s/he can act as a mediator in conflicts between management and personnel, having a role of a mediator in conflicts. The interviewed personnel managers indicated that this also enabled them to improvise and to shape reactions in crisis situations: [After an announcement of the company’s bankruptcy to the personnel] My first move in the line of crisis management was that I let them drink, or there were some beer bottles, wine from company parties in the cupboards. People wanted to sit and discuss the situation after office hours. I said, close the doors and drink. Or when they asked if they could drink, I said, if you feel like it, go for it. [. . .] This was my first decision on personnel during the crisis. A personnel director (1) from a large Finnish company which went bankrupt during the Finnish recession of the 1990s Personnel work means assuming responsibility for the whole, uniting the interests of the different parts of the organisation. The capacity to form a holistic view of the organisation is crucial for a personnel manager. And then the company has a number of departments, each has its own head of department who has to be interested in his/her own department. And sometimes, in reality quite often, they don’t give a shit what happens in another department. If we act like this it does not enter their mind to think of the effects [of a decision], it is a snowball. And then the personnel manager has to be the one who stops play. Personnel manager (2) of a department store

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Does this not remind us of family life, of children, each one wanting to get the whole cake, while the mother patiently calls for silence and then cuts the cake into pieces to satisfy everyone – the just mother bringing up her children. Indeed, it was the role of guardian of justice that emerged as one of the central tasks of personnel managers during a crisis. Fairness and justice in dealing with people were pointed out as being among most important values in personnel work. According to one of the managers she had been repeatedly accused of being ‘a tough woman’ because she wouldn’t excuse any misbehaviour regarding work shifts, such as coming late to work. She suffered from this label, but explained that she was only following her principle of being fair to everybody. The personnel department is a legitimate place for addressing issues not commonly talked about in an organisational milieu. It seems to be an emotionalised zone in the organisation. Why is that? Has the female majority of personnel managers had an impact on the image of personnel departments? Is the personnel department by its very name a place where you can talk ‘personnel’ interpreted as anything to do with ‘intrapersonnel’ relations? The department’s role as an emotional processor is particularly emphasised in crisis situations (Hiillos 1999). An empathetic role towards the employees was, however, enacted with a distance. As one interviewee put it, she sought as well as she could to respond to the distress and pain of the laid-off, but she continued that she ‘couldn’t take more, the empathetic attitude cannot go too far, you can’t mourn over things that cannot be changed’. A personnel manager has to be strong. Even though she identifies herself with the distress of the employees, she is the one who has to endure and take care of the practicalities, think clearly. This particular personnel manager even went so far as to persuade the employees to leave the company on time, for their own good. The company was a part of a well-established corporation with long traditions, and some of the employees were so loyal to the company that they first refused to leave the sinking ship. There are some amusing coincidences between the roles of the mother and the personnel manager. The family member who is always busy doing something and whose work never gets any real credit is – who else – but the mother! The same phenomenon was recognised by the interviewed personnel managers, both male and female, who pointed out that the real results of their work could only be seen in the long run, after a couple of years at the earliest. This reminds us of bringing up children – a real long-term job. The difficulty of seeing results in the short term may be one of the reasons why men do not form a majority in personnel management. At least stereotypically, men tend to seek jobs where the productivity can be measured quickly, which is not the case in personnel management. Women, perhaps because of reproductive ability, appear to worry less about short-term productivity. One of the interviewees was an experienced female personnel manager, who had entered the field of personnel administration some 25 years ago. At that time, personnel management was mostly in the hands of male managers and had to do mainly with different rules or regulations on how employees should be treated. The female manager in personnel administration felt more like a token. But, during the past 20 years, with a growing number of women in the profes-

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sion, the personnel function has become less rule-bound and more personoriented. Still, in the light of the interviews made, rule-bound behaviour also exists and it seems that it is male personnel managers who are more apt to adopt an instrumental role in crisis situations. This means, for example, that a personnel manager hires professional help in emotional crisis situations, or even outsources the emotions to a company priest or a company nurse, having the outsourcing role. Maybe male personnel managers are bound to the stereotypical picture of the unemotional man. Thus, engaging in emotions would also mean breaking away from the stereotype, which would bring an extra challenge to the job. In many of the cases, the female personnel managers were the ‘heroes’ in crisis situations. Not only were they worried about how the employees would cope, but also their own job was at stake in most of the restructurings. Despite their own situation, they continued listening to the personal problems of the laid-off individuals, searching for innovative solutions to create new job opportunities, discussing with and comforting the others – the archetypal mothers nourishing and protecting life (Jung 1980). In the midst of a crisis, they were active and continued to focus on practical things with optimism. ‘The uniting mother’ working in between privacy and work-life It is not only the brains as a metaphor for thinking and rationality which are engaged in organisational activities, but the whole person with his/her feelings and actions. Organisations have traditionally focused on the rational side of behaviour, thus eliminating private life from the organisational arena. But the private life of an employee affects his/her working life in various ways. It may intersect, merge with, or support the organisational activities (Friedman et al. 1998). In lay-off situations – always sensitive and difficult to manage – it is common that the advice of the personnel manager is considered when the cut-down numbers are converted to individuals. Several interviewees reported that in searching for a solution to these tricky cases, they also considered the consequences of the decision to the private life of the employee. One of the interviewed managers told about her unwillingness to give notice to a parent who was the sole breadwinner of a family. Another said that when he had heard that there was severe illness in the family, he had searched for a possibility to call off the notice. The role of the personnel manager, thus, extends over the boundary of the organisation to the sphere of private life. The employees also recognise this, as illustrated by the following quote: [Talking about the most challenging situations in his job:] In one case, this happened years ago, where I was to discuss about the termination of a person’s job, she had taken a two- or three-year-old child with her, she had taken the child with her. And the discussion goes, like, from where was she going to earn a living for her family. [. . .] So she wanted to influence me. This has stuck to my mind. I felt it was very unusual. [. . .] This was during office hours and it was a meeting where she knew we would discuss the termination of her job. Personnel director (2)

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Would a similar scene have been possible if a line manager, not a personnel manager, would have given notice to this young woman? The interviewed personnel managers explained that they were trying to build up a confidential relationship with the employees. This relationship functions both during good times and bad. Sharing positive experiences with the employees – their career advancement, sales records, etc. – was described as one the most rewarding sides of personnel work. The other side of the coin, then, is that when things do not go well, the barrier to go and complain to the personnel manager is much lower than to go to your foreman. In lay-off situations, for instance, pouring one’s illwill on the personnel manager instead of the line manager is quite common. This was illustrated by a situation in which a line manager had given notice to fifteen persons, and the personnel manager had organised a meeting to inform and help those who were being laid off. The laid-off did not dare say anything to the line manager but once he had left the room, they directed their disappointment and distress to the personnel manager rather harshly. The personnel manager spent the rest of the day behind closed doors, crying. Still, although they sometimes experienced this kind of unfairness, the personnel managers explained that they took pride in being the person whom one could always approach: ‘. . . who else could the employees talk to, if not to us?’ In times of organisational crises and cut-downs, the dismembered fragments of the organisational body are gathered together again through managerial efforts. It is the hope for a better future, a dream of harmony and a feeling of unity that are important in crisis situations, even if harmony is not everlasting in any dynamic context. The role given to mothers in all portrayals of war contains these same elements of hope: metaphorically, a newborn child is a symbol of hope for better times. It is a well known fact that baby booms are common phenomena after a time of war. In the context of global organisations, the organisational bodies are very complex entities, and harmony is sought in universal terms and at many levels, like in strategies and policies. At the same time, the organisational members may wish to experience an atmosphere of healing, and organisations are faced with the challenge to create such an atmosphere for them. Organisational bodies are dynamic contexts in which fragmentations and resurrections are taking place alongside each other. At the individual level, people have a mental need to feel harmony, but fresh changes are also required. Managerial guidance and care are important during this process of creation of new meanings (Smircich and Morgan 1982).

The uniting and healing role of the ‘organisational mother’ The story about the wanton Lemminkäinen and his mother differs from the original story of a mother giving birth to a child at a certain crucial moment. What takes place is a resurrection: the mother gives birth to her adult son. She not only holds a uniting role but also one of healing. Adopting the role of a mother in a contemporary organisation does not sound very ‘high-performance’ or ‘cool’. Female personnel managers, in particular, may fear that the mother role is a trap – one of the few accepted, and therefore

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potential, roles of organisational women which Kanter (1977) described in her book. Adult organisational members, especially men, may not want to get led by ‘organisational mothers’ who may guide them and suppress their individuality. In psychoanalytic terms, men have to grow apart from their mothers and adopt their own identity as males. Organisational mothers may even threaten their male gender identity. In female organisational members, who have adopted the female identity, to face mothering in the organisation may raise feelings of anxiety and suppression as well. This can be illustrated by considering a scene in films that present archetypal features: a soldier who gets wounded or faces death calls for his mother. This wish to become healed and nurtured is a part of human nature, but it is a silenced part of one’s ego, even something to feel ashamed about, because it relates back to childhood and does not fit the image of an ideal organisational man or woman. Is this the reason why so many of the interviewed female personnel managers spontaneously explained that even though they may be empathetic and soft, they refuse to be thought of as any organisational mothers? Or are personnel managers afraid of investing too much of their emotional capacity into mothering? The goddess Demeter, the archetype of motherhood as presented by Gherardi (1995), suffers from exhaustion. In a few studies it has been found that female managers tend to suffer more stress symptoms than do their male counterparts, partly because of the overload of requirements in social relationships (Alvesson and Due Billing 1997: 147–50). Gherardi concludes, on the basis of her studies in several organisations, that Demeter as a model of femaleness, with her ‘readiness to care for others, to show concern for their problems, to sacrifice free time for them, and so forth, is ultimately counterproductive and leads to symptoms of burn out: a feeling of being emptied, sucked dry, of constant fatigue and apathy’ (Gherardi 1995: 81). The Demeter role may be recognised as a risk by the personnel managers, the burn out phenomenon being so common in Western work environments. Mothering can perhaps be seen as representing aspects of emotional labour (cf. Hochschild 1983). Hence, as discussed earlier, also the empathetic role of personnel managers in crisis situations is enacted with distance. Not surprisingly, the idea of not wishing to play a mothering role was never addressed by any of the men interviewed. However, when the personnel managers, male and female, described what their work was actually like, the role of mothering was there and the tasks connected to it were described in positive terms. In a business context, it would seem that there is not much prestige in the image of mothering and that it would not be wise to label one’s work as such – at least, not directly. Instead, the strategic importance of the personnel department was stressed in many cases. We may ask whether stressing the strategic importance of personnel is a political choice, strategy sounding so much more business-like than mothering. There has been a lot of discussion about the future of the personnel department. In order to cut costs, should a company outsource the personnel function or should it be integrated to the line? As an outsourced function, personnel work would lose its touch with the organisation in question. Or, integration to the line might lead to a situation in which there is nobody to represent the role of the just

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and fair mother. Being left without a mother may not complicate only a child’s development but an organisation’s as well. Organisational bodies nowadays face the need to change and to resurrect more and more often due to mergers and acquisitions. What is needed are the uniting and healing actions of those entering organisational positions where these processes take place. Dismembered organisations have to continue the never-ending search for harmony to survive through chaos. We use the metaphor of ‘the mother’, a combination of features in the archetypes and mythologies in our society as well as in the images prevailing in organisational life. They contrast sharply with the images of ‘grey-mantled organisational realities’ with dividing and combining in the rational metaphor, which has traditionally been seen as the appropriate way to grasp organisational realities. The mothering metaphor, containing elements of healing and nurturance, fits the female way of seeing organisations and contrasts with the traditionally held male way of seeing them, and challenges the whole notion of organisations as gender-neutral bodies. Moreover, ‘organisational mothers’ can physically be also men in addition to women.

Notes 1 In universal mythologies, the simultaneous appearance of the sun and the moon marks the identification of the individual with the universe and the intergration of the principles of eternity and time (Silverman Van Buren 1989: 71). 2 Translation from Finnish by the authors

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Chapter Title

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Organisation as body-in-contact Ingrid Molderez

‘Gigantic Days’ The analysis of body-in-contact contributes to the way organising is perceived. It is an attempt to break through an excessively functionalist approach: ‘. . . parts . . . are not made independently and then assembled as in a machine, but arise as a result of interactions with [this word is preferred to Goodwin’s within] its wider environment’ (Goodwin 1995: 183). Hence a body-in-contact. By using hyphens between body, in and contact the physical material of the body is taken into consideration, but as connected with its environment and not within, i.e. in the centre. René Magritte’s painting Les Jours Gigantesques from 1928 illustrates the idea of body-in-contact. It shows how difficult it is to make a division between two entities, in this case man and woman. Although one can see that it is about a man and a woman, it is unclear where the woman ends and the man begins. The joining between the two makes this undecidable. The function of the boundary is not to separate man and woman. It symbolises that they share something together. They are not really the same, nor completely different, but rather similar. To use Deleuze and Parnet (1989: 3) it is the woman-becoming of man and the man-becoming of woman. This does not imply that man and woman result in a kind of hybrid, or something in-between which is also a nothing. We know man and woman only through the relationship between them. Both are in interplay with each other. The other is important and necessary. Magritte’s creative impulse for this painting was a man raping a woman. In Les Jours Gigantesques this violent act is not one of victory. Man is not suffocating woman. The painting shows a very tense and vulnerable relationship. Les Jours Gigantesques is about movement and production. Contact brings forth tact and care, but also anger and fear. It is never either the one or the other, but both at the same time. A couple is never only man or woman, but both in togetherness. A (married) couple (in Dutch: echtgenoten) is a true companion (in Dutch: een echte genoot). Consequently one cannot claim that the product belongs to him or her only. Goodwin’s (1995: 192–6) case of the Hunza people is another example of this connection. The Hunza Valley is famous for its mountains and the longevity of its people. The Hunzakuts are known for extraordinary good health, a very low

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Figure 4.1 ‘Ingrid carrying Jasper in a baby sling’ illustrates the idea of a body-in-contact. Although the physical connection between mother and child is cut after birth, the bond between them will always remain. Both are individuals, but at the same time impossible to divide.

infant mortality rate and high life expectancy rate. When the British first explored the area at the end of the nineteenth century, they were astonished to meet people who claimed to be more than 120 years old. One may wonder how British and Hunza people communicated about age. The dominant ethnic group of Hunza are the Burusho who speak the Burushaski language. They make up

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nearly 70 per cent of the population of Hunza which is about 35,000 people. The Hunzakuts do not mind feeding the myth that they live longer than anybody else in the world. Nevertheless, when Paul Dudley White, a visiting doctor, examined a group of men between 90 and 110 years old, he reported the following: ‘. . . not one of them showed a single sign of coronary heart disease, high blood plessure, or high cholesterol levels. They have 20–20 vision and no tooth decay. . . . When people die there is no known cause’ (Goodwin 1995: 192). The people from Hunza attribute their old age to their diet. They are largely vegetarians, but this is mainly an outcome of the remote area they live in. Each family owns so few animals that they cannot eat meat every day, except on holy days in December. They remain ‘subsistence farmers’ (McCarry 1994: 116). The food they grow on their cultivated land is the food they eat. Their farming methods involve extensive terracing of the valleys with well-developed irrigation systems. All organic waste is carefully collected and returned to the soil. Hunza is world-renowned for the cultivation of apricots, eaten fresh in summer and dried in winter. The kernel is crushed to produce cooking oil. Food must be stored to overcome the long and hard winter. Long, hard winters are nearly always associated with diseases and (early) death. Still, there must be something more than only a temperate climate. Comparisons to neighbouring communities show that: ‘A remote . . . habitat is certainly not in itself sufficient to stimulate this kind of health, vigour and wellbeing in people who have made this environment their home’ (Goodwin 1995: 194). Goodwin mentions the Ishkamanis, among others. Ishkamanis live in a valley next to the Hunza. They are poor, undersized, undernourished and show signs of disease despite the fact that there is plenty of land and water. It is neither the habitat nor the genetic differences between the communities that can account for their different living conditions. According to Goodwin (1995: 195): An explanation is more likely to be found at the level of sociality, the relationships that have been developed and perpetuated among the Hunza and with their environment, from which have arisen the traditions that stabilize their distinctive patterns of emergent social and cultural order. The Hunza case shows that the meaning of being is essentially being with the environment. Some have abused the Hunza case as a proof of the causal relationship between lifestyle and longevity. Yet a specific community cannot be copied. This would mean merely separating the different parts as functional units and perceiving a body as a machine, disconnected from its environment. A part – like a body – only has meaning in its relation with other parts. In this way Goodwin demonstrates that organisms and situations are the temporary result of relationships, of different processes. From this position of rest, heterogeneous processes that are moving and shaping will continue to give form. Each part has an intrinsic value and meaning and is important to the whole process. It is not a supplement in the conventional way of thinking, which is basically an additional amount of something that is not really vital. Following Derrida’s logic of supplementarity (in

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Cooper 1989: 486) supplement means: ‘that which is required to complete some deficiency in the present state of things’. The supplement is necessary to the whole tapestry of life.

Body and organisation Body and organisation are linked with each other because of the organ of organisation. The connection is even stronger when one refers to corporation which originates from corpus or, again, body. Sometimes body refers to the physical or social boundaries and at other times body suggests the lack of limits, like in desire or passion (cf. Bynum 1995). Relating organisation to body-in-contact allows us to perceive organisation from a de-centred perspective. In The Body and Society Brian Turner (1984: 7–8) affirms that he has become increasingly less sure of what the body is: The body is a material organism, but also a metaphor; it is the trunk apart from head and limbs, but also the person, as in anybody and somebody. The body may also be an aggregate of bodies, often with legal personality as in corporation or in the mystical body of Christ. There are also immaterial bodies which are possessed by ghosts, spirits, demons and angels. Turner struggles with the different and sometimes opposed meanings of body, thereby demonstrating how confusing it can be to separate body from the rest of the world. Alphonso Lingis (1994a: XIII), on the other hand, emphasises the multiple meanings of body. Bodies are also: hermaphrodites, transsexuals, Siamese twins, lacking or with non-functional reproductive organs. They are not only masculine or feminine, they are transgendered, multigendered, nongendered, cyborgs, werewolves, angels; they elaborate a semiotics and culture coupling their organisms and their sensuality across species, with animals, with hermaphroditic organisms, with plants and with rivers, with machines and death. The argument is opened that our body is not unrelated to the environment. It is a prosthetic body. It needs the environment to be able to live. The confusion already starts with our: ‘intuitive and naive sense, as expressed in our language, that we have a body, not that we are a body’ (Fisher 1991: 233). According to Robert Romanyshyn (1989: 103) a key issue for every age: ‘is to understand the ways in which we are this body. It is a key issue because the way in which we understand and treat our bodies is a reflection of the way in which we understand and treat the world’. The body tells us something about the situation, or the environment we are in and even more than that: ‘The body is a situation’ (Romanyshyn 1989: 236), and a site of meaning. Think of the story about a Russian KGB officer in Washington. His Russian friend asks him: ‘What do you do when you are tired and have a headache?’ The officer replies: ‘I take a rest’. Then the question is raised what the average American does in the same situation. And the answer is: ‘He takes two aspirins and continues’.

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Reading body as a collection of organs, disconnected from its environment, is a radically distinctive approach from the way most peoples over the world have construed it (cf. Porter 1997). Life is primarily understood in connection to the wider cosmos like planets, stars, mountains, rivers, spirits and ancestors. Modern Western thinking is preoccupied with the self, the individual and his identity. This distinction is especially striking with respect to healing: Whereas most traditional healing systems have sought to understand the relations of the sick person to the wider cosmos and to make readjustments between individual and the world, or society and the world, the western medical tradition explains sickness principally in terms of the body itself – its own cosmos. (Porter 1997: 7) A sick man is reduced to ‘a patient’ (Porter 1997: 668). The relationship with a human being is gone. Bodies are probed into, organs are exchanged, people with a mental disease are put in a lunatic asylum, the dead are stowed away outside their own home. There are essentially two different perceptions of man’s role in the world, i.e. a top-down approach, or ‘we are within the environment’ and a bottom-up approach, or ‘we are with the environment’. This bottom-up approach focuses on organising as a process of creating meaning in action and therefore makes the division between system and environment rather problematic.

Context – contact – contract Seeing body only as disconnected, as a cask containing the organs is not so surprising. Body is cognate with the German botah which means cask, tub or vat. Botah is no longer used in German and is replaced by leib or körper, but in English body is still common. Although corpse also exists, it is mainly used in relation to a dead body. Translations for body, like le corps in French and lichaam in Dutch, suggest that the body is articulated with its environment, its context. Corps is derived from corpus (in Latin) which signifies body, but also association. The same applies for lichaam (in Dutch). Licha-am is cognate with liga, or union. Ligáre (in Latin) is to connect or to join. Using to articulate to point to the incompleteness of the body might seem strange. Most of the time, it is used in relation to the materiality of the body, like the bones of our fingers that are articulated or united by joints to allow movement. There is quite often an inclination towards reductionism and a top-down approach, i.e. from the whole to the parts or from body to limbs to muscles, veins and nerves, bones and joints. Reading articulation from the bottom-up refers to body as only a (small) part. It implies that movement can only be made when we are part of a larger system. Or, in other words, it would be impossible to move if there was no environment. Articulation allows for movement but: ‘it is both a breakage in a continuum and a bridging of the breakage’ (Johnson 1993: 153). The joints are important. If we did not have joints in our arms, then it would be

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impossible to bend our arm. Our hand and arm are dependent on the joints to be able to move. But this joining is also binding and a boundary has a limit. We can only bend in a certain direction; our arm can bend inwards, but not outwards. Movement does not imply unlimited liberty, but enables a certain degree of freedom. Like in mechanics, the number of degrees of freedom increases with the number of hinges. However, at least in a theoretical sense, the degrees cannot go beyond three if only the location in a three-dimensional coordinate system is taken into account. One hinge is equivalent to one degree of freedom or to a path in a plane, two hinges to two degrees of freedom or to a plane and three to space. The idea of hinges is also used by Robert Cooper (1998: 121): ‘The body is hinged’ and therefore needs the or that other to make connections. The body is not only a collection of organs wrapped by the skin, but an anorganic body (cf. Deleuze and Guattari, in Anti-Oedipus, referred to by Lingis 1994b: 290). The illusion of being able to separate body and environment becomes clear in The Red Model, a painting by René Magritte from 1935. From the bottom-up the composition starts with a foot and ends up, through a process of hybridisation, with the properties of a boot (cf. Gablik 1992: 123). The body does not end with its skin (cf. Bateson 1973). It is extended and goes further than its skin. The basic expressions in our language also start from the body and are moved towards the environment where the border between the two dissolves. ‘On my left hand side, we see this or that’, for example, relates our perception of the world to the body. The same applies to ‘What is ahead of us?’ and ‘What is behind me now?’ Both are sayings which imply that our body has a front and a rear in space. Norbert Wiener (1954: 28) illustrates this extension by our day-to-day routine: We, as human beings are not isolated systems. We take in food, which generates energy, from the outside, and are, as a result, parts of that larger world which contains those resources of our vitality. But even more important is the fact that we take in information through our sense organs, and we act on information received. Although humans often want to put a boundary between objects and themselves: ‘the edges of the body have never been absolute’ (Fisher 1991: 243–4). The example is given of a coffee cup which can be described by its technical characteristics, but also by the human presence it includes: The form is made up of a set of interlocking elements that reach out to the body. The handle is of this size and configuration because of the thumb and fingers will grasp and lift it. The rim is designed to fit against the mouth. The size and depth are the dimensions they are because of the size of the stomach, the appetite for coffee, the number of sips that are felt to make up a drink. The relation of width to height and the material of the cup control temperature. The features of the cup can only be understood by preserving a hovering image nearby. The cup is adjacent to the body even when seen alone, and in its elements are recorded the details of the body.

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Not only the size and configuration fit. Also the words used to describe parts of the cup refer to the human extension: ‘The cup is made of a hand-le that meets the hand and a lip that meets the lip’. Why this concerns organisation theory is because of the intimate relationship between a product and its user. This alliance is often forgotten. Think of the steps of a staircase. If they have the right proportion, one can easily go up and down. The producer has the body of the user in his mind. Man of manufacturer relates to manueel (in Dutch) or by hand. Before the rise of factories, workmen who made the products were known as manufacturers (cf. Hill 1985: 25). Since industrialisation, owners have labelled themselves manufacturers. Workmen became known as hands. Manufacturers no longer produce their products by themselves. They use machines and hands, and can become inattentive to their application. A manufacturer today has stopped being a craftsman who touches by hand what he is making. Not everybody is capable of producing these products because hands are never the same. One of the consequences is that not just anybody can manage any company. Using instead of mere consuming includes the possibility of re-using. Using keeps the future in mind or that which comes next. Consumption relates to digestion (vertering in Dutch) and indigestion or with too much. To consume can be traced to consúmere (in Latin) or to use up, and: ‘to destroy, to waste, to exhaust’ (Williams 1988: 78). Even if one keeps considering the main function of the body as to fill the stomach or to obtain an identity by consuming, it is not a disconnected act. To consume is to con-sum-e, where con stands for with and sum for I am. To consume therefore also means I am with, or the act of consuming is linked to having contact with, and refers to a body-in-contact. The example can be given of a baby whose mouth, eyes, ears and fists are closed after being fed and who is contentedly sleeping. For Freud a baby is the ultimate expression of closed individuality, but according to Lingis (1994b: 291): ‘An infantile baby is anything but a separate substance. It is in symbiosis with mother, earth mother and earth; in symbiosis with mother who is harassed, preoccupied, weighed down with the weight of the world – the social imperial world’. The closedness of a baby can only be because there is a kind of contentment. And this, in its turn, can only exist when the baby feels itself secure and comforted by its environment, by its mother. Mother is ‘the sum of all other’ (cf. Lefebvre); the m becomes the Greek sigma, mathematical symbol for sum, when it is turned ninety degrees to the right according to the law of rotational symmetry (cf. Rosen 1975). The umbilical cord reminds one of connection and separation. The string cannot be undone. Although the connection between mother and child is cut after 40 weeks, the bond between them will always remain. The navel retains the strength of the mother. Compare the link between mother (moeder in Dutch, môdar in Old Saxon) and courage (moed in Dutch, môd in Old-Saxon). Symbiosis illustrates the necessity of the other, i.e. a person, and that other, i.e. an object, in order to live. Symbiosis refers to the Greek sun, which means both, and bios, which is life. Body presupposes contact; a body is always both. Contact has the same root as contingere (in Latin) or to touch (each other). By touching each other or something, there is contact which makes it possible to exchange information.

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One should therefore always be tactful when one is in contact with other humans, with an animal or with an object. This touching does not necessarily need to be interpreted in the literal sense only, although an embrace can mean the ultimate point of joining. Man generally does not like to be touched by the unknown, despite the predominance of physical touching that goes on in different cultures. However, when one feels uncertain, one wants to put a barrier between oneself and the outside. Establishing boundaries is an utterance of uncertainty. As Elias Canetti (1962: 15) argues: ‘Man wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize it or at least classify it’. It is like choosing a place in a public space. One leaves some room to avoid being touched by unknown people. Only in a crowd, like on a beach or in a traffic jam, one no longer feels a fear of being touched. When all the individuals are sucked into one body the fear disappears. Touching is also taking care of. Contact implies touch. Contact, and thus body, is always a connection which is irrevocable and irresistible. To connect (in Dutch: verbinden) relates to contract (in Dutch: verbintenis). The body is not only a contact but also a contract. A contract is something that connects us, and binds us like our body binds, i.e. restricts us. In the same way that man is contracted within his body, the body is a contract with life, death, nature, health, feelings, hope and fear. Our body will send signals, like a pain in our heart, liver and head when certain activities are no longer admissible. Sometimes we do not or cannot listen to these signals. The contract with our body is broken and the body collapses. It is therefore important to take into account the wisdom of the body (cf. Cannon 1974): ‘so that even in the body we have a liability’ (Bateson 1973: 407).

Being provisional Relating wisdom to the body does not imply a Western medical view of the body, i.e. a division of the body in parts, but: ‘the body as a systemically cybernetically organized self-corrective system’ (Bateson 1973: 409). In Bateson’s (1973: 286) words, the body shows mental characteristics, i.e.: It will compare, that is, be responsive to difference (in addition to being affected by the ordinary physical causes such as impact of force). It will process information and will inevitably be self-corrective either towards homeostatic optima or towards the maximization of certain variables. The scientific study of the way in which information is moved about and controlled in machines, the brain and the nervous system has been called cybernetics (cf. Wiener 1954). Defining cybernetics in this way might lead one to the conclusion that it is all about a very intelligent system. In the centre of everything, such a system is capable of maintaining stability while steering the constant flow of information. A typical example is the thermostat. When necessary, by disconnecting and reconnecting a supply of heat, the temperature can be kept at the same level. Norbert Wiener means something else than a merely centralised controlling system. As Parker and Cooper (1998: 212–13) explain:

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Cybernetic patterns move accross different domains; they are acts of ordering which translate food into flesh and bone, flesh and bone into working bodies, bodies into machines, and so on. Cybernetic organisation as stabilities in movement denies the fixed term, the specific location, the subject-object dichotomy. Cybernetics is the art of steering, but steering may be done in two different ways. Compare this to Levin (1988: 440). He distinguishes between an assertoric and an aletheic gaze. The former fits in with a top-down approach. An assertoric gaze: . . . tends to see from one perspective, one standpoint, one and only one position. . . . By contrast, the aletheic gaze . . . would essentially be moved by a tendency to see from a multiplicity of standpoints and perspectives: with an awareness of contexuality, of field and horizon, of situational complexity; and with a corresponding openness to the possibility of different positions. When one sits at the top, everything looks neatly organised. From the bottom multiple ways of organising become visible. Even if one moves from the bottomup to the top, it is a provisional top. Other tops appear. The Long Mynd, a range of hills in Shropshire, UK, is a telling example. Being on one top provides a panoramic view. It is not I in the centre of the universe, but I-in-togetherness and the I is made very small. Mind relates to Mynd. Mind in a cybernetic interpretation goes much further than the ability to think or to feel. Minds are not: ‘single subatomic particles’ because: ‘a mental process is always a sequence of interactions between parts. The interaction of mental phenomena must always reside in the organisation and interaction of multiple parts’ (Bateson 1979: 89–128). The example is given of a toy locomotive that: ‘may become a part in that mental system which includes the child who plays with it. But the objects do not become thinking subsystems in those larger minds. The criteria are useful only in combination’. The emphasis shifts from the human actor in the middle of the centre, to the void in which humans and non-humans are moving. The relation is now reversed: Human agents are not simply minds or ‘bodies that inhabit the universe’ (Virilio 1994: 27). Instead, [. . .] agents ‘become bodies inhabited by the universe, by the being of the universe’ (Virilio 1994: 27). Thus, human agents do not simply live in the world, they do not simply use tools, nor do they simply consume food and air. To be ‘inhabited by the universe’, by its ‘being’, means that the agent is a temporary term or position in an ever-active matrix of order-disorder. (Parker and Cooper 1998: 213, citing Virilio’s The Vision Machine) Seeing agency as temporariness applies to humans as well as to non-humans. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s idea of an ‘old jacket hung up on a chair in the silence of a country house’ (in Lefebvre 1986: 160) is maybe only a jacket hanging there.

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Then again, it would not have hung there if nobody had put it there. The jacket is part of the person and needs the person in order to exist. The jacket might seem a finished object, but it is only temporarily finished. It is in itself a part that can be assemblaged into another provisional whole. Robert Cooper (1998: 109) gives the example of: ‘the automobile leaving the factory as an incomplete object (i.e. as a part) which seeks a further connection with its human driver – yet another step in the assemblage’. Objects do not exist in themselves but only in connection with what surrounds them. The idea of the provisional can be illustrated by referring to Picasso’s sculpture of a bull made from a bicycle seat and handlebars (cf. Fisher 1991: 182). As Fisher (1991: 249) argues: Picasso’s sculpture of a bull’s head reassembles what had been up to that moment the assembly called bicycle into one called work of art. In the same art Picasso admits that this assembly itself is one possibility and that the disassembly and future permutation of the parts exists as an element of the nature of the present work. Making a distinction between finished products and raw materials – which are most of the time seen as in the natural state or not yet treated for use – becomes difficult. Every product is now seen as raw material. That which is the result of a multiplication of components is itself a component. The stage of assemblage is a fundamental part in modern history according to Fisher (1991: 226). One way of reading assemblage is producing objects out of parts. The parts are joined in order to construct a whole. Here, a purpose, an objective, has been included. The emphasis is on the end and no longer on the process of coming together. Another version of assemblage is derived from its equivalent in Latin. To assemble or assimuláre is a conjunction of ad and simul or together. The process of coming together allows for different directions without knowing in advance when, where or what the end will be. Still it will be together. Being provisional reflects the idea of body. A body is also ‘an organised collection of (fighting) men acting together’ and ‘an assemblage of units characterised by some common attribute and thus regarded as a whole’. This meaning of body is also expressed by instantie (in Dutch) which does not have an exact equivalent in English. Instantie comes from the Latin instántia which means immediate presence. It has the same root as instant (in English). An instant is cognate with an instance which contains stance, referring to stand or a fixed position. Following Jacques Lacan (1979), the in- of instance also means un-, which refers to a negation, or the possibility of having several stances. One fixed stance is negated by the idea of more than one stance. An instant is only a moment of time. It expresses that the body is provisional. Apart from the literal meaning that ‘we will all die’, it is more related to the continuous connection of the body with its context, or a body-in-contact.

Handmade space Body-in-contact might be perceived as binding and therefore as limiting. The emphasis is not on the end but on a continuous connection and reconnection.

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The body is not static, but has a dynamic relationship with its environment. Body-in-contact relates to Lingis’ (1994b) society of dismembered body parts, but there are differences. For Deleuze and Guattari (in Cooper 1998: 114) dismemberment implies freedom. Negative aspects of dismembered are not touched upon them. Think of Marx (in Lingis 1994b: 299): Labourers are coupled with the production process only as hands that assemble on assembly lines, or as legs and backs that bear burdens, or as arms that stoke furnaces. It is only the hands and eyes of clerks in offices that are paid for. Soldiers are limbs connected to weapons, disconnected from brain and imagination. Foreman are eyes disconnected from heart. The capitalist is the calculating brain disconnected from the capitalist’s own taste and caprice. The industrial entreprise is the whole body upon which these part-organs are attached. Dismemberment is then a dissection of the human body in useful and worthless parts. A body is functional as long as its parts can be put into operation. The connection has a purpose, is imposed and has only one direction. Degrees of freedom are instead reduced to zero. Marx criticised the loss of wholeness; a body has been torn apart. Its parts are no longer part of the body. They are linked to the corpus of a firm. A body-in-contact includes multiple connections, but they are not imposed. They just are. Philip Fisher (1991: 202) also stresses the domination of the human actor over other participants. His concept of handmade space is specified as: the arm’s reach, its height from the floor, its extension down or outward which defines the tactile space of production. Within this space, we pick up, move and assemble. Within this shallow bowl of space a few feet in front of the middle of the body, the hands and the eye are able to seize, to control and to create order. . . . In so far as human beings make and dominate the world, this space provides the metaphor for that domination and world construction. Hands are associated with power. The same hands creating a product are reduced to catching claws. De Vries and De Tollenaere (1995: 162) find it remarkable that hand is labelled differently in the Indo-Germanic languages, like manus in Latin and kheir in Greek. Kheir is cognate to heir, army, the armed forces. Kheir means ‘that what seizes, catches, grasps or grips’. Consequently hand has been associated with the Gothic fra-hinpan, or ‘to capture’, with hunps, or ‘a catch’ and with the Old-English hûp, which means ‘a capture’. Man catches (himself) with his hand. He is caught within the products and production of his hands, that is the technology with all its miracles and risks. Both hand and manufacturing have the same root. This underlines Emile Benveniste’s (1935) thesis. He argued that all the words being used by Indo-Germanic people when the first commercial relations started to develop, were cognate with ‘to cheat’, ‘to defraud’, ‘to be corrupt’ (cf. Lefebvre 1997).

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The hand that caresses is also the hand that strangles and destroys. Our hands allow for physical contact with the environment. The hand touches the world, feels it, but forgets to care. It seizes and transforms the world. Man started to think purposively when he found out, discovered or understood what he could do with his hands. The story of destruction that followed afterwards was inevitable. Bateson (1973: 410–11) argues that: ‘Lack of systemic wisdom is always punished’. He illustrates this with a version of the biblical story of Adam and Eve: There was once a Garden. It contained many hundreds of species – probably in the sub-tropics – living in great fertility and balance, with plenty of humus, and so on. In that garden, there were two anthropoids who were more intelligent than the other animals. On one of the trees there was a fruit, very high up, which the two apes were unable to reach. So they began to think. That was the mistake. They began to think purposively. By and by, the he-ape, whose name was Adam, went to an empty box and put it under the tree and stepped on it, but he found he still couldn’t reach the fruit. So he got another box and put it on top of the first. Then he climbed up on the two boxes and finally he got the apple. Adam and Eve then became almost drunk with excitement. This was the way to do things. Make a plan, ABC and you get D. After that everything went wrong. They discarded God from the Garden, several species of plants became weeds and some of the animals pests, Adam and Eve grew apart and in the next generation one of their sons killed his own brother. Hands help to understand the evolution of the body. Henri Focillon (1989: 161–2) argues that: Man has created his own hands – by which is meant that man has gradually freed them from the animal world, released them from an ancient and innate servitude. But hands have also created man. They have permitted him certain contacts with the world which his other organs and the other parts of his body could not vouchsafe. Body-in-contact is another way of saying that the bits and pieces of the world and the hand come together and evolve in context. They are both developing at the same time. Two things at least are necessary to come together and to work together. Compare with Lucretius (in On the Nature of the Universe, quoted by Johnson 1993: 170). The theory is refuted that sense-organs and bodily members have evolved for a specific, predestined function: Nothing in our bodies was born in order that we might be able to use it, but the thing born creates the use. There was no seeing before eyes were born, no talking before the tongue was created. . . . All the limbs, I am well assured, existed before their use. They cannot, therefore, have grown for the sake of being used.

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Sheer functionalism is objected to. The hand did not develop in response to the objects of the world, but the hand is the articulation of the very first human technology, that is knowing how one can make use of the fingers which together form the hand. The consciousness of the human being to employ the hand was the first tool, the first text to technological development, but also to destruction. The hand is like a text, like an instruction that tells us how to use something. Technology seems to be a corruption of text-ology. If one is not aware of how to use it one will not use it. If for example one does not know what a bicycle is – if one does not have a text in one’s mind – one will not jump on the bicycle. The hand, as text, creates a dilemma. One can be fascinated by it, but also chained to it. In an old English custom, horses were measured with the hands, like ‘this horse is so many hands’. Also, Focillon (1989: 162–3) links the hands to the process of measuring: ‘Surface, volume, density and weight are not optical phenomena. Man first learnt about them between his fingers and in the hollow of his palm’. By changing this way of measuring into more abstract ways, like metres on the Continent, the relation with the body disappeared and the possibility to surpass the limits of the body was created.

Hybridisation–domination Philip Fisher’s (1991: 233–52) analysis of the three realms of the recovered human image shows what kinds of relationships exist between different organisms. Although Fisher seems to follow a chronological evolution in the history of art, this is not the way these different realms should be interpreted. The first realm is called ‘nature seen as the range of animal species’ and refers to works of art which were made before Christ. These first represented humans by only using animals, then as hybrids – half man and half animal – and finally separated man and animal, showing man is part of a continuum of species. But they also represented a domination: ‘The human steps out of nature and stands over against nature, seeing only in the sum of the remaining species a complete realm, any part of which – falcon, bull, lion or scarab – can now be seen as partial images for elements for the human totality’ (Fisher 1991: 235–6). Not every animal will be used, but only those to which man has attributed a special characteristic. Even within the hybrids a separation and preference for cleverness and power is shown because the human face is always on top of the body of the animal. This separation between humans and animals seems to have been dissolved in the Middle Ages, and surely by the sixteenth century, where the laws applied as much to animals as they did to humans. Lucien Febvre (1982: 349) refers to the laws issued by the church, which entitled the bishop to direct an interdict against insects, rats or mice if they were infesting the countryside. They were excommunicated, punished for past faults, compelled to atonement and warned against ever repeating the offence. This blending of the characteristics of humans and animals also existed in the fables of Reynard The Fox which were well known on the continent and very popular in the sixteenth century. Most of the time, the aim of these fables was to express a moral by giving animals the attributes of human beings, or maybe it was the reverse – human beings were given the

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characteristics of animals. Febvre (1982: 387) also mentions Rondelet’s book Fishes, published first in Latin in 1554 and then in French in 1558. One drawing is a fanciful woodcut of a fish looking like a bishop. Rondelet pointed out that he could neither affirm nor deny the actual existence of the creature. Modern artists also followed this hybridisation, like René Magritte, who liked to reverse the natural properties of the living world (cf. Gablik 1992: 99–123). In Fisher’s second realm, ‘the sacred of divine world’, nature is never natural only. It has a religious value. According to Eliade (quoted in Hamilton 1994: 170): Experience of a radically desacralized nature is a recent discovery; moreover, it is an experience accessible only to a minority in modern societies. For others, nature still exhibits a charm, a mystery in which it is possible to decipher traces of ancient religious values. The third realm, ‘the world of objects’, is completely the opposite. Instead of a connection with the world, man is disconnected from the world and dominates: ‘The earth is now re-presented as a constant source of coal and ore. The world is made still in order that it can be more easily manipulated’ (Cooper 1993: 283). The parallel with a still-life becomes literal: The whole of nature is subordinate to the human will, visible as a stock of movable resources, available to combinational principles that are those of human desire, not natural law. The world is seen as a table-top ruled by the human hand and eye. (Fisher 1991: 250) The joining has become a handling, dealing, or managing the earth. It is the difference that Martin Heidegger (1977: 12–13, 15) puts forward between the original meaning of the word technology and modern technology, which both function as a medium between man and physical nature. Technology stems from the Greek: Technikon means that which belongs to techné. We must observe two things with respect to the meaning of this word. One is that techné is the name not only for the activities and skills of the craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts. Techné belongs to bringing-forth, to poiesis; it is something poietic. At first, the relationship was still one of taking care of and maintaining. It changed into manipulating: The coal that has been hauled out in some mining district has not been supplied in order that it may simple be present somewhere or other. It is stockpiled; that is, on call, ready to deliver the sun’s warmth that is stored in it.

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Heidegger (1977: 16) wonders if: ‘The Rhine is still a river in the landscape. Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry’. Coal and all the other elements of the earth take on the character of objectlessness: ‘by which Heidegger means that objects give up their individual identities and become part of the play of transformations that make up the wider system’ (in Cooper 1993: 284). Actors are part of a heterogeneous process, but unlike actor-network theory (cf. Law 1992), not every actor has an equal role to play. On the contrary, humans still think they have the dominant role. Their own interests, narrowed down to their own body, become prevalent. Interests are not only advantages or favours for a particular group. Recalling the Latin inter-esse, they also refer to in between of, in the midst of, together or again to body-in-contact.

Movement and movement Recall again the importance of the hyphens between body and contact. One cannot imagine a body without contact, without the other. We know body only through the echo of the other. This difference becomes more visible where they join each other, where they meet or where the middle is. Meaning sits on the fence, in the between. One easily forgets these points of contact, i.e. the between, the medium, or even the mediator. Magritte’s painting Les Jours Gigantesques symbolised the importance of the middle, of the boundary as structuring parts. Hence a body-in-contact is always moving. The play between body and the other enacts and re-enacts both into existence. Movement can therefore be read in two different ways: movement, stressing the result or the end (cf. ‘-ent’) of an action, and movement to stress the happening itself. Movement signifies moving from one definite location to another, while the process of creating is denied. Movement is co-defining and creating. It is not a static process, but a shaping one. The boundary as a middle is something that meets, that has contact with. It is the path that leads us to the other. Boundaries force us to confront ourselves, the other, life.

Acknowledgement Ingrid Molderez would like to acknowledge her gratitude to Eric Lefebvre and Robert Cooper for their help and support over many years.

Bibliography Bateson, G. (1973) Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Frogmore: Paladin. —— (1979) Mind and Nature, New York: E.P. Dutton. Benveniste, E. (1935) Origines de la Formation des Noms en Indo-Européen, Paris: Librairie Adrien-Maisonneuve. Bynum, C. (1995) ‘Why all the fuss about the body? A medievalist’s perspective’, Critical Inquiry 22(1): 1–33. Canetti, E. (1962) Crowds and Power, London: Victor Gollancz. Cannon, W. (1974) The Wisdom of the Body, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

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Cooper, R. (1989) ‘Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis 3: The contribution of Jacques Derrida’, Organization Studies 10(4): 479–502. —— (1993) ‘Technologies of representation’, in P. Ahonen (ed.) Tracing the Semiotic Boundaries of Politics, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. —— (1998) ‘Assemblage notes’, in R. Chia (ed.) Organized Worlds: Explorations in Technology and Organization with Robert Cooper, London: Routledge. Deleuze, G. and Parnet, C. (1989) Dialogues, New York: Columbia University Press. De Vries, J. and De Tollenaere, F. (1995) Etymologisch Woordenboek, Utrecht: Het Spectrum. Febvre, L. (1982) The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century. The Religion of Rabelais, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fisher, P. (1991) Making and Effacing Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Focillon, H. (1989) The Life of Forms in Art, New York: Zone Books. Gablik, S. (1992) Magritte, London: Thames & Hudson. Goodwin, B. (1995) How the Leopard Changed its Spots, London: Phoenix Giant. Hamilton, C. (1994) The Mystic Economist, Australia: Willow Park Press. Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York: Harper Torchbooks. Hill, C.P. (1985) British Economic and Social History 1700–1982, London: Edward Arnold. Höpfl, H. (forthcoming) ‘The Maternal Body and the Organisation: The Influence of Julia Kristeva’, in S. Linstead (ed.) Postmodern Organisations, London: Sage. Johnson, C. (1993) Writing and System in the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lacan, J. (1979) The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Law, J. (1992) ‘Notes on the Theory of the Actor-network: Ordening, Strategy and Heterogeneity’, Systems Practice 5(4): 379–93. Lefebvre, E. (1986) Elements of Human Organising. A Phenomenology of Person and Situation, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Lancaster. —— (1997) The Monk/Manager. And the Road to Abbey-Management, Leuven/Amersfoort: Acco. Levin, D.M. (1988) The Opening of Vision, London: Routledge. Lingis, A. (1994a) Foreign Bodies, London: Routledge. —— (1994b) ‘The society of dismembered body parts’, in C.V. Boundas and D. Olkowski (eds) Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre of Philosophy, London: Routledge. McCarry, J. (1994) ‘High Road to Hunza’, National Geographic Magazine 185(3): 114–34. Parker, M. and Cooper, R. (1998) ‘Cyborganization: Cinema as Nervous System’, in J. Hassard and R. Holliday (eds), Organisation-Representation. Work and Organization in Popular Culture, London: Sage. Porter, R. (1997) The Greatest Benefit to Mankind. A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, London: HarperCollins. Romanyshyn, R.D. (1989) Technology as Symptom and Dream, London: Routledge. Rosen, J. (1975) Symmetry Discovered. Concepts and Applications in Nature and Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, B.S. (1984) The Body and Society. Explorations in Social Theory, Oxford: Blackwell. Whitfield, S. (1992) Magritte, London: The South Bank Centre. Wiener, N. (1954) The Human Use of Human Being: Cybernetics and Society, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Williams, R. (1988) Keywords, London: Fontana Press.

Chapter Title

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Metaphors of the mother Susanne Tietze

But you, you who have listened to the story of the Chalk Circle, Take note what men of old concluded: That what there is shall go to those who are good for it, Children to the motherly, that they prosper, Carts to good drivers, that they be driven well, The valley to the waterers, that it yield fruit. (Brecht, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 1947)

What is a mother? The epilogue to the Caucasian Chalk Circle returns to and gives emphasis to the moral of the whole play – that the more productive group of farmers be handed the land that originally belonged to them. As all morals go, it is simplistic, although the body of the play offers a richer experience than the epilogue’s formula might suggest. Nevertheless, in the trial that ends the play, one of the most fundamental emotions is evoked and enacted: the motherly instinct of protecting and caring. Indeed, Brecht constructs the play around a series of topsy-turvy ideas that in a sequence of ironic and ingenious reversals question conventionally accepted attitudes and norms. Thus, Grusha, the kitchen maid and foster mother proves to be the ‘true’ mother rather than the biological mother, Natella, the Governor’s wife. Grusha proves herself ‘worthy’ of motherhood through her self-denial, her suffering on behalf of the child. She rescues him, suffers homelessness, social stigma and forsakes her own emotional happiness by entering into a forced marriage in order to provide social protection for the child. She gives painful birth to the son as a social person, through pains which only become bearable because of her love for the child. It is of interest for the purpose of this chapter that the notion of loving, caring, protecting and suffering is inseparably linked to the concept of motherhood, which in a Brechtian turn of ideology is linked to the socially underprivileged. However, Grusha is also more ‘natural’, breaking and ignoring social (cultural) conventions and following her instincts, as, for example, in the first scene when she, almost against her better judgement, rescues Michael, the child, from revolutionary troops.

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Figure 5.1 Susanne Tietze: a tomboy, with parents in the local wood.

It seems to me that Brecht, although this is unlikely to have been the sole intention of the play, offers a notion of motherhood that is associated with the core values of caring, protecting, nurturing through suffering while disassociating these from biological roots. In doing so, Brecht offers a metonymic model of ‘the mother’ (Lakoff 1987: 80–4), within which the nurturance model supersedes the biological model: the social supersedes the biological as the central case of motherhood, in which motherhood is intrinsically linked to acts of unselfish love and care. All available models (e.g. biological mother, adoptive mother, foster mother, stepmother, etc.) are only ‘mothers’ by virtue of their relation to the ideal case, which is characterised by acts of loving, caring and nurturing achieved through suffering.

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Images of the mother and motherhood in organisations My main argument in this chapter is that the metonymical concept of mother and motherhood unfolds itself in metaphorical language use. Thus, images of caring, giving birth, nurturing and loving point to the existence of a metonymic conceptualisation that both expresses and creates culturally determined expectations and values of motherhood. Furthermore, I argue that this very essence of ‘being a mother’ is problematic in modern organisations, where the emotive is the abject, the pain of labour denied, the jouisance and horrors of intimacy rejected. My analysis focuses not so much on talk that explicitly uses terms such as ‘mother’ or ‘motherhood’, rather I investigate the ‘meaning of motherhood’ as it reveals itself in a vortex of organisational discourses about ‘student care’ or about interpersonal relationships with students. Set within a bureaucratic order, a patriarchal environment (Witz and Savage 1992), this chapter records deviations from ordered relationships as indicators of the abject, which is associated with ‘mother’ and ‘motherhood’ in so far as it insinuates close emotional ties between mother and child, teacher and student that are usually denied by the logos of bureaucratic ordering. That is to say that the existence of customer care programmes in bureaucratic orders is riddled with tension and contradictions. These are played out in how teachers and students relate to each other – an embodied experience which is constrained in the confines of the Law (rules and regulations). The chapter explores images of ‘motherhood’ and ‘caring’ that were articulated when discussing such teacher – student encounters, which pose dilemmas on the level of lived experience. Thus, I would like to share with the reader my interpretations of some experiences and encounters that formed part of a personal and professional process of sensemaking (Tietze 1998). The interpretation of data and experience is conducted within the framework of metaphor theory, which I briefly outline in the next part of the argument in order to locate some expressions of the abject within the shifts of movements between signifiers, within which the emotional dimension of organisational life influences the construction of realities. Following on from there, I interpret language data that I collected within an ethnographic study set in the Faculty of Undergraduate Business Education of an institute of management education. I show how images of care and expressions of nurturing unfold in the experience of organisational life, while simultaneously being cast as the abject within the rationalistic structures and rules of a bureaucratic environment. The notion of the abject is explained in more detail in the next section.

A metaphorical framework The application of metaphor theory to organisational settings has become an established means to investigate processes of sense-making (Weick 1995), change management (Tietze 1998), organisational development (Oswick and Grant 1996), control of organisational identity (Czarniawska-Joerges 1990) and meaning making (Czarniawska-Joerges 1988), or, indeed to illuminate the processes of

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transportation and movement (Höpfl and Linstead 1993) as to create cultural consensus. The employment of metaphor both inductively and deductively is an appropriate, although not flawless, methodology to investigate processes of sensemaking. Metaphors, as all tropes, carry ‘improper meaning’ (Ricoeur 1978). More specifically, metaphors relate two previously unrelated subject areas. Thus, the decoding of metaphors depends on previous ‘knowing about’ the relationship between the linked subject areas or signs. Metaphors do not generate new knowledge, on the contrary they reflect and confirm a previously socially constructed reality (Berger and Luckmann 1966). By the same token, metaphors carry within themselves the possibility of generating new insights by relating the ‘old’ to the ‘new’. The thus related subject areas, even though different in character, need to be sufficiently similar to become connected and for the metaphor to work. For example, throughout this book metaphors of ‘the mother’, ‘motherhood’, ‘the body’ and so on are put into a relationship with the subject area of ‘organisation’ and ‘organisation theory’. In doing so, a connection between the two areas is forged. The ideas as developed by the French feminist philosopher, Kristeva, in particular, are the ‘new’ that is brought to bear on the ‘old’ (organisation theory) with a view to illuminate ambivalence and rupture that which remains concealed and regulated in more traditional approaches to organisation theory. In creating a link between the two, possibilities of change, reframing and insights emerge. This very characteristic makes metaphor such a popular tool in organisational transformation, where their creative potential is employed ‘to move’ employees and work forces in line with the strategic vision of leadership (Höpfl 1993; Tietze 1998). In doing so, metaphors necessarily evoke the emotive. Ortony puts it as follows: [. . .] a metaphor’s greater proximity to perceived experience and consequently its greater vividness, the emotive as well as the sensory and cognitive aspects are more available. . . . Metaphors come closer to emotional reality for the same reason that they are closer to perceptual experience. To say of an unexpected event that it was a miracle is to say far more than that it was inexplicable: it is to express joy, admiration, wonder, awe and a host of other things without mentioning any of them. (1975: 50–1) Based on this argumentation, I argue that, firstly, metaphors themselves are processes and as such they form an appropriate tool to investigate organisational processes; secondly, the employment of metaphors evokes the emotional side of such organisational processes: it has been argued that emotions constitute the abject in organisational life (Höpfl 2000; Linstead 1997). The concept of the abject derives from the writings of Kristeva (1982: 2) as that which ‘disturbs identity, system, order’. The abject originates in the liminality of Bodies that occur in the mother–child relationship. I want to argue that metaphors contribute to our understanding of ‘care’ and ‘motherhood’ in organisational settings because metaphors themselves are processes, that express, reflect and create emotional realities. Their emotive, processual character renders them in themselves a fluid, intuitive tool when employed as a means of analysing data. Within

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Figure 5.2

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Eileen Hagan’s mum on the left with her big sister and best friend.

metaphorical constructions ‘Bodies’ (e.g. Bodies of knowledge or subject domains) meet, breaking open the containment of rule, system, order. Thus, using the ‘unruly’ tool of metaphor I hope to provide some insights into the expression, construction and the dilemmas of ‘motherhood’ as it was expressed in one organisational setting.

Universities as providers of (customer) care Although there is no one undisputed model of the idea and purpose of the university (Hammersley 1992) and ideas about the organisation and practice of higher education are informed by different, sometimes conflicting cultural assumptions (McNay 1995), it can nevertheless be claimed that the development of a system of mass higher education has propelled the emergence of strong bureaucratic structures and practices, implemented to deliver operational efficiency. Bureaucracies function by rules and hierarchical structure. They constitute and are constituted by the Law, that very embodiment of formal rationality, associated with hierarchical reality and patriarchal modes of organising (Ramsay

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and Parker 1992; Witz and Savage 1992). Indeed, Linstead (1997) in his analysis of men, violence and organisation follows Albrow’s (1992) analysis of Weber’s conceptualisation of bureaucracy. This conceptualisation of bureaucracy makes emotion its central organising principle as bureaucracy is constructed to expel sentiment, passion, favouritism, coercion and their resultant disorder, indiscipline and randomness from the operations of the organisation. Of course, this suppression of emotions in the bureaucratic order does not annihilate them, rather it renders them abject, sitting in an in-between space, irritating the system, its borders, positions and rules. Indeed, this desire for control and predictability translates into artefactual arrangements, expressing the taken-for-granted assumptions of bureaucratic ordering (Ramsay and Parker 1992).

The university as mother Concomitant with increasing pressures on universities to equip students with the skills and knowledge repertoire as required and defined by industry and commerce is the notion of providing a ‘caring environment’, within which students can mature intellectually – and indeed, socially and emotionally. The university is conceptualised as the alma mater who nourishes and cares for the student’s/child’s intellectual development and emotional needs. Thus, universities are driven by two sets of contradictory imperatives: to provide an efficient service that produces marketable, employable students, while simultaneously providing emotional care. The commercialised expression of these functions can be summarised in the term ‘customer care’ – an interesting conceptualisation expressing the fiat of the market as well as embracing the abject, the caring and nurturing associated with the mother–infant relationship. One might well argue that ‘customer care’ is merely part of the process of bureaucratising feelings, which can be switched on and off as required. Indeed, Hochschild (1983) reminds us of the role of play acting, masking and performing when delivering emotional labour. And although many professional workers are paid for their skills in emotion management, the knowledge and skills needed to exercise genuine pastoral care and the required emotional labour remain mainly mute in terms of organisational discourses. Townley (1993) quotes an example of a female doctor who could not define the skills she uses with patients, which were vital to her work, but indescribable within the dominant medical phraseology: ‘In particular what this means is that the skills are not recognised as skills, either by employers or society or often by women themselves’ (James 1989, in Townley 1993: 30). The importance of customer care programmes, in particular in service providing industries results in the paradoxical experience of ‘care’ as being simultaneously integrated into institutional structure, while nevertheless remaining part of the abject in-between area of experience, where it becomes difficult to distinguish between performance and genuineness, mask and identity, customer care and nurturing: within these grey areas of in-between, experience occurs. Metaphors allow some investigation of in-betweeness, since they themselves oscillate (in) between areas of meaning.

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Höpfl (1995) points to some consequences of organisational appropriation of the interpersonal, which was ‘replaced [it] with a simulacrum of theatrical interaction’ (Höpfl 1995: 59), as causing humiliations, feelings of exploitation and debasement. In this study, I concentrate on analysing the delivery of customer care in a university setting, where the contact between academic staff and students, now rendered customers, is extended to include a concept of service delivery, which comprises ‘customer care’ beyond pre-scripted encounters, that is to say into an area where boundaries become brittle and the abject exists in an indirect challenge to the Law. The next section uses three illustrations that were drawn from the empirical work in the university context. They reflect on different experiences of the abject and on how individual academics make sense of its occurrence.

Learning the Law Part of the empirical work involved interviewing five organisational newcomers, three of whom had started their very first employment position. My main intent was to follow their sense-making (Louis 1980) through the first months of employment. Their learning experience embraced the understanding of new relational codes between signs, which were not known at the time of entry experience (Evered 1983). The following excerpt is taken from a second interview with Petra, who had just started her first lecturing post. She had begun to make sense of the confusion of organisational entry (Jablin 1987) by comparing her experience of semester one with that of semester two. Our talk concentrated on the teaching experience and her relationship with students. PETRA:

Well, they [the students] were extremely vocal, demanding. Wanting more and more of me, personally . . . but demanding the wrong thing, not demanding more to learn. In the second semester they were rather quiet and pleasant, but they still wanted so much. TIETZE: What did they want? PETRA: They weren’t demanding of me personally that much any more – I didn’t give them my home number any more – but of the university, the course itself, that they were not happy with the terms we provide. Very much the customer talk, you know. [. . .] well, the thing is, I do believe, they [students] deserve more contact, more interest. I had it as a student, it helped me so much in my studies, but also as a person, but now I’m less encouraging to hear them, to listen to their complaints. I also tried to be well informed about details, deadlines, exams and stuff, but if they are not happy with the course, well I can’t help. May be they need to see the course manager. This excerpt presents learning as a transformational process within which the sign ‘lecturer’ initially means being a teacher/carer, whereas in the second semester the sign ‘lecturer’ is becoming disconnected from this meaning to become connected with a different meaning, that of a ‘professional service deliverer’. The metaphorical nature of this learning process is constituted by linking one subject

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domain (i.e. what it means to be a lecturer) initially to the subject domain of teacher/carer to progressively come to embrace the subject domain of ‘professional service deliverer’. The adaptation process involves the loosening of the connotative links between signs and what they mean, so that new connections can be forged. The relationship with students in semester one is more strongly associated with nurturing students both intellectually and emotionally to the extent that the professional-private dichotomy is blurred in so far as Petra made herself available to students’ needs in her private time (providing the students with her home telephone number). However, the students were ‘needy’, expecting her to take an interest in their lives, to ‘care’ for them in a much personal sense than prescribed by service delivery. Although she acknowledges the legitimacy of these needs and demands (having experienced them as beneficial academically and personally in her own development), she distances herself from this meaning (lecturer as carer) to associate herself more closely with the ‘lecturer-as-service deliverer’ meaning. Concomitant with the metaphorical realignment of meaning comes organisational practice. Amending her practice to provide students with contact possibilities outside the professional boundary and secondly, by familiarising herself with the regulatory Body of course administration such as deadlines, details, exams and structures (‘may be they need to see the course manager’). In terms of the ‘customer talk’ one could argue that she is now providing ‘better quality’, since her learning includes insights into the ordering of the product (the course) and she integrates herself more efficiently into the organisational ordering system. Petra has located herself within the symbolic order of the organisation so as to construct her identity more closely to the regulated rationality of the bureaucratic environment, where role specialisation (course manager, unit tutor) is part of the mechanism of control. Of course, the abject, deep and profound needs do not disappear. Ambivalence remains regarding Petra’s mastery of the organisational Law (e.g. her comment on the legitimacy of the need to be cared for both personally and professionally, that, indeed, the two cannot be separated). In terms of both emotional and intellectual nourishing Petra has repositioned herself to providing intellectual and administrative ‘care’ as is appropriate in the professional context. She has learned to maintain the organisationally prescribed demeanour as defined by a predominantly bureaucratic environment, the Law, while abjecting the personal and emotional into the normative realm, where it is considered to be legitimate, yet unachievable.

Learning as poetic experience The following story was told to me towards the end of an interview with one academic, who had been working at the university for twelve years. The interview mainly revolved around the changing nature of staff–student relationships. Claude found it difficult to ‘care’ for students in prescribed, formalised ways. He used to define his relationship with students as personal, engaged, but experienced the standardisation of practice via rules and regulations as detrimental to the achievement of his educational mission. In his present situation, he saw students

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generally as one Body, which he described together with ‘the Centre’ (a metonymical construction) as ‘they’ – an (unholy) ideological alliance (van Dijk 1985) dictating to lecturers the Law irrespective of situational requirements or personal desires. The instances we discussed were centred on the rules and regulations regarding marking and assessing students. Indeed, throughout much of the interview itself, we actually consulted the assessment handbook together. Claude was agitated, nervous and felt threatened by the Body of rules and experienced them as instruments of oppression. For example, he expressed several times that ‘they [the students] dictate to us [the lecturers]’. He also cited an incident of conflict with a student, who used the assessment rules to challenge Claude’s marking. Claude felt himself to be ‘between a rock and a hard place’. The rationality of the Law was used ‘against him’, rendering the experience of working with students traumatic and unpleasant. However, he also commented on how he used the very same rules in an ironic twist to ‘protect my reputation by sticking to them until they make no more sense.’ Towards the end he recounted an experience from a previous position as a lecturer in a further education college, which he viewed in contrast to his current situation. When I used to work in FE [Further Education]. I used to enjoy ‘Return to Study’. Anyone over the age of twenty-three who wanted to return to education [sic] and I used to teach them English [. . .] and there is a chap there who is about forty, and I was teaching on the top floor and I said ‘Has anyone ever noticed how water always starts freezing at the top and then works down?’ And I spent about an hour and a half talking to these people about autumn. And, so at the end I needed to give some homework and I guess, it just seemed right to give them something to write about autumn. ‘What do you want us to write?’ – ‘Anything’. Following week this chap came in and he said: ‘Look at this for us.’ First poem he had ever written. That is, what provoked action like that and here, isn’t that sense to me, that feels like something has been achieved. But here, it doesn’t feel. In the light of the previous content of the interview and its emphasis on the regulatory Body of the Law (assessment regulations) this story makes sense in several ways. In stark contrast to the dominance of the Law in Claude’s current organisational experience this episode represents the ‘poetic’ experience of a former existence. Within the narrative the season of autumn is evoked via his observation of freezing water. Within this episode, the regulation and order that are dominant in the staff–student relationship in Claude’s current experience are replaced by poetic reframing. Claude describes the classroom experience as a poetic process, that bursts the confinements of the spatial constraint and enables a middle-aged, possibly working class ‘chap’ (‘look at this for us’ marks dialects as well as informality and nearness) to re-see the minutiae of everyday drabness through a poetic way of seeing, adding (possibly) ‘beauty and truth’ to his existence. Notwithstanding that there may well be elements of nostalgia in the telling of this story in the sense that ‘nostalgia is a state arriving out of present conditions as much as out of the past itself ’ (Gabriel 1993: 121), the story points

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Figure 5.3

The woman on the right of the picture is Eileen’s mum going for a night out in 1950.

to the subversion of the dominant discourse of Law and Order by dint of its being positioned at the very end of the interview almost as if symbolically challenging the rationality of regulations by adding a poetic exclamation mark at the end. Learning is understood as a poetic, spiritual experience, by which both Bodies (teacher and learner) are metaphorically ‘touched’. This process of touching evokes the kind of care that is intrinsically personal, intimate and bridges the separateness of experience so that both student and teacher live through the evocation of the poetic. This experience is put into stark contrast with regulated relationships of teacher and student in the realm of the Law: ‘but here it does not feel.’ The denial and rejection of the poetic and its emotive value render it abject: the organisational experience does not ‘feel’. Höpfl, in her analysis of Kristeva’s contribution to organisational analysis, points to ‘poetic language [that] can achieve the disruption of this [rational–S.T.] order and ordering at both the literary and the social level’ (Höpfl 2000: 99). As poetry breaks the rule of grammar and syntax, the insinuation of the poetic in organisational language

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use may indicate a disruption of this order and subversion of the patriarchal law, achieved through resistance to syntax. If bureaucratic structures can be read as patriarchal text, ordered by syntax and rules, the poetic element that initiates a transgression of such boundaries and results, even if only in retrospect, in a liminality of embodied experience, then this story describes the ‘touching’ of lives that is similar to mother–child liminality in so far as the spiritual/emotional needs of a student and lecturer were ‘nourished’.

Managing the abject The third and final vignette is taken from a meeting I observed. A group of Heads of Divisions had assembled to discuss workload planning and staffing issues for the coming academic year. The meeting was interrupted by the entrance of an academic member of staff, who had been given the responsibility to set up a pastoral and administrative support system for first year students. Although the retention of students after the first year had been identified as being of strategic importance, she nevertheless experienced difficulties trying to persuade other colleagues to engage in the project. After appealing to the attending Heads she finished her speech on the following note: ‘I know that no one wants to hold the sweaty hands of first year students. People want to do sexy things, like research or course management, but we have to deliver.’ Having finished her plea and exited, some comments were made such as: I agree with this. We need to get people like Helen and Barbara to do this kind of thing – and of course reward them properly. Personally, I am no good at it. I preferred the good old system when you knew students anyway and could abuse the student by name in the corridor. On which note the meeting resumed with its agenda, though the Heads noted that the item of ‘pastoral care’ needed addressing at their next divisional meetings. The articulation and exercise of pastoral care (customer care) is expressed in metaphorical terms as holding ‘sweaty hands’. When holding hands, bodies are linked, physical contact is made, and boundaries are transgressed. Holding hands with students in a caring function blurs the boundaries of the (maternal) body and the infant. There is closeness beyond the imperative of customer care. The closeness, however, is not comfortable, bodily fluids (sweat) intermingle. The act of caring is linked to the uncontrollable leaking of fluids. Lupton (1996, 1998) points to the similarities between the uncontrollable nature of bodily fluids and emotions. Through the exchange of bodily fluids, intimacy is established, though this ‘nurturing’ is producing disgust, rather than elevation. The movement between repulsion and attraction entailed in the blurring of boundaries is continued in the metaphor of ‘sexy things’ (course management, research), which refers to activities which are privileged activities (grown up things!) in the ordering system. The abject is in this episode what threatens self-containment

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because of its in-between character: the emotional and physical transgression, causing feelings of loathing and revulsion (‘sweaty hands’), of desire and fascination (‘sexy things’). Yet, the abject exists, its ‘messiness’ mocking the organisational order. It is met with resistance (no one volunteered to engage in holding hands, i.e. take up institutional care and to become involved in pastoral care). The comments by one of the Heads confirm the gendered ordering of the organisation into those who are good at doing ‘this kind of thing’ and who, following the rhetoric of equal opportunities ought to be rewarded appropriately, and those ‘who are not’, who, by the slightest extrapolation of logic are pursuing ‘sexy things’ (research, course management). The past is used to explain current behaviour: it was easier to build uncomplicated relationships with students via ritualistic, good-natured abuse, thus avoiding nearness and associated ‘horrors’. The male Head of Division by expressing a particular kind of emotion, viz. the good-natured ‘abuse of students by name’, supports, rather than subverts the patriarchal order. It would be simplistic to assume that men do not engage in emotional labour. Indeed, in many regards male managers are frequently engaged in expressing emotions within organisational settings. Hochschild (1983) reminds us that the importance of expressing particular emotions in particular ways is ‘more often the capacity to wield anger, and make threats that is delivered over to the company’ (Hochschild 1983: 164). In terms of building close relationships with students, it used to happen on the basis of good-natured abuse, which mollified the potentially disturbing character of physical and emotional bonding. Indeed, male bonding in organisations is often expressed in terms of competition (e.g. competitive drinking or competitive sport) or military metaphors (Alvesson and Billing 1997). Within the conceptualisation of emotions as competition the abject looses some of its disturbing impact by being rechanneled into focused endeavour. The gendered post-meeting talk follows a traditional script, in which women are expected to care for and care about students. Acker and Feuerverger (1996: 401) call this set of expectations the ‘caring script’. In the quoted data the caring script is ‘the other’ or ‘this kind of thing’ that requires close involvement (and the exchange of bodily fluids). It is to be done by women; men can do the more distanced relationship building. An example of which was provided by one of the Head of Departments, who connected with students by friendly, yet distanced, usage of their names (‘abusing by name’). While this chapter does not focus on the reproduction of the gendered organisation, the data excerpt points powerfully to the processes that reproduce and create a gendered order. The challenge for the female manager in the episode is to establish and integrate a programme of care into the bureaucratic structure. Given that the bureaucratic structures are designed as an anti-figure to the emotional, yet abject emotions form an intrinsic, inseparable and ‘messy’ whole with customer care programmes, the task is indeed colossal. At the core of customer care lies an unresolvable tension, which results in and expresses the simultaneous existence and denial of emotions, which become the abject. Yet, what does not exist in the official discourses of bureaucratic organising needs to

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be managed and controlled, nevertheless. Bureaucratic ordering has to enact the paradox of managing the abject, whose very existence it denies. Customer care programmes and their discursive performance are an embodiment of this paradox.

Conclusion In this chapter I have tried to explore three episodes taken from an ethnographic project that ‘tells us something’ about the existence and the experience of the abject in an environment that is determined by bureaucratic logic. The abject was explored through an analysis of the talk as used by organisational members. Within this talk, images of the ‘mother’ and ‘motherhood’ unfolded within organisational discourses of ‘student’ and ‘customer care’. Petra’s experience provided an example of organisational learning (the shift in meaning of what it means to be a lecturer) as acquiring ‘mastery’ of the Law. Mastering the Law implied the severing of the emotional, intimate cord between teacher and student and, consequently, reforging the connection between teacher and student within the regulated matrixes of rules and procedures stipulated by the bureaucratic organisational order. In episode two, Claude saw himself helplessly suspended in such regulated matrixes. His experience of poetic and spiritual nearness with one student was put into stark contrast with current regulated and controlled relationships. The abject as the insinuation of the poetic was, although painted over with a nostalgic gloss, put in binary opposition with the organisational experience governed by the Law. The third episode provided yet another stance as the ‘darker’ side of emotions (revolt, disgust, loathing) was discussed by presenting an episode taken from a formal meeting. Metaphorical expressions (‘sweaty hands’; ‘sexy things’) pointed to the paradoxical nature of customer care programmes, which strive to manage the abject whose very existence they deny. The appropriation and representation of the ‘caring mother’ in the service of the bureaucratic organisation manipulates the physical and embodied practices of caring for individuals in a genuine way and in doing so carries the seeds of paradox, where customer care results in the cultivation of contempt (Höpfl 1995). The notion of ‘suffering’ being linked to the provision of care is apparent in the three discussed examples. In the first instance, Petra ‘suffers’ from the dissolving of boundaries between her private and professional selves: she is overburdened by the needs of too many students. She establishes a clearer distinction between the two and amends her practice, but suffers from guilt for having done so. In the second example, Claude experiences both joy (the poetic experience) and agony (the bureaucratised experience) both associated with a change in premises on which relationships with students are built on. Finally, the last example expresses suffering on the level of ‘horror’, in which the sufferance of unpleasant physical experience (‘sweaty hands’) is declared to be the natural realm of female academic staff. Acker and Feuerverger (1996) point to the individual and structural explanations when reminding their readership that

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‘doing good’ (caring, nurturing) is indeed hard work, that remains mainly unacknowledged and unrecognised: ‘feeling bad’. In writing the chapter I needed to master the text, which means in a way reproducing particular orders through the presentation of rhetorical trajectories and rational arguments. However, let me mollify this reproduction by undermining its assumptions of infallibility and order. I chose to use a metaphorical framework as my guiding tool, since metaphors are process and evoke emotional realities. As such they seemed to me to be quite appropriate tools to investigate processes that are intrinsically linked with emotional experience. Metaphors, of course, are subject to interpretation, without any promise of delivering objectivity and truth. Metaphorical explorations are based on the possibility of ‘imaginatively recreating the experience of others’ (Anderson et al. 1986: 69), requiring empathy and the acknowledgement of one’s own fallibility (have I, for example, inadvertently misinterpreted some metaphorical shifts in meaning?). Furthermore, pointing to the constructed nature of this text, renders it more open to critique or to discussing alternative modes of being/ordering/writing. In acknowledging myself as the authorial voice and in showing the chosen methodology as ambivalent, some of the claim of absolutism of the phallocentric text is assuaged. As for the alternative inherent in every text, in every situation, in every customer care programme, let me quote the Rabbi Julia Neuberger (Guardian 1997), who sketches out the need for spiritual care for patients in hospitals and elsewhere and by the slightest extrapolation of logic, for learners and students. She confirms the need for getting data in order to get further useful information to help us treat further generations of patients [students] better. . . . Research about the usefulness of spiritual [motherly, emotional] care, albeit ill-defined, might need to be different. It might need to comprise a bit of tender loving care, a sign of genuine interest in the well-being of a particular patient [student], alongside the research [teaching]. Returning, briefly, to Brecht’s notion of ‘motherhood’ as being inseparably linked with ‘suffering’, it seems that the three episodes demonstrate the ‘suffering’ of embodied experience. These experiences are at the very core of how (organisational) relationships are formed, regulated, ruptured. Their very ambivalence is unsettling and is ignored in traditional views of organisations as rational and purposive. Brecht’s advice – that children should go to the motherly, so that they prosper – provides a strong argument for including the exploration of the maternal organisation into the agenda of organisation theory.

Bibliography Acker, S. and Feuerverger, G. (1996) ‘Doing Good and Feeling Bad: The Work of Women University Teachers’, Cambridge Journal of Education 26(3): 401–22. Albrow, M. (1992) ‘Sine Ire et studio, or Do Organizations have Feelings?’, Organization Studies 13(3): 313–30. Alvesson, M. and Billing, Y.D. (1997) Understanding Gender and Organizations, London: Sage.

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Anderson, D.G., Hughes, J.A. and Sharrock, W.W. (1986) Philosophy and the Human Sciences, London and Sydney: Croom Helm. Berger, P.L. and Luckman, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality, New York: Doubleday. Brecht, B. (1967) The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Glasgow: Bell and Bain. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1988) To Coin a Phrase. On Organizational Talk, Stockholm: Organizational Control and Management Consulting. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. and Joerges, B. (1990) ‘Linguistic Artifacts at Service of Organizational Control’, in P. Gagliardi (ed.) Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, de Gruyter Studies in Organizations Series, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Evered, R. (1983) ‘The Language of Organizations. The Case of the Navy’, in P.J. Frost, L.F. Moore, M.L. Louis, C.G.Lundberg and J.Martin (eds) Organisational Symbolism, London: Sage. Gabriel, Y. (1993) ‘Organizational nostalgia – reflections on the golden age’, in S. Fineman (ed.) Emotions in Organization, London: Sage. Hammersley, M. (1992) ‘Reflections on the Liberal University: Truth, Citizenship and the Role of the Academic’, International Studies in Sociology and Education 2(2): 165–83. Hochschild, A.R. (1983), The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, Berkeley: University of California Press. Höpfl, H. (1993) ‘The Making of the Corporate Acolyte. Some Thoughts on Charismatic Leadership and the Reality of Organizational Commitment’, Journal of Management Studies 29(1): 23–33. —— (1995) ‘Performance and Customer Service: The Cultivation of Contempt’, Studies in Cultures, Organisations and Societies 1(1): 47–62. —— (2000) ‘The Suffering Mother and the Miserable Son, Organising Women and Organising Women’s Writing’, Gender Work and Organisations 7(2): 98–105. —— (forthcoming) ‘The Maternal Body and the Organisation: The Influence of Julia Kristeva’, in S. Linstead (ed.) Postmodern Organisations, London: Sage. Höpfl, H. and Linstead, S. (1993) ‘Passion and Performance: Suffering and Carrying of Organizational Roles’, in S. Fineman (ed.) Emotion in Organization, London: Sage. Höpfl, H. and Maddrell, J. (1996) ‘Can You Resist a Dream? Evangelical Metaphors and the Appropriation of Emotion’, in D. Grant and C. Oswick (eds), Metaphor and Organisation, London: Sage. Jablin, F.M. (1987) ‘Organizational Entry, Assimilation and Exit’, in J.M. Jablin, L.L. Putnam, K.H. Roberts and W.L. Porters (eds), Handbook of Organizational Communication. An Interdisciplinary Approach, Newbury Park: Sage. James, N. (1989) ‘Emotional Labour: Skill and Work in the Social Regulation of Feeling’, Sociological Review 37(1): 15–42. Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection, New York: Columbia University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors we Live by, London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Linstead, S. (1997) ‘Abject and Organization: Men, Violence and Management’, Human Relations 50(9): 1115– 45. Louis, M. (1980) ‘Surprise and Sense-Making. What Newcomers Experience in Entering Unfamiliar Organisational Settings’, Administrative Science Quarterly 25: 226–51. Lupton, D. (1996) The Emotional Self, London: Sage. —— (1998) Food, Self and Emotion, London: Sage. McNay, J. (1995) ‘From the Collegial Academy to Corporate Enterprise: The Changing

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Cultures of Universities’, in T. Schuller (ed.) The Changing University, Buckingham: Open University Press. Neuberger, J. (1997) ‘Soul-searching for an Answer’, Guardian, 17 September. Ortony, A. (1975) ‘Why Metaphors are Necessary and Not Just Nice’, Educational Theory 25(1): 45–53. Oswick, C. and Grant, D. (eds) (1996) Organizational Development and Metaphorical Exploration, London: Sage. Ramsay, K. and Parker, M. (1992) ‘Gender, Bureaucracy and Organizational Culture’, in M. Savage and A. Witz (eds), Gender and Bureaucracy, Oxford: Blackwell. Ricoeur, P. (1978) The Rule of Metaphor. Multidisciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Tietze, S. (1998) ‘The Role of Language in the Process of Creating Meaning in a Professional Organization’, unpublished PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University. Townley, B. (1993) Reframing Human Resource Management. Power, Ethics and the Subject at Work, London: Sage. Van Dijk, T. (1985) ‘Discourse, Semantics and Ideology’, Discourse and Society 5(2): 243–89. Weick, K. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Foundations for Organizational Science, London: Sage. Witz, A. and Savage, M. (1992) ‘The Gender of Organizations’, in M. Savage and A. Witz (eds), Gender and Bureaucracy, Oxford: Blackwell.

Chapter Title

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The motherhood of the road From Paradise Lost to Paradise Jessica Enevold

In the newness of the world God had perhaps not Himself realized the ramifications of certain of His laws, for example, that shock will spend itself in waves; that our images will mimic every gesture, and that shattered they will multiply and mimic every gesture ten, a hundred, or a thousand times. (Marilynne Robinson)

Yet, language can only live on and renew itself by hybridizing shamelessly and changing its rules as it migrates in time and space. (Trinh T. Minh-ha)

Genesis The Judeo-Christian tradition is a common cultural womb for many Westerners; in its literary registers travel replicates, metaphorically as well as metonymically, the story of creation: birth, living, death, or: Genesis, Exodus, the Final Judgment. Life – the exilic wandering forced upon Adam and Eve after the Fall – is an oft cited ‘first journey’ of humankind which transports a compelling ancestry from generation to generation. ‘Our’ parents’ inchoate adventure patterned travel as a pilgrimage which, on the one hand, figures in literature as a search for ‘the desired country’. This is the destination of, for example, Christian of the popular allegory and devout journey of spirituality The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan 1678). The pilgrimage may, on the other hand, provide a framework for the telling of lascivious, ungodly tales such as the parodic Canterbury Tales (Chaucer 1386), a veritable antithesis of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Whether coded as prophetic or profane, the story of the birth and proliferation of the world, from its inception (the departure from the forfeited Eden), its progression and projected destination (the search and desire to arrive at a new paradise), is a heritage which has been documented as sacrament and gospel, as belle lettrist fable, rhyme and proverb, as a fact sheet, poem and novel. The edenic exile, a merger between man and woman which soon dissolved into an individual enterprise, spawned numerous tales of the wandering ‘I’. The voyage of the self, whether promoted by reason, providence, sentiment or economics, has become the central subject of our literary narratives of modernity. The trope

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of travel serves as one of our most important literary devices; it is used as structure, subject, plot. It has even been regarded as the most cardinal of plots: ‘The late John Gardner once said that there are only two plots in all of literature. You go on a journey or a stranger comes to town’ (Morris and O’Connor 1993: xv). However, in travel stories and travel writing – a difference should be noted between the two – travel becomes more than plot. It always occupies a double or triple position: as a real or imagined topic of the writer and reader, and an activity of progression that goes into reading as well as writing. Eyes, hand and pen travel over the page and journey across the mind, and always the act of creation is connected to our being. In its most general sense the movement from one place to another signifies travelling: departure, passage and destination. Travel, in all of these senses, deeply embedded in the biblical tradition, makes its imprints in writing and thus draws up a testament (in the twofold meaning of inherited lore and codes of diasporic movement) and testimony (the witnessing of a series of events and their inscriptions and re-inscriptions). Generic testaments provide not a little problem for those either completely left out of the will, or included in it as receivers of less favourable agreements. The Paradisal contract has resonated through Western history as a discriminating harmony of androcentric tunes. On the literary scene Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) reinvigorated the myth of creation (in a time of European crises and spiritual wars) and played out the Old Testament subordination of woman to man in full scale and ever so beautiful lines. The ‘Miltonic bogey’, as Virginia Woolf later would term it, did not only reanimate Christianity, it also revived and reinscribed the Aristotelian misogynist constructions of female subordination which had been upheld by ‘Old Testament restrictions on women and their exclusion from the covenant community’ and ‘the misogynist teachings of the Church Fathers’ (Lerner 1993: 7). Paradise Lost reinforced the emphasis on charging Eve (and all women) with moral guilt for the Fall of humankind, guilt which she would repent by mothering a world of men. Displaced, she would carry the burden of humanity, of sexuality and giving birth in pain. Thus Eve is placed in a tradition in which women will function, as Griselda Pollock points out in her reading of the Book of Ruth, in a ‘patrilineal system which effectively excludes them at the level of the signifieds but uses their female bodies at the level of its signifiers’, a fact which leaves us with two ‘incompatible yet coexisting equations: phallus as property; nativity as connection’ (1994: 73–4). The commanded first journey is the end of God’s creation, and an initiation of male-led wandering, but also of procreation depending on Eve. The latter movement was, nevertheless, to be incorporated into language as a metaphor of male writing and artistic production (see for example Friedman 1989). From the very biblical beginning human movement is inscribed as a form of diasporic travel, as a quest for a ‘place of rest’. ‘Rest-less’ Adams and Eves walked pre-modern earth, but somewhere on the way their hands lost touch of one another. Henceforth only man walked all alone ‘his solitary way’. The pilgrim transformed into modern, then postmodern subject. Of a wanderer, a flâneur was made (Walter Benjamin 1983 building on Baudelaire 1869), a stroller, player,

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vagabond and tourist (Zygmunt Bauman 1995). However, these traveller metaphors are, as Janet Wolff (1990), Eva Jokinen and Soile Veijola (1997), and other critics have shown, male-gendered. These metaphors fail to account for the female mobile subject who consequently is marginalised in theory as well as in literature, trapped ‘in a male economy of movement’ (Trinh 1994: 15). Bauman footnotes indeed that the pilgrim subject is, in the modern construction of life, a man, whereas women, together with other categories not thought of as capable of selfcreation . . . were consigned to the background, to the landscape through which the itinerary of the pilgrim is plotted, [and] were cast in a perpetual ‘here and now’; in a space without distance and time without future. (Zygmunt Bauman 1995: 87) Women’s destiny becomes one of expectancy. Fictional (and actual) women were for many years denied the journey, they were left only one plot in their life: to await the stranger . . . there is essentially no picaresque tradition among women novelists. While the latter part of the 20th century has seen a change of tendency, women’s literature from Austen to Woolf is by and large a literature about waiting, usually for love. (Morris and O’Connor 1993: xv) Situated as receivers, women were immobilised in a ‘here and now’, a world further divided into spheres of private and public. Bound in private place, women were ‘domesticated’, and public space was closed off or made minimally accessible to them (us!). Home and away, as well as actions within these two realms, were consequently spatially gendered. Before returning to Milton and my discussions of fiction, I wish here to make a more explicit connection between the tradition, the past of which I am attempting to unfold, and its present-day extensions into the realms of management and organisation the research of which has motivated the collection that you are now reading. The gendered spatial division, as laid out above, has by Calás and Smircich (1993: 71–81) been pointed to as being faithfully reproduced in contemporary work organizations. The ‘triumphant entry of women into corporations’ could alternatively be read as a widening of the ‘home’ and the ‘household’. The female secretary at the office was easily transformed into a second wife, maternally managing the corporate ‘kitchen’ and the executives’ errands. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) was the first one to demonstrate the uncanny similarity between the wife and the female secretary. And, say Calás and Smircich, with the entry of women into managerial positions the trend did not only not abate, but accelerated. Far from joining their colleagues on business trips, corporate women were left ‘at home’ to take care of the company ‘household’ while their male counterpart left the domestic business in quests for new ‘global markets’. The widening definition of the home has thus not shown that ‘life’ conquers ‘the system’. On the contrary,

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the private sphere has been consumed by the system, by worklife (for a convincing account see Hochschild 1997), that consequently prove to require deconstructive strategies similar to those potentially applied to overturn the traditional ‘home-’ and ‘away-’ division. With these contemporary connections between the maternal, travel, and work in mind, I shall now return to Milton’s Paradise Lost, with the hope of connecting my readings of fiction to the concerns of organisation scholars. Exodus – Paradise Lost In either hand the hastening angel caught Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared. They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. (John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book XII, ll. 637–49) When Milton had his pair walk hand in hand out of Paradise, it was already quite obvious to him and to his readers who was the follower, who was the leader: the act of initiating mobility was reserved for men. ‘So spake our Mother Eve, and Adam heard well pleased’ (Paradise Lost, Book XII, ll. 624–5): . . . now lead on; in me is no delay; with thee to go Is to stay here; without thee here to stay Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me Art all things under heaven, all places thou Who for my wilful crime art banished hence. This further consolation yet secure I carry hence: though all by me is lost Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed, By me the Promised Seed shall all restore. (Paradise Lost, Book XII, ll. 614–23) In these beautiful Miltonic phrases, Eve becomes the Mother of the World receiving the heavy gift and burden of pregnancy, the weight of and responsibility for a future genealogy of mankind which will right all wrongs. Forgiveness and punishment is forged into one cumbersome present. The prize for seeking the wisdom and knowledge of the tree is the reproach and reward of motherhood and of love.

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Jessica drives.

Beginning with Eve, the human movements of sexuality had become confluent with a disciplinary action, that of a nomadic life, a nomadic life which centered fathers and peripheralised the indispensable reproductive powers of women. Efforts have been made ever since to naturalise and homogenise the image of women as ‘guardians of tradition, keepers of home and bearers of Language’ (Trinh 1994: 15). A closer look at the etymology of the word ‘travel’ reveals a striking, although not surprising, connection of travel and the heavy elementa: birth, copulation, death. It shows elements of female gestating components which later have been suppressed, metaphorised, and transposed onto the male travelling subject whose activity paradoxically enough becomes an act of abstract deliverance. ‘Travel’ originates from the Old French word travailler, ‘to travail’ which means (a) work especially of a painful and laborious nature; (b) childbirth. Both translations are derived from Latin tripalis ‘having three stakes’ and tripalium ‘to torture’. This is connected to (d) labour (a–d found in Webster), which equals that of e) travail = ‘the pains of giving birth to a child’ (Longman Dictionary). Travel may then be spoken of as a heavy load, both in terms of torturously hard work, and the load you carry as you are ‘gravid’ (Lat. gravis, ‘heavy’), ‘impregnated’ with child or an unborn thought. The ‘gravity’ of a child, a ‘weighty’ thought – both need to be

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delivered. Travel, then, is not only placed on a par with birth. It is birth, deliverance, redemption; in androcentric philosophy a masculine instrument of Maieutic(s).1 Travel, thus interpreted, signifies a spiritual midwife, a redeeming rite de passage. The biblical tale and the travel canon were written as narratives of male voyagers. Traditional travel and travel narratives have become (pro)creative acts for men: males deliver themselves via travel, and later give birth to a travel narrative, through a sublimated Mother who is engraved in geography, or expelled to the home, inscribed in the ontology of space. Banished to the black hole. Accordingly, women, rather than participate in the exchange of language, carry the burden of language without harvesting its fruition. They are assigned situations of nameless breeding. The voyage of the self thus becomes a journey which eradicates the female pilgrim from the subjectisation process. We are told of Noah, the helmsman of the arc, not Wayla; of Moses, not Tzipporah. We have inherited the legends of men.

Exodus – an alternative Travel conceptualised as a midwife and deliverer becomes the adventurer’s paradoxical mother – a trope of transforming yet immobile femininity; the mater, the stasis, the center, the black hole; the abyss, the no place, the desert, the non-I, the feminine dimension; the matrix. Manifold are the exclusive constructions of feminine space. Sparse are reconstructive, inclusive, efforts such as those of Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger (1994) who sets up a differently, maternally imprinted linguistic dimension. Lichtenberg-Ettinger has proposed the concepts of matrix, and metramorphosis to conceptualise ‘femininity in representation, in subjectivity and on the symbolic level’ (1994: 40). She sees the Exodus as a ‘symbolic ceremony’ (1994: 38) which ‘delineates transitional states’ (ibid.). Mythological travellers’ tales are analogous to psychological experiences, to identity transformation, to artistic processes and works, to aesthetic experiences, and to patterns of cognition. It is through their power to evoke all of these that such tales are constituted as mythologies. (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 38) In her linguistic exploration of Moses’ meeting with God, she wishes to reinsert into the mythological text a feminine dimension which, she claims, is forcluded from the symbolic network as it now stands, that is, it is mis-translated. In the meeting behind the desert between Moses and God, God’s Name is articulated in Hebrew as EHIE ASHER EHIE. Lichtenberg-Ettinger concludes that English, French, and Latin translations regularly interpret these words as ‘I am that I am or I am that is’. This, then, manifests . . . an a priori subject, a tautological identity, a congruence of signifier and signified, of an identifying I and an identified I, a conjunction of centre,

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origin and identity, in present time and space. Such a name of God seals the unity of God and Father: I am that I am is the name of the Father. (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 39) Lichtenberg asks how such an ‘anti-difference God’ could ‘portend the Exodus’? Because, she answers, God had no such name. She explains: EHIE means in Hebrew: I will be or I will become. . . . EHIE signifies absence of identity, future without content. It reflects, expresses or invokes different aspects of wandering: movements from place to place from one time to another, . . . to a future without prescribed content. (Ibid.) Through the abolition of the future element (via translation) in the Name of the Father, she claims, the feminine is expelled – whether the feminine exists or not, whether connected to women or not, whether a cultural and historical fiction or not, whether we believe in God or not. She defines the feminine by, as she says, ‘leaning on’ Piera Aulagnier and Emmanuel Lévinas (in the psychoanalytical and philosophical traditions) for whom ‘time is structured by relationships to the Other’ (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 52). She uses Lévinas’ reformulation of his (earlier) concept of woman as the origin of Otherness: ‘The feminine is that incredible thing in the human by which it is affirmed that without me the world has a meaning’ (Lévinas 1993: 17), a vantage point which enables the imagining of ‘a reality without me’ (ibid.: 21). A temporal element of becoming is implied, which, she says, is interpreted as ‘a feminine relationship to the Other . . . the access to a future without me’ (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 52). Although notions of verbatim female corporeality are disbanded from this concept of the feminine becoming, Lichtenberg nevertheless invests in it a body-specific socio-political value. Thus Lichtenberg does not accept the expulsion of the feminine ‘futurity’, from the symbolic network, nor does she abandon the mythological ground of Moses’ encounter with God as a ‘lost’ feminine space. Lichtenberg applies to the meeting her own matrixial network model which is based on the hypothesis that the ‘borderspace shared with an intimate stranger’ (by foetus and womb), ‘a joint co-emergence in difference’ of the I and non-I, constitutes a feminine dimension in subjectivity (ibid.: 41). She takes the ‘intra-uterine meeting as a model for processes of change and exchange’ (ibid.). This matrixial model pays homage to that aspect of the symbolic which should not be defined, she says, either as ‘symbol minus phallus’, or the opposite of the phallus which in Lacanian terms has been equalled to the symbolic. The phallic has ‘monopolized the whole symbolic network’ (ibid.: 47), and certain ‘paradigmatical changes are in order’ (ibid.: 48). The matrix should be regarded as a concept which represents ‘a supplementary symbolic perspective. It is a shift aside the phallus, a shift inside the symbolic’ (ibid.: 49). Lichtenberg’s interpretation of the Exodus opens up the account of the wanderer to encompass the identity of a ‘double foreigner’, potentially incorporating every subject imaginable regardless of title, genes or genitals. However, her

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revisionist metramorphic insertions of the feminine and maternal into a mythological travel event is a recent development in the texts of travel. The history of travel narratives is a history of fathers rather than mothers. Or, perhaps more correctly, the traveller is a potential father – a spermatic traveller, as Eric Leed has termed him (1991), whereas women are always potential mothers, the womb of the seed, the flower to pluck, the land to besiege, the country to worship and the hearth to return to. Writing into the Exodus a space of complex and fluid subjectivity, Lichtenberg channels this inscription through a model of intrauterine existence. That is, again what is focused as a key element of creation myth and ‘initiatic act of wandering’, is the reproductive system of woman, the womb as a universal vessel of signs. The uterine logic has nevertheless developed into an imperative, always appealed to, that women remain at home while men take to the road. The womb, this cavity of human flesh, has been safeguarded as a threatened vault of human depositions. The womb and its associates woman, whore, wife, madonna, bitch and babe, directly or indirectly play the starring role where female inertia and male motion is to be affirmed. They are consequently incorporated into a verbal system which reverberates in the vocabularies of mobility and stillness, sexuality and abstention. These vocabularies are deployed unconsciously in an obnoxiously internalised discursive register. This book of log-ins stretches its jaws all the way from Genesis to the literary journeys of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries where it gobbles up ‘the feminine’ in the masculinist genres of travel and renders it an inappropriate existence in the public and mobile realms of life.

Female Exodus 1: Memento mater – remember that you are a mother . . . When Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe’s 1722 picara, gave herself up to ‘a readiness of being ruined without the least concern’, she saw herself as ‘a fair memento to all young women whose vanity prevails over their virtue’ (Defoe 1973: 21). Referring to the poem ‘A Letter fancy’d from Artemisia in the Town, to Chloe in the Country’ by Lord Rochester (1647–80) which tells the story of Corinna who is misused by her rake lover: ‘Now scorn’d of all, forsaken and opprest/ She’s a Memento Mori to the rest’, Moll Flanders acknowledges the social rules of the times, the norms of lady-like behaviour and the deterring reminder her fortunes and misfortunes would be to those venturing to extra-vagare, to walk outside their boundaries; those daring to be extravagant, or vagrant. The first account, Moll Flanders reminisces, that she ‘can recollect or ever learn’ of herself, was, that before coming into the town of Colchester, she ‘had wandered among a crew of those people they call Gypsies’ (Defoe 1973: 9). To live on the road like Moll Flanders, to be vagrant from the very beginning, is to make yourself unmentionable. Moll Flanders tells us: My true Name is so well known in the records, or Registers at Newgate, and in the Old-Baily, and there are some things of such Consequence still depending there, relating to my particular Conduct, that it is not to be expected that

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I set my name, or the Account of my family to this work. . . . It is enough to tell you that some of my worst Comrades . . . knew me by the name Moll Flanders. (Defoe 1973: 9) To lose face and shame one’s name is to this day bad for both men and women, but for women it has always been even more detrimental. Women (of certain classes) had ‘only’ their Name and behaviour to resort to, being dependents of their Fathers and brothers, in the mission that was set before them – to get married and have bestowed upon them the Husband’s Name. The ‘virginity’ of the name was to be untouched in order for the matrimonial patronymic conversion to take place. Indeed, the ritual of patriarchal naming is enforced in a more or less closed system where the feminine is not allowed to enter; the Name of the Father has been inherited through centuries of Western tradition. To return to Lichtenberg-Ettinger’s exploration of the Name of the Father: The Name implies a postmodern discourse all by itself . . . [which] revolves around the search for a space without presence, which inscribes traces of time without present, and the ‘ex-centring’ of subjects and objects leading to the idea of endless nomadism. (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 39) Nomadism is by denomination congenitally asymmetrical, unless interpreted, as Lichtenberg-Ettinger does, as inherently matrixial, fluid, double; masculine and feminine. This ‘pre-larval’ symbolic maternal element is, however, traditionally rather unreflectively transposed from the imaginary or psychological onto a more bodily tangible arena of morality, and into a social discourse where, again, the uterine logic is implied and marital bonds privileged and imposed on women as well as men – albeit with different consequences. Marriage, in the eighteenth century, came to signify human fulfilment in terms of a striving for individualisation, private autonomy contra public collectivity. This spurred on the building of domestic spaces which allowed for more privacy – homes where affection and affinity would (supposedly) better flourish (Taylor 1989: 290–1). The intimacy of the house would promote the articulation of love and concern for the spouse as for the children. The maternal condition of women thus became emphasized. Women on the road are in this culture and discourse of modernity always potential Mothers. That is, they are Mothers who either must have left their children, or they are wombs on the run from their breeding duties. They are women acting out a much too individual, anti-familial, therefore anti-social scandalous enterprise. Bad Mothering nurtures vagrancy and splits up homes. Indelicacy mothers travel and advances waywardness. Moll Flanders ‘proves’ (as will the novels analysed in what follows, Housekeeping, and Paradise) this case as 150 years later did Daisy of Henry James’s portrait of the American Female, Daisy Miller (1878) and her heedless Mother. Unmarried women should stay at home lest they find themselves compromised and done for:

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The home is of course a stead of variable meanings depending on the position of the home-maker or -breaker. Questioning the home as a taken-for-granted location of stability, Caren Kaplan and Inderpal Grewal ‘invite us to leave home, because home is often the site of sexism and racism – a site which we need to rework politically, constructively, and collectively’ (Braidotti 2000). A whole range of positive and negative, actual as well as symbolic notions have been coded into the concept of the home. In his essay on ‘the dwelling’, Lévinas speaks of the dwelling, and the home/house as associated with Woman, woman’s otherness; the otherness which assures separation but also access to completion, intimacy, inwardness, intimité (Lévinas 1969: 147ff.). To exist is to dwell. The house opens up a (symbolic) utopia wherein the I is at home with itself, from where the I is invited to enjoy and take part of the world. The disappearance of woman from the home is a symbolic splitting up of the trellis of the I, of intimacy, of conception – a virtual home wrecker. This concept of the home as the capsule of the I must most likely be bust open – rather than made more encompassing (cf. the references to Calás and Smircich, and Hochschild earlier in this chapter) – to allow a different interpretation of the home and motherhood to take place. But Moll Flanders does appeal to the institution of the home. She attributes her deviation from the straight life course of the pious and the humble to the lack of such social contracts which would ensure everyone a home, and the opportunity to learn a trade or occupation which would help your advancement in life: I have been told that in one of our Neighbour Nations . . . that when any Criminal is condemn’d, either to die, or to the Gallies, or to be transported, if they leave any Children, as such are generally unprovided for, by the poverty or Forfeiture of their Parents, so they are immediately taken into the Care of the Government, and put into an Hospital call’d the House of Orphans, where they are Bred up, Cloath’d, Fed, Taught, and when fit to go out, are plac’d out to Trades, or to Services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest industrious behaviour.

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Had this been the Custom in our Country, I had not been left a poor desolate Girl without Friends, without Cloaths, without help or Helper in the World, as was my Fate. (Defoe 1973: 7) That Moll Flanders is far from helpless or paralysed by the fact that her mother was transported due to a ‘petty theft’, or that she ‘scandalously’ deprived her own twelve children of her motherhood, merely aids Defoe’s farcical enterprise and strengthens Moll as a comical rather than enigmatic character, as some would have it (Shinagel 1973). However, as rigid stereotypes are reversed, comedy is the result, as is often the case where women travelers appear in literature (Enevold 2000). This comical aspect of the female travelling character undermines, in certain respects, her mobility project and reduces her credibility. However, some would probably argue that comedy, specifically in the shape of irony, may function as a strategy of resistance to stereotypes (see for example Wahl et al. 1998). But, although Moll Flanders serves up an amusing ‘realist’ account of a woman on the road, a fact which offers some comfort as to her imaginary and therefore potential existence, her situation is crafted as exceptional, deviant and purposely improbable.

Female Exodus 2: the inadequate housekeeper Moll Flanders must indeed be entitled economic woman; her main characteristic is her parsimonious angle on everything from child-rearing to marriage – she certainly keeps house – her own –in the interest of her own success, survival and happiness. In this respect she is not an inadequate but a non-traditional and egocentric housekeeper, a deviant woman. As Morris has noted, women’s narratives have changed during the second half of the twentieth century. Women are to a greater extent on the move, but this does not mean that their behaviour is commended; it is merely not so obstructed or confined. It is not difficult to find examples of this in contemporary literature. Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (1981) is the story of Ruthie, the novel’s narrator, and her sister Lucille. One day the two girls are left by their mother Helen on their grandmother’s porch for what will prove to be forever. After the grandmother dies, they are for a while tended by their great aunts who, ‘though maiden ladies, of a buxomly maternal appearance’ (ibid.: 29), think of themselves as too old and unfit to handle children. They have lived in a hotel all their lives. They therefore try to contact the girls’ aunt Sylvie, whom they refer to as an ‘itinerant’, a ‘migrant worker’, a ‘drifter’, the one who ‘does not have any children’ (ibid.: 31). Sylvie has been away for sixteen years. She turns out to be a quaint housekeeper who serves crackers for lunch, collects cans and newspapers, wanders and sleeps on benches during the day (and fully clothed on top of the bedspread at night). Her behaviour is extremely aberrant in the small community of Fingerbone. Her extensive ‘hoboing’ and odd manners prove offending to the community and threatening to the children who fear, for years, that the house

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will be empty in the morning when they wake up, or when they return home from school in the afternoon. In Housekeeping, attempts at motherly stability fail: Helen abandons the children, the grandmother dies, the aunts flee, Sylvie’s housekeeping deviates from the norm. We are in a world of reluctant mother figures. Sylvie’s abnormal motherhood eventually makes Lucille run away from the neglecting caretaker to seek comfort at another, ‘normal’, house, significantly that of the Home Economics teacher, Miss Royce. But Ruthie stays with Sylvie, who becomes her substitute mother. Where Sylvie goes, Ruthie follows: Sylvie was in front of me and I put my hands in my pockets, and tilted my head, and strode, as she did, and it was as if I were her shadow, and moved after her only because she moved and not because I willed this pace, this pocketing of the hands, this tilt of the head. Following her required neither will nor effort. I did it in my sleep. I walked after Sylvie down the shore, all at peace, and at ease, and I thought, We are the same. She could as well be my mother. I crouched and slept in her very shape like an unborn child. (Ibid.: 144–5) Sylvie fills the role of vagrant virgin mother and Ruthie of her immaculate conception. This substitute motherhood thus constitutes a mobilised motherhood and as such it contradicts the traditional image of the stationary home-maker. The paradoxical concept of mobilised motherhood needs some further explanation, parts of which may be found in its intricate links to death and memory: the move away from her house which the girls’ mother Helen had undertaken is a significant event. She had borrowed a car and taken the long road to Fingerbone. After leaving the girls at her mother’s house she had got into the car again and driven off a cliff into the lake. Contrary to what may be expected, Ruthie’s memory of her mobilised mother on the day she drove them to their grandmother’s house is one of unruffled readiness and solidity: I remember looking at her from the back seat as we drove toward Fingerbone . . . I was struck by her calm, by the elegant competence of her slightest gesture. Lucille and I had never seen her drive before, and we were very much impressed. (Ibid.: 196) Helen, as will later Ruthie and Sylvie although in a quite different mode of transgression, mobilises herself, her mourning and losses. The mobilised mother thus engenders a number of complexities and paradoxes. The losses and gains of maternal mobility condition forever the girls’ images, experiences and notions of motherhood, and of how to proceed in life. The memory of Helen remains for Ruthie one of peace and strength, something which would have changed; had she ‘simply brought us home again to the high frame apartment building with the scaffolding of stairs, I would not remember her that way’ says Ruthie (ibid.: 197). ‘Her eccentricities might have irked and embarrassed us when we grew

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older’ (ibid.). A mnemotopia is created which is deeply imprinted with the image of the safe haven of motherhood, an imagined motherhood, a materotopia, projected into the future, which maps out the itinerary of Ruthie and Lucille. That is, Robinson has inscribed the future existence as a feminine futurité, a levinasian concept of a ‘reality without me’ (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994: 52). Robinson also rehearses the quest for paradise as a return to the womb, again invoking the circulative bivalence of the tropes of motherhood (and travel), that is, the property to signify both origin and egress: The force behind the movement of time is a mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is known to have been an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. So memory pulls us forward, so prophecy is only brilliant memory – there will be a garden where all of us as one child will sleep in our mother Eve, hooped in her ribs and staved by her spine. (Robinson 1981: 192) Ruthie stays with her substitute mother and emulates her ways. Together, they create a state of mobilised motherhood which contradicts the traditionally gendered spatialisation of women’s existence. In the eyes of Fingerbone a transient is a threat. A stranger on the road disturbs the hard-won stability of a

Figure 6.2

A wet road in New Mexico.

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small community always at risk of being agitated by displacing elements: the lake, the blizzards, the ‘homemade liquor and dynamite. . . . There was not a soul there but knew how shallow-rooted the whole town was. . . . So a diaspora threatened always’ (ibid.: 177). As a result Fingerbone both dreads and pities vagrants. And Ruthie is on the verge of transforming into one. One school day, Ruthie and Sylvie make an excursion to an abandoned valley which they reach by rowing across the lake in a ‘borrowed’ boat. The following weeks the sheriff comes to visit twice: It was not the theft of the boat he came about, though that had been reported, nor my truancy. . . . It was not that Sylvie had kept me out on the lake all night, because no one knew just where we had been. It was that we returned to Fingerbone in a freight car. Sylvie was an unredeemed transient, and she was making a transient of me. (Ibid.: 177) The town needs to believe that Ruthie needs to be rescued, because ‘the transients wandered through Fingerbone like ghosts, terrifying as ghosts are because they were not different from us’ (ibid.: 178), thus insinuating the very physical

Figure 6.3 Jessica Enevold’s mother, Madeleine.

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instability of Fingerbone, the flooding of the houses, the abysmal lake which devoured the grandfather as well as the mother of Ruthie and Lucille. To sustain a society imperilled by natural catastrophes and transient subjects requires concentric action. That sought-after ‘place of rest’ cannot be built by the ‘rest-less’ who search, perhaps even find, their redemption on the road. Fingerbone, essentially an all-white community, thus fights to keep at bay the exodus which the black families of Toni Morrison’s Paradise, that I will discuss next, are forced to enter upon, having already lost their stability in a world of economic depression, surrounded by racism. Both communities, however, will assess and pass final judgement on their citizens and judge those ‘unfortunate’ ones who do not comply with norms and standards once it finds itself to be a centred unified community, those who will not be enfolded by its ‘paternal’ embrace, or attracted by its ideal of paradise.

Female Exodus 3: Paradise Toni Morrison’s Paradise (1997) tells the story of an all-black Oklahoma community whose patriarchal structure has secured not only the survival of the group of freed slaves who first founded it, but also its racial purity. In 1934 the grandchildren of this group see it necessary to leave Haven, the town their grandfathers had built in 1899, to start anew. In their search for a new place of rest they venture deeper into Oklahoma where they found a new town which they name Ruby. They strive to constitute this town as their final rest-stop; a place where no one is poor, women feel secure, and no one dies. The settled routines of the community are, however, felt to be threatened by a group of women who live together ‘with no male mission to control them’ in a nearby convent (Morrison 1999: 233). The convent refugees are a heterogeneous group of women of various races, ages, temperaments, and beliefs. But what they have in common is the experience of taking to the road to escape what they find oppressing. The convent in which they live is no ordinary convent, but an old mansion built by an embezzler in a gaudy architectural style lavished with garish pornographic details. After the embezzler had been arrested, the mansion had been taken over by a group of nuns who had chipped off and removed the most offensive marble and brass genitalia from its interior decoration to make it into a convent, and then, as their funds had run out, into a state-subsidised reformatory school for ‘wayward’ Indian girls. In the novel’s present time, the convent is no longer a school. As one woman after the other arrives at it, it is turned into a paradisal sanctuary where pecans grow delicious, ‘melones’ ripe full, and peppers – according to the Ruby villagers who come to buy the convent produce – are hot as hell. The women who come to live in the convent are all women mourning losses connected to children, mothers, breeding, nativity, nurturing – and, of course, love. They all have sought and found solace in Sister Connie, Consolata, their ‘Mother Superior’, their consoling substitute Mother. But the convent ‘strays living out there where the entrance to hell is wide’, as a Ruby man phrases it, do not comfort the Ruby men in their mission to establish

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a black paradise on earth (ibid.: 114). Ruby citizens are generally hostile to outsiders, and their hostility has a long history of struggle. On Ruby’s ‘Mount Calvary’ they have reassembled a huge brick oven which they have hauled with them all the way from Haven, because it was by the Oven, at sunset, the old Fathers of Haven would sit and recite the stories of the journey of the one 158 freedmen who had been ‘unwelcome on each grain of soil from Yazoo to Fort Smith’ (ibid.: 13); who had been ‘turned away by rich Choctaw, and poor whites . . . unprepared for the aggressive discouragement they received from negro towns already being built’ (ibid.). These were stories that explained ‘why neither the founders of Haven nor their descendants could tolerate anybody but themselves’ (ibid.). The Oven memorialises their exodi and becomes a central symbol for their hard-won paradise and hearth. By the Oven, Deek and Steward, the Morgan twin brothers, who had led them out of Haven, as children would sit and listen to the stories of ‘the signs God gave to guide them’ on their journey (ibid.: 9). It is here that the men of Ruby will gather to prepare their attack on the convent women, because although there ‘were irreconcilable differences among the congregations in town, . . . members from all of them merged solidly on the necessity of this action: do what you have to. Neither the convent nor the women in it can continue’ (ibid.: 9–10). Why must the convent women be destroyed? I would like to phrase the answer, as before, in the confluent terms of motherhood and mobility. The convent women represent a group of mobilised women. As Ruthie and Sylvie in Housekeeping, they are putting at risk the stable patrilineal course of community life from birth to death, hazarding the planned extension and preservation of the 8-rock families (as Pat Best, who has secretly been recording their genealogies, has named the original, coal black families of Ruby). The convent women’s uncontrolled mobility poses a threat because it attracts the Ruby women who, as will be exemplified below, endanger Ruby’s essential maternal powers of reproduction. A vital sign of the convent women’s mobility is the big Cadillac (repainted magenta), which Mavis, the first one to arrive at the convent, has stolen from her husband to get away from his house after her twin babies have been smothered to death in the very same car; Pallas, on finding out that she is deceived by her mother (who has stolen her lover Carlos – ‘the motherfucker’, ibid.: 312), drives her red Toyota in blind fury ‘on roads without destination’, with ‘bumping, sideswiping trucks’ until forced off the road and raped by a number of boys who leave her for dead in a lake (ibid.: 169). She is driven from Ruby, where she has ended up hitchhiking, to the convent in Billie Delia’s car, ‘her hair full of algae’, pregnant (ibid.). Not only are the convent women mobilising themselves to the detriment of patriarchal society (they have fled their duties), they are also felt to be ‘luring’ away the mothers of Ruby. Several of Ruby’s women have walked the road to the convent to be released from their pains and burdens of motherhood and love. Lone, the Ruby midwife, tells: Out here in a red and gold land . . . where the wind handled you like a man, women dragged their sorrow up and down the road between Ruby and the

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convent. They were the only pedestrians. Sweetie Fleetwood had walked it, Billie Delia too. And the girl called Seneca. Another called Mavis. Arnette too, and more than once. And not just these days. They had walked this road from the very first. Soane Morgan for instance, and once, when she was young, Connie as well. (Ibid.: 270) Soane Morgan comes to Connie saying ‘brute, unmotherly things’ (ibid.: 239) asking her to abort her baby. Although this is not her true errand – she has come to confront her husband’s lover – Soane nevertheless loses Deek Morgan’s third baby ‘between her legs in a swamp of red fluids and windblown sheets’ walking the road back to Ruby (ibid.: 240). And no more children will come from Soane’s loins, as she after having made fast friends with Connie, takes contraceptive herbs prepared from the convent garden flora to prevent it. Arnette, the Ruby girl who is to marry K.D. to save the ‘by then’ perishing black Morgan line (Soane’s two sons died in WW2) comes ‘revolted by the work of her womb’ to the convent women to abort her baby (ibid.: 249). Arnette is persuaded to have the baby in the convent, but it arrives too soon. The ‘five- or six-month baby revolted’ fleeing the blows to its skull, the damage done by ‘the mop handle inserted with a rapist’s skill’ by Arnette, ‘repeatedly – between her legs’ (ibid.: 250). The ‘Morgan baby’ dies. ‘Many of the walkers Lone had seen; others she had heard about. But the men never walked the road; they drove it’ (ibid.: 270). Sweetie, one night, walks out from her house and her sick babies and is found in distress and confusion on the road by Seneca who jumps out of the truck she is hitch-hiking on as she spots her. The road Seneca leads Sweetie down takes them to the convent where Sweetie is nursed through a fever and Seneca ends up staying. The next day Sweetie’s husband drives to the convent to pick her up – to reclaim the mother of his children. One day, a long time ago, Connie is waiting for Deek on the road, when his twin brother Steward shows up in his truck. Believing it is Deek she jumps in. But Steward knows her purpose for standing there. He drives her back to the convent, thus warning her from exchanging her light-brown blood with his 8-rock ancestry; it is his way of keeping in check ‘the who fucks who?’ (ibid.: 217), his way to keep his part of the bargain the Morgans seem to have struck. Pat Best has figured out this bargain – the ‘deal’: The generations had to be not only racially untampered with but free of adultery too. ‘God bless the pure and holy’ indeed. That was their purity. That was their holiness. . . . Unadulterated and unadulteried 8–rock blood held its magic as long as it resided in Ruby. That was their recipe. That was their deal. For Immortality. . . . In that case, she thought, everything that worries them must come from women. (Ibid.: 217) As time goes by, the women become more and more mobile, and the blood rule becomes harder to protect. Women’s automobility undermines the ‘one-way’

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patrilinearity of the road. The patriarchs of Ruby have no way to go but ‘ back’, that is, to restore women to ‘their’ order, so they can go ‘forward’ as programmed, according to the ‘deal’. But as we have seen, the women are hard to hold down, and they are drawn to the convent as their closest point of rescue. Billie Delia, ‘the bastard born daughter of the woman with sunlight-skin [Pat Best]’ (ibid.: 203) has spent ‘two weeks and one day’ (ibid.: 202) in the convent, after running away from her furious mother who nearly kills her with an electric iron, throwing it at her with the rage she feels towards the 8-rock for despising her ‘lightish but not whiteish’ daughter; for making her perceive her own daughter as an embarrassing liability. Billie Delia has left Ruby, ‘got a job in Demby, bought a car’ (ibid.: 153) and has come back to Ruby only twice. Once for Arnette’s wedding. She left the very ‘next day in her very own car’ (ibid.: 203). Morrison marks Billie Delia’s departure in terms of mobilised proprietorship, that is, in possession of the modern sign of movement – the car. Cars (the Cadillac, the wrecked Toyota) play crucial roles, as Lone points out in the quote above. Before, the road and cars have signified men’s potential machinations, but now, they also signal women’s hard-won mobility. When the women take to the road, they block off or contaminate nativity. To return to Pollock’s argument, they block off symbolic (but also real) power. Patriarchal property is in danger, the all-black blood-line is jeopardised. The community must not be bled anaemic, pale and weak. A number of men thus ‘gathered at the Oven to decide and figure out how to run the Convent women off ’ (ibid.: 273), those ‘[b]itches’; ‘witches’ (ibid.: 276). It is by Lone, finally ‘truly auto mobile’ at the age of 79, owning a car and knowing how to drive it, who these men are overheard by (ibid.: 270). But her mobility is not enough. Having tried to warn the convent women who will not listen to her words of a catastrophe drawing near (they have cleansed themselves spiritually and feel strong and free and invincible for the first time in years), she is now driving slowly in the heavy rainfall to get help from people whose family relations would not ‘cloud their minds’ (ibid.: 282), ‘thinking if this mission was truly God’s intention, nothing could stop her. Halfway to Aaron Poole’s house the Oldsmobile halted in a roadside ditch’ (ibid.: 282). Finally out of the ditch Lone seeks out people who will be willing to stop the nine armed men. But too late. Although we learn of an ominous slide of the Oven, which ‘shifts, just slightly, on one side’ (ibid.: 287) after the massive rain, the ‘obligation’ to ‘stampede or kill’ (ibid.: 3) the doomed women is carried out to its bitter end. ‘God at their side, the men take aim. For Ruby’ (ibid.: 18). The five convent women are shot.

The Final Judgement What is the Final Judgement on the Female Pilgrim then? How do the narratives end? What is the way of the wandering woman? Moll Flanders is transported to the American Colony. She inherits money and property. She decides eventually (after her term of punishment is over) to

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return to England (where her husband always felt best at ease) where she dies a rich penitent. Daisy Miller dies from a disease which she has contracted during an evening excursion undertaken in the company of Mr Winterbourne alone. Ruthie and Sylvie escape Fingerbone. Before leaving the town, they set fire to the ‘house that was stashed like a brain’ with the ‘relics’ and memories (Robinson 1981: 209), which made it difficult for them to leave it as it was. Ruthie imagines ‘the spirit of the house breaking out the windows and knocking down the doors, as it burst its tomb, broke up its grave’ (ibid.: 211). No headstone should be left behind. The house must burn. Ruthie and Sylvie then cross the long train bridge over the lake, barely escaping the passing train. Fingerbone citizens assume they are lost, drowned, or consumed by the house fire. At this point in the narrative, their escape seems complete. But, Robinson then chooses to make the reader uncertain whether they have actually survived or not. She drifts Ruthie and Sylvie into a vaguely defined territory: she has Ruthie imagine walking to the Fingerbone house one night; ‘Since we are dead the house would be hers [Lucille’s] now’ (ibid.: 218). And later, Ruthie gives us other coordinates of their being: ‘We are nowhere in Boston. . . . My mother likewise is not there’ (ibid.). Sylvie and Ruthie have moved into a very ambiguous dimension of existence. And what happened to those dancing ‘[b]odacious black Eves unredeemed by Mary’ who leapt like does in the rain the night before they were murdered (Morrison 1999: 18)? Lone is going to stay with the dead bodies until Roger, the undertaker, arrives. Asked how she will get back to town, Lone answers: ‘Well the dead don’t move. And Roger’s got a lot of work to do’. As the last car pulls away, Lone looks back at the house. ‘A lot of work’ (ibid.: 292). But he gets none. Earlier in the story, we have learnt that Lone has the gift of ‘stepping in’, a gift which Connie also has had and with which she literally revived Soane Morgan’s son as he lay dying after a car crash on the road between Ruby and the convent, and which she repeatedly (‘selfishly’) used to keep ‘Mother’, Sister Mary Magna alive when Connie and Mother were the only two nuns left at the convent. When Roger Best arrives, there is no work for him to do: Three women were down in the grass, he’d been told. One in the kitchen. Another across the hall. He searched everywhere. Every inch of grass, every patch of Scotch broom. The henhouse. . . . Every room: the chapel, the schoolroom. The game room was empty; the kitchen too – a sheet and a folded raincoat on the table the only sign that a body had been there. . . . He opened one door that revealed a coal bin. Behind another a small bed and a pair of shiny shoes on the dresser. No bodies. Nothing. Even the Cadillac was gone. (Ibid.: 292) We must draw our own conclusions. We do however get one last section of Paradise to guide us. Here we find that each of the women has made peace one way or the other with her close relations – if her relatives see ghosts or not, we

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can not really tell. Will the moments of resurrected pride and restored love which their reunions/settlements may be said to constitute represent their individual paradisal goal? One of the snapshots that we get is of Pallas, who after leaving her mother Dee Dee’s house for the second time gets ‘into a beat-up car waiting on the road. Other people were in the car but the sun was setting so Dee Dee couldn’t tell if they were men or women. They drove off into a violet so ultra it broke her heart’ (ibid.: 312). Who are waiting in the car? Is this the Cadillac and the convent women waiting for her so they can all now go to Heaven? Is Connie, as the very last paragraphs of the novel may suggest, with her beloved Piedade, the nun that used to sing to her as a child, by the ocean – here on earth or in a heavenly paradise? The trajectories of the female subjects in the travel fictions investigated in this article, the way I read them, are laid out by way of two main rhetorical strategies. That is, two principal processes of resolving the predicament of women’s maternally conditioned mobility can be discerned. The eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury narratives situate her course in physical reality: Defoe solves the reality of Moll Flanders by narrating her destiny as a journey from birth to death which, although comically, reflects potentially realistic material difficulties of a woman on the road. At the same time he emphasises her uniqueness, and makes her case highly unrealistic and improbable. Remember also her repentance. Her road to heaven must be atoned for. Henry James solves the vexatious physical reality of Daisy Miller by writing her into death, a de facto fatal punishment for her venturing outside the house. In the two contemporary narratives, Housekeeping and Paradise, on the other hand, the women start out in a plainly physical realm but are then transferred to a metaphysical reality. Both narratives end on a kind of coda which suggests that a controversial transformation of the ontological status of women on the road is taking place. Before pursuing this argument further, I would like to ask the following questions: Is there no incontestable successful way for the female pilgrim? May she not wander in the sunshine of God’s grace? Will she, like Daisy Miller, and the convent women unconditionally walk into the valley of death? To provide better answers to these questions and to improve my explanations of the fictional cases presented here (particularly Housekeeping and Paradise which I will return to shortly), I will expand here my theory on women’s maternally conditioned mobility in terms of two new cartographic terms.

Materotopology and materotopia I wish to conceptualise the contact zones, that is, the socio-historically mappedout physical places where women may and may not move, as a geography which I have called ‘materotopology’. Embedded in this concept are thus socio-spatial practices conditioned by traditional notions of femininity–motherhood, which seriously impact women’s mobility. Conceived in this manner, materotopology is a network of overlapping discourses on travel, motherhood, subjectivity and space. Defoe ‘moved’ in a historical and literary time-scape where the materotopological landscape was taken for granted. In Henry James’s era the eruption of women’s movements was beginning to be felt. Daisy Miller is adventurous,

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different, the protagonist of the novel, but she nevertheless has to be killed off, to put it bluntly. In the twentieth-century narratives dealt with here, the stories, bearing with them seemingly unbendable traditions, turn essentially to metaphysical dissolutions. To explain the kind of alterity created by the authors here I propose the concept of ‘materotopia’, which leans on three other concepts: first, that of ‘mnemotope’ (Assmann 1999), that is, a place or location which triggers or creates a memory; second, a utopian space projected into an unknown future or ending, a state of becoming; and third, the matrix (Lichtenberg-Ettinger 1994) as a state of process of ‘change and exchange’. Materotopia2 consequently signifies a futurity which may sort as a feminine dimension of existence. By aid of Materotopia I wish to illustrate the abstract dimension – conditioned by maternal mobility – which seems to be the realm of female subjectivity to which Robinson and Morrison both transport their characters. In Housekeeping, we get another glimpse of what a materotopian dimension is modified by as Ruthie asks herself: When did I become so unlike other people? Either it was when I followed Sylvie across the bridge, and the lake claimed us, or it was when my mother left me waiting for her, and established in me the habit of waiting and expectation which makes any present moment most significant for what it does not contain. . . . [Mothers] walk ahead of us, and walk too fast, and forget us, they are so lost in thoughts of their own, and soon or late they disappear. The only mystery is that we expect it to be otherwise. (Robinson 1981: 214–15) Not even here does Robinson reveal the final phenomenological status of Ruthie and Sylvie (‘the lake claimed us’) but instead we get a memory of mobile mothers who walk ahead which moulds Ruthie’s experience as a moving, deviant, subject. The materotopia aside, are we to believe that Ruthie and Sylvie have transcended to another dimension of subjective presence? Is this as far as the writer can take them; are they inhabiting a ‘matrixial borderspace’? Is this the fulfilment (or boundary?) of materotopian mobility, a feminine futurité? To return to my argument above, Robinson’s and Morrison’s concluding narrative strategy seems to be a kind of dissolution of the female mobile subject: as if female mobility spins faster and faster until it orbits out of the tangible universe. The writers have resorted to a dissipation of their protagonists’ positions. Must we then draw the conclusion that this is the only available resolution of female subjectivity for the mother/woman as she has moved far out of the patriarchal and normative framework? Is there no imaginable destination, no viable paradise that may harbour her? Is the mobilised woman impossible as embodied physical and social subject? Let me here address a certain discomfort that some feminists (who feel the need to posit the female subject as stronger, wiser, more far-reaching, more successful, finally liberated, etc.) may experience reading about the ‘disappearance’ of the female subject from the physical track. Firstly, no travel writers, traveller-writers, human

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beings, have ever been able to map the ulterior uncharted territory. Thus writers, male and female, tend to resort to the paradisal as metaphor for the ending, the arrival, the mystic conclusion. The paradise metaphor then becomes endless and can signify almost anything. Of course it has certain limitations, but, let me assume that both Robinson and Morrison have implemented a materotopological view of their subjects’ world as they are still in it and in conflict with it, and as they dissolve these conflicts, they resort to a materotopian vision of paradise. The ‘dissolution’ of the female travelling subject emphasises transgression, but avoids a straightforward beatific reunion. An insurrection may be sensed in Housekeeping. The break with societal norms signals a reinscription of subjectisation processes. These, in Morrison’s Paradise become, purposely matriarchal, resurrection rewritten. Secondly, it may be that maternally imprinted utopias as any other utopia (including paradise) cannot be invented and thus never travelled to. They may be non-existent as Calás and Smircich find in their hunt for alternatives to masculinity-marked leadership discourses (1991). But, in their mind, the alternative finds articulation in analytical adventures like their own provocative text, a fiction voiced as a utopia. That utopia then stands for the necessity to question the metaphysical gendered bases, biases, and tendencies to closure that hover over organisations, including the patriarchal institution with a big ‘P’. Calás and Smircich express their resistance to fixing themselves in their intellectual travels to stable spaces and solid grounds. They ‘prefer the imagery of a transient subject, never to be captured, always on the move’ (ibid.: 598). The materotopia could perhaps be seen as a temporary, dissolvable, and rewritable abode for such a subject. A conceptual motel on the road. However, I should admit that my search for female subjectivity contains an urge to see women mobile within the tangible realm of the physical world and graspable life span, something which the materotopia-destined travellers’ narratives do not obviously promise. As evidenced by the discussions throughout this chapter the mother/woman has insistently been focused and inserted into a network, a matrix, as it were, of significations wherever travel participates as passages, journeys, rites and transgressions be it in plot typology, ethics, or psychoanalytics. Women may consequently, in more ‘material’ terms, be complicated characters to figure as travelling subjects of flesh and blood. We know that mythologies are constantly reproduced. Fortunately, they are also reworked, although the legacy of initiatory narratives such as the biblical ones keep haunting their reconstructions. For those who these texts, including Calás and Smircich’s and my own, contribute insufficiently to the mobility of the thought and travel of women, I would like to reiterate the temporary, and historically conditioned, nature of the strategy of dis-solving female mobile subjectivity into materotopia. It is merely a step on the way. In ‘New Aesthetics of the Road’ (forthcoming), I show that the subject, that was posited by Calás and Smircich as transient and always on the move, does indeed move on to new ‘real’ worlds. She brings about a remapping of the materotopology of yore. The maternal organisation of the world can no longer look the same. Trust me.

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Coda I see my project as a feminist undertaking of inscribing, figuring, metaphorising, and interpreting in ‘woman-to-woman’ terms (see Pollock 1994) the tales of travel, the tales of women on the road. I align myself with theorists who are dedicated to breaking theoretical ground for female subjectivity. As Braidotti points out: in feminism, the struggle over the imaginary, especially about re-naming and positive re-signification has a long history. . . . The point is really quite simple: as the feminist movement put it, well before Deleuze philosophized it: we need to learn to think differently about our historical condition; we need to re-invent ourselves. (Braidotti 2000: np) The mission to invent, rather than re-invent, is taken as adequate justification for my two neologisms, materotopology and materotopia, to denote concepts that, one could object, could have been described in existing theoretical terms. The maternal organisation of the road has of course, in my view, been there all along! These terms stretch, in my opinion, the theoretical realms of women’s subjectisation and offer spaces that will account for women’s/mothers’ experiences and difficulties without expelling them to the margin of the narrative. I could of course also repeat with Braidotti, that my task, as well as Robinson’s and Morrison’s, is to re-invent, in the sense of regendering a tradition. Because the act of regendering has a certain relationship to the kind of investigation and innovation that T.S. Eliot, the great traditionalist, seems to write about: the repeated search for paradise which we have seen in the narratives analysed in this article, that is, a paradise which ‘this time around’ will be experienced anew, as new: ‘We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time’. But this time around ‘we’ means more than ‘human beings’, especially more than ‘male human beings’. ‘We’ are all the Eves who have wandered through time and space under the subordinating laws of patriarchy. We, as I have argued, ‘know the place’ in maternally organised terms. And now, let us move on.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank: Barbara Czarniawska for her infinite support, exquisite suggestions, and indispensable guidance in the realms of organizational theory; Danuta Fjellestad for her brilliant comments and editing; Monika Kostera for her readings and encouragements; Anders and Isak for their patience; John for lodging, love, and IT; Vicky, Anna Åse, Arijana and Cilla for sisterhood and energy; my mother Madeleine for basically everything; Ulf Ottosson for great references. Very special thank you: Inger Pettersson for standing by me solid as a rock; Jörg Beckmann for giving the manuscript a mobility check, and Ulrika Nilsson for administering me with TLC. Thank You All!

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Notes 1 Socrates’ mother, Phaenarete, was acting as a midwife, which might be the origin of Socrates’ use of so-called maieutic methods, i.e., the philosophical correspondence of obstetrics, which he used to elicit new ideas from others, or, so to speak, assist his students in giving birth to their unborn ideas. ‘Maieutic’ derives from the Greek maieutikos ‘of midwifery’. 2 Materotopia bears resemblance, and ought do to so, to the psychoanalytic theories of the goal of the yearning of the male traveller – the mother’s body (see Lawrence 1994; Enevold 2000). But those theories focus the male subject’s desires and developments. I have aimed towards a female-centred approach, while trying to avoid sentimentalising or ‘romanticizing’ my two spatial neologisms. Something which Caren Kaplan fears has been the case with post-structuralist notions of deterritorialisation and nomadic travelling (Kaplan 1987).

References Assmann, J. (1999) Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, München: Beck. Bauman, Z. (1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, Cambridge: Blackwell. Benjamin, Walter (1983) Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, trans. H. Zohn, London: Verso. Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, New York: Columbia University Press. —– (2000) ‘Difference, Diversity and Nomadic Subjectivity’, http://women.ped.kun.nl/cbt/ rosilecture.html, Jan 7. Bunyan, J. (1678) Pilgrim’s Progress in This World to That Which is To Come. Calás, M.B. and Smircich, L. (1991) ‘Voicing Seduction to Silence Leadership’, Organization Studies 2(12): 567–602. —– (1993) ‘Dangerous Liaisons: the “Feminine-In Management” meets “Globalization’’ ’, Business Horizons 2(36): 71–81. Chaucer, G. (1386) Canterbury Tales. Defoe, D. (1722/1973) Moll Flanders: A Norton Critical Editio, E.H. Kelley (ed.), New York: Norton. Enevold, J. (2000) ‘Men and Women on the Move: Three Dramas of the Road’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 3: 403–20. —– (forthcoming) ‘New Aesthetics of the Road: The Daughters of Thelma and Louise’, in K. Siegel (ed.) Gender, Genre and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing, New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Friedman, Susan Stanford (1993) ‘Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse’, in R.R. Warhol and D. Price Herndl (eds) Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 371–96. Hochschild, A.R. (1997) The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work, New York: Metropolitan Books. James, H. (1986/1878) Daisy Miller, London: Penguin. Jokinen, E. and Veijola, S. (1997) ‘The Disoriented Tourist: The Figuration of the Tourist in Contemporary Cultural Critique’, in C. Rojek and J. Urry. (eds) Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory, London: Routledge, pp. 23–51. Kanter, R.M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation, New York: Basic Books.

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Kaplan, C. (1987) ‘Deterritorializations: The Rewriting of Home and Exile in Western Feminist Discourse’, Cultural Critique 6: 187–98. Lawrence, K.R. (1994) Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Leed, E.J. (1991) The Mind of the Traveller: From Gilgamesh to Global Tourism, New York: Basic Books. Lerner, G. (1993) Women and History: The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lévinas, E. (1993) In Conversation with Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger. Time Is The Breath Of The Spirit, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art. —– (1969) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. A. Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B. (1994) ‘The Becoming Threshold of Matrixial Borderlines’, in G. Robertson et al. (eds) Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, London: Routledge, pp. 38–62. Milton, J. (1996/1667) Paradise Lost, London: Penguin. Morris, M. and O’ Connor, L. (eds) (1993) Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers, New York: Vintage Departures. Morrison, T. (1999/1997) Paradise, New York: Penguin. Pollock, G. (1994) ‘Territories of Desire: Reconsiderations of an African Childhood’, in G. Robertson et al. (eds) Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, London: Routledge, pp. 63–89. Robertson, G., Mash, M., Tickner, L., Bird, J., Curtis, B. and Putnam, T. (eds) (1994) Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, London: Routledge. Robinson, M. (1981) Housekeeping, London: Faber & Faber. Shinagel, M. (1973) ‘The Maternal Paradox in Moll Flanders: Craft and Character’, in E.H. Kelley (ed.) Moll Flanders: A Norton Critical Edition, New York: Norton, pp. 404–14. Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Trinh T. M. (1994) ‘Other than Myself/My Other Self ’, in G. Robertson et al. (eds) Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement, London: Routledge, 9–26. Veijola, S. and Jokinen, E. (1994) ‘The Body in Tourism’, Theory, Culture and Society 11: 125–51. Wahl, A. et al. (eds) (1998) Ironi & Sexualitet: Om Ledarskap och Kön, Stockholm: Carlssons. Wolff, J. (1990) Feminine Sentences, Oxford: Blackwell. —— (1993) ‘On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism’, Cultural Studies 7: 224–39.

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Maiden, Mother, Mistress, Monster Controlled and uncontrolled female power and the curse of the body in the early Victorian novel – implications of historical stereotyping for women managers Andrena Telford

Women managers: the current situation The employment history of the past four decades has seen a steadily increasing percentage of women engaged in what can clearly be designated ‘careers’, as opposed to a pattern of short-term, often part-time employment undertaken for largely pragmatic reasons (Gutek and Larwood 1989: 8–9). A growing number of women graduates have been embarking directly on careers in management, while many other women employees have found themselves promoted into managerial roles within their organisations. In the often leisurely time-scale of historical change, these alterations in women’s working lives have been rapid, widespread and radical. Nonetheless, one element in the progress of women into management remains stubbornly unresponsive: only a very small percentage of women have achieved leadership at the highest levels in business, industry, the professions, politics, the uniformed services, or any other sector in which promotion is ostensibly related to experience, ability and character. Those women who do establish their feet on the lower or middle rungs of the management career ladder often find that this level is where, regardless of their best efforts and despite the fact that they are as well qualified as their male counterparts, they mysteriously remain. In the early 1990s, in Great Britain, out of approximately 3 million individuals identified as managers, about 20 per cent were women; of the 1 million or so middle to senior managers, only 4 per cent were women (Davidson and Cooper 1992). The situation has not changed greatly since then. Despite all the advances of the last forty years, at the start of the twenty-first century the vast majority of workers in the UK continue to report to male bosses (an illustration of this is given in Tomlinson et al. 1997). The reasons put forward to explain this phenomenon are numerous and varied. These include both external factors (e.g. women’s greater family responsibilities compared with their male counterparts; resistance – either deliberate or unconscious – to the appointment of women candidates for senior management positions; the channelling into female career ‘ghettos’; occupational segregation; exclusion from male groupings which help to promote their members; lack of

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This is a photograph, taken by my father, of me aged about 6, with my mother (holding my hand) and my mother’s favourite sister. The background is Kiloran Bay on the Hebridean island of Colonsay, a magical place where part of my childhood was spent. Missing from the picture are my older brother and our beloved Labrador dog. The island had no electricity, few cars, no commercial entertainment of any kind, and only a twice-weekly ferry service to connect it with the outside world. Our family life revolved around my father’s occupation as minister of one of the two churches. My mother, Glasgow born and bred, learned to pluck chickens, skin rabbits and be a minister’s wife, while keeping us clothed, fed, healthy and happy on a tiny salary. My brother and I, free to roam wild with the other island children, adored the life and were heartbroken when, because of schooling, the family had to move to the Scottish mainland.

female role models; exclusion from training and mentoring; being perceived as not matching the ‘manager’ profile) and internal factors (e.g. role conflict between work and home/family; lower career expectations; insufficient motivation/drive; a more tangential relationship to the organisation, which is seen as only one life-area among several others of equal importance; a stronger orientation to relationships than to task, which takes women out of mainstream management into, for example, personnel departments; fear of success; general lack of confidence). Ashcroft (1998: 206–9), for example, summarises research into a number of these factors, while Betz and Fitzgerald (1987: 112ff.) consider the role of self-concept in women’s career choice and career success. Asplund

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(1988: 34–5) indicates that some of the reasons put forward for women’s lack of advancement, especially those posited by male managers, were either overtly or implicitly critical of women (i.e. identifying what women lacked to become senior managers). One additional factor, however, which is increasingly raised, and which straddles the divide between external and internal hindrances, is that of sex-role perceptions and gender stereotyping.

Sex roles and gender stereotyping The literature on gender has mushroomed since the 1970s, as Susan Basow’s richly detailed survey, Gender Stereotypes: Transitions and Alternatives (1986), demonstrates. Much of this material reveals at the very least an undercurrent of disquiet concerning the persistence of gender stereotyping where managerial roles and activities within organisations are concerned. Researchers have discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that definitions of the ‘good manager’ appear to have changed little since the 1970s, that most of the characteristics specified would be classified as typically male, and, interestingly, that women respondents’ descriptions were equally biased towards traditionally masculine traits (Powell 1993). Of course, the situation is not as simple as this would indicate. For example, Powell also reported that respondents asked to describe a good manager from the workers’ point of view listed more ‘feminine’ traits as being desirable than did respondents drawing up a description from the perspective of company owners. What is perhaps most significant is the extent to which, even now, certain traits are still perceived as being predominantly ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, and the amount of agreement among the population as a whole over which characteristics belong to each sex. Also striking is the small proportion of ‘female’ characteristics which are seen in a positive light as admirable and advantageous, compared with the much larger number of positively-viewed ‘masculine’ traits. Naturally, this spills over into perceptions of male and female management styles and assessments of their effectiveness in managerial roles and activities (Marshall 1984: 24–6). The ways in which attempts have been made to counter sex-role stereotyping and gender discrimination can be summed up as: denial of difference; promotion of an androgynous style of management; or advocacy of a ‘female’ style. Denial of difference has generally foundered on the rock of reality (whether the observable differences are inbuilt or learned, biological or social, is still problematic). The recent vogue for androgynous management, incorporating the best of masculine and feminine approaches, while possibly appealing to women, appears not to have attracted many male converts. It can also, as research cited by Ashcroft (1998: 121) suggests, prove too stressful for managers, who feel they must demonstrate the best of both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ styles of management and have difficulty holding these sometimes conflicting requirements in tandem. The implications for women managers who have been trying to do exactly this are obvious. The concept of different but equally valuable female styles of management has gained enthusiastic supporters, but carries with it the danger of actually reinforcing damaging stereotypes. (A full and balanced discussion of these issues can be found in Billing and Alvesson 2000.) Ironically, it often seems that the very material

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which focuses on and deplores the adverse effects of stereotyping, and particularly that addressed to women managers themselves, appears at the same time to be the most accepting of the traditional depictions of ‘male’ and ‘female’, and to be basing its arguments on these very stereotypes. Women managers, we are told, exercise a softer, warmer, more people-friendly approach. They are better listeners, more approachable, receptive and sympathetic. Their management style is more democratic, more inclusive, more communal. Overtly or implicitly, the impression is conveyed that women (managers) are indeed a different breed, although we are assured that the differences can be utilised to achieve balance within organisations, with female attributes complementing and softening the harder, more driven, taskoriented style of male managers (Cohen 1989: passim). The notion that women would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate ‘feminine’ management skills is undermined by evidence that a majority of women managers exhibit predominantly ‘masculine’ behaviours in their managerial role (Betz and Fitzgerald 1987: 121–4). What is perhaps most disturbing is that, in the workplace, male managers and employees continue to ascribe negatively-assessed ‘female’ qualities to women managers as a group, even if evidence suggests that personal acquaintance with individual female managers does modify their estimate of her particular character and competence (Powell 1993: 174). Although women’s attitudes towards ideal feminine behaviour and character have been altering over the past couple of decades, many female workers would appear to continue to share the same prejudice against women in charge, and to assess themselves and other women, including women managers, against the traditional model (Marshall 1984: 37–40).

The continuing inequality of power What remains at the core of the disquiet, however – and what cannot be disguised by any amount of appreciation of the human face of female management – is the problem of the manifestation and exercise of power within the workplace. All the indications are that resistance to female power (both in terms of female independence/self-direction/self-(e)valuation and in relation to power over others at work) is the great intractable and immovable problem in relations between the sexes at work. Different styles of leadership, different styles of communication, all the carefully delineated poles of maleness and femaleness are, at heart, only of significance where they impinge upon the ability of the woman manager to be effective in achieving the organisation’s (and her own) goals, and that is directly dependent upon her actual and perceived power (Foster 1999: passim). That men on the whole possess more power than their female peers in most situations at work is a truism. But when over a century of sustained effort at equalisation has signally failed to redress the balance between men and women, it is clear there must be some strong reinforcers in operation – and not just on the male half of the working population. Perceptions of the role of power/powerlessness, of the pursuit/relinquishment of power in masculine and feminine stereotypes must surely be considered as a contributing factor to the differentials between male and female managers.

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This chapter argues that the resistance of men and the possible (even probable) ambivalence of women concerning female power, particularly within the management context, is at least in part related to perceptions of what is genderappropriate for women, that, as stated above, there is in fact considerable agreement between men and women on gender-appropriate traits and that these perceptions are deeply rooted in and to a large extent stem from a historical definition of femininity/femaleness.

Origins of the problem Two immediate questions arise from the introductory summary above: where are these stereotypes derived from, and why are they so pervasive and persistent? It is not the function of this chapter to attempt to investigate, or even to summarise findings in relation to the first, but it would, at the same time, argue that a substantial number of the ‘feminine’ traits can be directly linked to historic perceptions of the structure, the biological functions and, in particular, the pathology of the female body and its effects upon the female mind and emotions. For a more detailed study of this subject, see Fausto-Sterling (1985). The answer to the second is equally outside the scope of this paper, but one factor to be considered must be socialisation, which has accustomed both sexes to subscribe to a particular model of what is appropriate and desirable in terms of the behaviour, appearance and attitudes of ‘masculine’ men and ‘feminine’ women. One of the principal instruments for socialisation is undoubtedly the printed word, and one of the most palatable ways of absorbing beliefs, values and expectations is through that particular form of the printed word known as fiction. The English novel, through its evolution in the seventeenth century, its development and refinement in the eighteenth century, its vast explosion of popularity in the nineteenth century and its liberation from convention in the twentieth century, has helped to shape its readers far more efficiently than any modern advertising campaign. The effectiveness of its propagandising powers is reflected in the recurrent attempts to control its form, its content, its modes of expression, its distribution, and its readership, particularly its young female readership. That the novel can provide a rich vein of information on the position and life-experience of Victorian women, and that it can in fact, despite its diversity, be used as a historical source, is well-defended in Patricia Otto Klaus’s article ‘Women in the Mirror: Using Novels to Study Victorian Women’ (in Kanner 1980) and thus will not be addressed here. The main focus of this chapter is on the deliberate restriction of female power which has operated and continues to operate on both sexes’ perceptions of what it is right and possible for women to do and be. It looks at the moulding of women and of their roles and their behaviour in the first half of the Victorian age, through the fiction they read, examines how that depiction of womanhood evolved, and questions whether it was not based upon a distorted and pathological view of the female body. It considers whether this particular historical definition did not have built into it a deep distrust of femaleness (as distinguished from the more acceptable ‘femininity’), a belief that female power is

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potentially a dangerous and unreliable thing, and, as a consequence, an unspoken commitment to the channelling and control of female power – for the good of women themselves, as well as of society and the family. It examines the positive and negative aspects of four main models of womankind illustrated in the novels of the period, and asks whether, a century and a half later, we are not still under the influence of the female types depicted in the pages of the early Victorian novelists. The fear generated by this historical view of women and the threat of the female ‘monster’, as well as the lingering image of the ideal feminine woman, continues, the paper maintains, to influence both men and women at work (often at a subconscious level), creating an attitude of resistance and defensiveness on the part of men towards women managers and operating to hinder and deflect women at work, depriving them of a natural and unselfconscious exercise of power and even of competence.

Role of the early Victorian novel in the formation of female images The early nineteenth century was a critical time for crystallising a particular image of women. To begin with, the early years of the nineteenth century, the birth of the industrial age, brought radical changes to society as a result of the process loosely designated the Industrial Revolution. For families, and for women, the consequent reorganisation of society and the reformulation of work could mean sudden prosperity and advancement in the social order or could result equally rapidly in a descent into poverty and its concomitant evils. Disraeli’s two nations were being created on either side of a great gulf, and the roles of women were being redrawn to fit. For those on the right side of the divide, the prosperity generated by trade and industry became a passport to a lifestyle which until then had only been enjoyed by the wealthy and aristocratic. The increased leisure which this brought to some women and the lessening of their practical involvement in domestic work meant that a new role had to be devised and new concerns came to the fore. The literature concerning the role of women in the family, work and society in the nineteenth century is too extensive to begin to select from within the confines of this chapter. However, even a brief scanning of some of the many works available would indicate that the statements contained within these paragraphs are not controversial. The mother of the household thus became a mistress, with supervisory responsibility for household and servants, rather than herself engaging in domestic labour. The daughters of the family could devote their time to arts and crafts, to music and dance, to reading and of course to courtship and romance. The ‘refinement’ of the role of the middle class female, and her osmosis into a representative of all that was fine, pure, and good, the upholder of the virtues and graces, the counterpart to the rough, active, masculine life and concerns of the family breadwinner and provider, was set in motion. In all of this, the role of the pater familias remained central to the family – the lode-star around which the female members of the family group revolved. Once formulated, the image was persistently propagated through the written word, including the novels written and read by both sexes. Female characters of

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every persuasion play a large part in the early Victorian novel and were arguably highly influential in forming images of women, both good and bad. In looking at some conventional prototypes of female characters in Victorian novels of the 1840s to 1870s we must consider the extent to which (and the areas in which) these representative figures were able to exercise power, how and by whom their power was controlled, on what grounds this was justified, and what the consequences were when control was removed or disregarded. In particular, we need to examine the extent to which the need for control of women and their activities was rooted in contemporary perceptions of the nature (physical, emotional, sexual, intellectual and spiritual) of women and the generally accepted view on the pre-eminent effect of their female bodies on that nature.

Controlled and uncontrolled female power in the novels: a suggested matrix From a consideration of the plethora of female characters in the early Victorian novel, four main prototypes emerge. These are designated ‘Maiden’, ‘Mother’, ‘Mistress’ and ‘Monster’ respectively, and although this categorisation constitutes an obvious over-simplification of the subject, as a working model it can roughly contain many, if not most, of the female fictional creations of this period. Within each category, however, there is a further division, depending upon whether the character is depicted, in crude terms, as good or bad, moral or immoral, positive or negative. These two poles are in fact opposite ends of a spectrum, and individual characters can occupy positions at various points along the continuum. Moreover, characters are often not static but move up and down the line between the positive and negative poles, and can move from one category to another, depending on circumstance, their choices, their involvement with other actors in the drama, and their own natures. The table below sums up the characteristic traits of the four models, both positive (representing the good, i.e. controlled, aspects of the type) and negative (bad/uncontrolled): Table 7.1. Good/Controlled

Bad/Uncontrolled

Maiden

pure; innocent; domestic; ladylike; submissive; deferential; dependent

Mother

caring; self-sacrificing; altruistic; nurturing of others; teacher of virtue; upholder of duty beautiful; spirited; seductive; responsive to masculinity; rewarding; passionate; bewitching ‘monstre sacré’; queen or goddess figure; ‘good’ Biblical heroine; wise woman; saint; martyr

weak; vain; ignorant; foolish; flighty; vulnerable; victim; exploited; betrayed; feeble; sick; ‘fallen woman’ domineering; neglectful; overindulgent; selfish; possessive; controlling wild; unbridled; dissolute; dangerous; haughty; cold; castrating; debasing; Delilah/Salomé figure; witch unsexed virago; destructive; evil; murderous; Biblical villainess figure; madwoman

Mistress

Monster

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It is the contention of this chapter that what primarily differentiates the good from the foolish, tainted or evil varieties of womanhood in this matrix is the use or abuse of power, in its various guises, as it operates upon or is utilised by, the particular type of character. Power in this context can encompass: self-discipline, self-will, moral imperatives, external control of a beneficent kind, external control of a malicious or destructive kind, sexual power, charismatic power, monetary power, even the power of weakness or illness. Thus, when the Maiden escapes from the constraints of self-discipline, of personal or social morality, or of familial/parental control, she succumbs to weakness, vanity and folly, and is vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. That this latter is frequently of a sexual nature is underlined by the many seduced and fallen women (the Bad/ Uncontrolled Maidens) who haunt the pages of the Victorian novel. It is noteworthy that redemption and restoration, when permitted (death being the usual alternative), are only reached after a process of suffering and submission, and even then the unfortunate ‘brands saved from the burning’ are generally allowed only a restricted and frequently nun-like and self-sacrificial existence. When the Mother forgets her duty of care, becoming domineering or neglectful, or submerges it in a too-fond indulgence of her child, the overthrow of balance and control invariably results in disaster for the child and bitterness or grief for the mother. In the one case, the Maiden attempts to take control of her own life, to exert her self-will in the face of morality, family loyalty and even common sense, and suffers the consequences. In the other, the Mother assumes too great a control over the life of her child, either treating it like a thing and banning it from her affections, or indulging not only the child but her own possessive needs; in either event, there is serious damage to both parties. The figure of the Mistress is of particular interest, since the very name incorporates the notion of power and control of others, either domestic or personal. Whether their authors were aware of it or not, it is in this category that we have some of the great creations of Victorian fiction – female characters with will, strength, passion and the ability to attract, to charm, to command, and, above all, to act upon their circumstances. But seldom are such creatures allowed to flourish. However great their feminine attributes, their independence of mind and action is too masculine to be tolerated, and Mistresses are frequently punished by abandonment, loveless marriages, financial ruin, loss of reputation, or expulsion to the seedier fringes of society. The term ‘Monster’ would suggest a purely negative characterisation, but it can also represent an admired character, very much in the sense of the French ‘monstre sacré’, namely, a kind of icon, a goddess figure, a female character whose saintly virtues raise her far above the norms of average humanity, a heroic figure (in the mould of Joan of Arc) whose altruistic actions remove from her exercise of power any self-interest or personal profit, thus rendering it safe from female misappropriation. When this charisma and influence, however, are subverted to evil or selfish ends, to hatred and revenge, then the hideous negative face of the Monster emerges. Again, it is of interest to note that despite the repulsive aspects of these characters, their malign strength and wicked wilfulness exert a fascination on author and reader alike.

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The question arises as to where the control resides which keeps our female prototypes in check, and ensures their conformity to perceived notions of feminine correctness. To a certain extent, the controls are internal, either through received ideas of appropriate behaviour and morality, or through religious belief and strictures. To some extent, it is rooted in the family, and this can be through family mores, through the ties of affection, or through practical restrictions on female choice and movement (e.g. monetary control; physical confinement to the family home, unless escorted outside of it). Perhaps most powerful, though least overt, is the influence exerted upon our heroines (and their real-life counterparts) of role and gender expectations, which establish a feminine ideal to which the individual must approximate and against which a woman inevitably measures herself. The ‘ties that bind’ can have a more sinister meaning in terms of female freedoms and restrictions than the phrase commonly suggests. Much of this control, it can be argued, is exercised by men (fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, employers, lovers), but an interesting (and relevant) area for investigation is the extent to which the policing of female behaviour is carried out by women themselves.

Examples from the novels In this brief chapter, it is possible to examine only a very limited number of authors and novels. The writers chosen are Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Mrs Gaskell and Dickens. The main novels referred to in the case of the first three authors are Vanity Fair, Jane Eyre, and Mary Barton respectively. Where Dickens is concerned, we suffer from an embarrassment of riches, but characters drawn from Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Great Expectations are touched upon in this discussion. Even within the confines of this very small sample, it is possible to discern certain themes emerging which are related to our central concern with genderstereotyping and power as a factor in defining male and female attributes:

The necessity for restraint, unselfishness and self-control In several of our novels we find the common theme of the Maiden put at risk through temptation, vanity or other weakness, to which attractive young women are seen as particularly susceptible. The consequences of her foolishness, her ‘unmaidenliness’, so to speak, and her throwing off of control frequently involve harm to those she loves. Through the resulting crisis, her character is severely tested. Whether she comes through the experience or not depends upon her ability to put aside her selfish desires and upon her willingness to put another’s interests ahead of her own. Thus, Mary Barton’s vanity and lack of maidenly propriety tempt her into a flirtation with mill-owner’s son Harry Carson, and this sets off a chain-reaction which leads to the trial of her true lover, Jem Wilson, for Carson’s murder. Having realised by this time where her real affections lie, it is Mary who sets off to find the witness who can testify to Jem’s

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innocence. She does so at great personal risk, including the possibility that in doing so she may inadvertently reveal that the guilty man is her own father. The character of Mary Barton, as depicted by Mrs Gaskell, is passionate and impetuous. As a positive foil, in the novel we have the patient and level-headed blind girl, Margaret, who, as Good/Controlled Maiden, represents the moral fibre and restraint which Mary lacks in the earlier part of the novel, and which she only gains through suffering and self-sacrificial actions. As a negative foil, we have Mary’s Aunt Esther, a Bad/Uncontrolled Maiden, whose story parallels Mary’s to some extent in that she had fallen in love with an attractive upperclass rogue, but in her case succumbed to the temptation, and suffered the consequences; abandoned by her lover, by the time of the novel she has been claimed by prostitution and disease. Temptation also presents itself to Jane Eyre, in the person of Rochester and in the prospect of marriage to him. That the marriage would be morally wrong is hinted at in various ways even before the revelation of the existence of Rochester’s mad wife, and Rochester recklessly compounds the evil by pressing Jane, after the disrupted marriage ceremony, to become his mistress. But Jane, whose clear-eyed morality is never really in doubt, summons up the strength to flee, again suffering greatly both mentally and physically but winning through to acceptance and self-respect as a result of her renunciation. Actual physical threat to our heroine, incidentally, is posed by the mad Bertha Rochester, who epitomises the female Monster, a characterisation which will be returned to later in the argument. The ideal of the ‘lady’ An interesting feature of the depiction of the heroines in these novels is the extent to which, regardless of background and class, they are ‘ladies’. This somewhat vague description (evidently clearly understood by the Victorian reader) has little to do with airs and graces, but a great deal to do with purity of character, delicacy of mind and correctness of behaviour. Thus, in Vanity Fair the timid, gentle, passive Amelia is quite clearly a ‘lady’, while the fascinating, conniving, active Becky Sharp (destined to become a Mistress) is equally plainly ‘no lady’. Mary Barton, despite her working-class origins, is also a ‘lady’, not because of her aspirations towards a more genteel way of life, but because, for all her little vanities, she displays sensitivity and concern for others, as well as a certain mental refinement. This quality of the ‘true’ lady is contrasted with the class-defined ‘lady’, and in fact the aspiration to join the ranks of the gentry is generally presented as a desire and temptation leading to all kinds of evils, as in the case of Esther, who, in Mary Barton, has run away with her upper-class lover in the naive belief that he will make her a ‘lady’. In Great Expectations, Miss Havisham (a Monster of her own making) has turned Estella (child of a convict and a murderess) into a ‘lady’ in the material sense, but through the distorted lessons she has taught and her encouragement of the girl’s capriciousness and pride has failed to create a ‘lady’ in nature.

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The duty of care Closely linked to the ideal of the ‘lady’ is the domestic ideal, in which the female character is seen to be fulfiling, with zeal, her responsibilities as housekeeper, nurse and mother. The archetypal ‘domestic goddess’ is Esther Summerson in Bleak House, whose determination to be contented and useful and busy is presented almost in nursery-rhyme fashion (q.v. the bundle of keys which she merrily shakes as she bustles about, and the succession of pet names – ‘Dame Durden’ is one – bestowed upon her by her fond guardian). Agnes Wickfield, in David Copperfield, also embodies this ideal (interestingly, she too carries a little basket of keys, that symbol of domestic office), being described at our first meeting with her as her father’s ‘little housekeeper’ and compared by the young and impressionable David to a saint in a stained-glass window. By contrast, Dora, whom David eventually marries, is shown as a childlike, frivolous (though enchanting) creature who has not a notion of domesticity and makes her little dog stand on the cookbook which her new husband buys for her. This we are clearly not meant to approve of. The principle crime under this heading in the novels is that of maternal neglect – the Bad Mother. This can be depicted in humorous terms, as in Bleak House’s Mrs Pardiggle, whose sullen and malicious children have been forced consistently to ‘donate’ their pocket-money to support her do-gooding schemes in foreign lands, or Mrs. Jellyby, whose similar devotion to missionary efforts abroad has resulted in a chaotic household and uncontrollable children bringing themselves up as best they can. More seriously, neglect of one’s child is elsewhere depicted as an indication of a fatal character flaw, as in the case of Becky Sharp (by contrast, her dissolute husband’s affection for and care of their son is presented as a redeeming feature in his character). As a corollary, the existence of a basic character weakness in the mother can literally lead to the death of the child. The daughter of Esther, in Mary Barton, has died, it can be assumed, because of her mother’s venal circumstances and way of life, while in David Copperfield, Steerforth’s charming and selfish character, formed by his doting mother’s indulgence, leads him to seduce Emily and sets off a chain of events which results, not only in her disgrace, but also in his own death by drowning.

The law of the generations Following on from this last point, a noticeable recurrent feature in the Victorian novels is the biblical notion of the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children – in this case, and more specifically, the sins of the mothers being visited upon the daughters. This is a theme especially pursued in Dickens, although, in a not-uncommon example of English prejudice, the fact that Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair and the child Adèle in Jane Eyre both have French mothers is by implication responsible for the streak of frivolity and the lack of sound moral sense in each. In two of the Dickens novels within our sample, the Maiden heroine comes of dubious antecedents. Estella is, as we discover towards the end of Great Expectations, the child of the convict Magwitch and the murderess cleared at trial by the wily lawyer Jaggers, who now employs her as his housekeeper. Miss

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Havisham, who adopts Estella, is suffering from a neurosis caused by her desertion at the altar and is unable to fulfil a normal maternal role; instead the beautiful child becomes the instrument of her revenge. With this unnatural dual maternal inheritance, it becomes impossible for Estella (at least until the end of the novel, which, incidentally, Dickens had intended to be unhappy but rewrote in more optimistic vein to satisfy his publisher and audience) to establish any kind of normal relationship with the other sex. Her youthful tormenting of Pip is repaid in full when she marries the abusive and violent Bentley Drummle, and it is only through this trial that she is softened to the point of accepting and valuing the love offered by her erstwhile victim. In the case of the blameless Esther in Bleak House, the fault lies entirely with her unacknowledged mother, Lady Dedlock, and yet the implication, through the distorted teachings of her grimly religious godmother and the ambiguous position Esther occupies in society, is that she is in some way tainted by her birth, stemming as it does from an adulterous affair. Although Esther herself is innocent, there is a sense in which the smallpox which she contracts (through her own selfless concern), and which permanently scars her pretty face, is a playing out of the sin committed by her mother, a kind of moral infection which must be expiated by Esther’s illness and the marring of her beauty. Transgressions punished; virtue rewarded; reparations made If there is one set of moral guidelines which permeates the early Victorian novel, it is that moral transgressions will lead to punishment, virtuous self-denial will eventually bring a longed-for reward, and the guilty but penitent will be permitted to make reparations. The consistency and severity of the punishments meted out for passion, self-will, or straying from the family locus of control are striking. Thus, in Vanity Fair, Becky’s manipulations and her hinted-at sexual liaisons precipitate her fall from society and her reduction to the world of the cheap boarding-house and the threadbare dandy set. In a rather different set of circumstances, Edith Dombey, who has in effect sold herself to her proud and unpleasant husband, and who wages an open power-struggle with her unbending spouse, is compelled to cut off the affectionate maternal relationship she has established with her step-daughter Florence and is forced into flight with a man she does not love and an existence she cannot tolerate. Another would-be bargainer for her person is Blanche Ingram, in Jane Eyre. Set up by Rochester to incite jealousy in the breast of Jane herself, the statuesque, arrogant and assertive Blanche is soon revealed for the gold-digger she really is and disappears unceremoniously from the scene as a result. By contrast, in Mary Barton, Mary’s self-denial (having realised her love for Jem immediately after refusing his suit, she resolves not to approach him in unmaidenly fashion but to wait patiently in the hope that he will return to her; she further sacrifices her safety and her reputation to bring about his exoneration) is finally rewarded by her reunion with her lover and she is given the chance of a new beginning by the death, following a reconciliation with the murdered man’s father, of her guilty but broken-down parent. In addition, that

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flawed characters are allowed to redeem themselves is illustrated by Esther in Mary Barton, who is the means of saving her niece from a fate resembling her own. The fact that her own life flickers out soon after is a not unusual corollary. The corrupting effect of power Other female characters illustrate the corrupting effect of power on the flawed women to whom it is entrusted. Jane Eyre’s cold and punitive aunt, Mrs. Reed, is one example of tyranny, as is Mrs Mann, the female wardress of the poorhouse in Oliver Twist. Pip’s older sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, who (literally) ‘brings him up by hand’ is another example. The power which Miss Havisham has over the infant Estella seduces her into using the child as an instrument of her own revenge upon men. Even Miss Pinkerton, the school-mistress of Vanity Fair, attempts (though in vain) to bully the irrepressible Becky Sharp, whom she sees as a talented nobody and a dangerous rebel. There are few cases in which strength, resolution and the just exercise of power are attributed to female characters in the novels of this period. Rather, power is seen as going to the heads of inferior women to whom it is entrusted and who abuse it by tyrannising over the weak or the dependent. The role of the body The final, and for our purposes the most telling (though generally covert) theme in the novels is the relation between the body and the mind, emotions and character of individuals within the novels. Time and time again, the nature and state of mind of the fictional character is reflected in physical/corporeal terms. In part this may be due to a normal human tendency to extrapolate from external features, to assume that small eyes indicate meanness, a low forehead indicates limited intellect, large eyes indicate innocence, and so forth. But during this particular period in the nineteenth century, two particular types of study served to reinforce many of these assumptions. One was the rapidly developing field of human psychology, which, in its concentration upon pathology and its emphasis on the study of physiognomy as an indicator of mental illness and aberration, supplied a ‘scientific’ rationale for many forms of prejudice. A fascinating glimpse into the world of Victorian psychology is provided by Taylor and Shuttleworth (1998), which brings together a collection of psychological texts from the period 1830–1890. Much of this material relates to women, and emphasises the fact that women’s natures are very much the product of their physical makeup and in particular what was sometimes described as ‘the uterine economy’ (Taylor and Shuttleworth 1998: 184ff.). ‘Hysteria’ was a topic of recurrent concern, as well as women’s greater propensity to various types of nervous disorders and insanity. In an interesting footnote, the widespread fascination with and discussion of these scientific investigations was reinforced by the introduction of photography, which meant that medical texts (and more popular works) could be illustrated by photographs of the victims of delusions, of hysterical tendencies, sub-normal intelligence, schizophrenia, and other dis-

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orders (a recent comparative study from Slovenia, by Darja Zavirsek (2000), comments usefully on this latter point). The second, not unrelated, factor was the enormous popularity of phrenology (the charting of the shape and protuberances of the skull, which was thought to indicate the structure of the various areas of the brain and thus provided an indication of the character of the individual). This was simultaneously a serious study for investigation by physicians and, at the other end of the spectrum, a kind of sophisticated party game for amateurs (‘reading the bumps’). It is difficult to overestimate the role phrenology played in early Victorian thought; that it imbued the thinking of some at least of our authors is attested to, for example, by a reference to it in a conversation between Rochester and Jane Eyre. Publications in both of these fields of study had the effect of serving to reinforce popular prejudices concerning the female character. We can see a number of their assumptions reflected in the Victorian novel. For example: •

•

•

•

•

The physical weakness of women is emphasised time and again and is consciously linked not only to femininity but also (as physical delicacy) to the ‘ladylike’ ideal mentioned above. Female modesty and sensibility is regularly reflected in blushes, in fainting spells, in copious tears of sadness and joy, and in bursts of hysteria. At times, as in the case of Mary Barton, created by the otherwise sensible Mrs Gaskell, this can resemble a catatonic state. The childlike qualities of the Maiden are frequently manifested in her appearance (dainty stature, round cheeks, etc.). The prototype is Dora in David Copperfield, but not for nothing is Esther in Bleak House referred to as ‘little woman’, and Jane Eyre (perhaps reflecting the stature of her creator) famously describes herself as ‘small, poor and plain’. Conversely, grossness of size and coarseness of feature is regularly used to indicate: (a) depravity; (b) lower class status; (c) a comic role; or (d) masculinity of character or behaviour. Thus, Estella’s natural mother in Great Expectations is described as having great physical strength, and the lawyer Jagger takes a perverse and cruel delight in showing off the size of her wrists and hands. It is impossible to ignore the overtones of racism which also feature in the Victorian novel. The terms ‘dark’ and ‘swarthy’ emerge as negative physical factors where characters are concerned, almost as code words to indicate degeneracy, or at the very least a dubious exoticism. Thus, Bertha Rochester, the madwoman of Jane Eyre, whom Rochester meets and marries in the West Indies, is described in terms which indicate Creole origins, and which carry a fatal hint of inbreeding and of tropical rot. In a lighter vein, the Miss Schwartz (even the name is significant) who attempts to win the affections of George Osborne in Vanity Fair, is depicted as coarse, clumsy and ignorant if good-natured (shades of Uncle Tom?). Physical deterioration is routinely described as a manifestation of moral decline. Thus the sunken eye, the pale skin, the haggard face, the shuffling gait are all used as indications of the decline of the moral being. Artificiality of appearance is also used to signal a moral falling-away, as when Becky Sharp adopts the use of rouge to supplement her tarnished beauty.

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Andrena Telford Physical disfigurement is often used as an indicator of faulty character or as a punishment. Perhaps the most memorable example from our novels is the scar which mars Rosa Dartle in David Copperfield; inflicted in a childish rage by the youthful Steerforth, for whom Rosa subsequently conceives a passion, it becomes livid when her emotions are aroused and serves as a marker to her lack of control.

While on the subject of the Victorian perception of the body as a mirror of the human psyche, it is worth mentioning a connected pattern of thought which saw illness (and sometimes near-death) as a means of reform of character or moral rehabilitation. Since this novelistic device is not restricted to female characters, but also features in the reformation of male fictional creations, it does not properly belong in this discussion. However, it is not unrelated, and is linked particularly to the idea of reparation for moral lapses or for faulty character traits. (For a fuller discussion of this theme, see Reed 1975: 14–20.)

The contemporary relevance It is not difficult to spot the continuance of a number of these themes, and certainly of the character prototypes we have mentioned, in the fiction (including film dramatisations) of the twentieth century. To mention only one example, in the popular film, Working Girl, where we have a straight contest between the Maiden (played by Melanie Griffith in whisper-voiced ingenue mode) and the Mistress (a shoulder-padded, steely-eyed Sigourney Weaver), between, in effect, the feminine and masculine management styles, the Maiden (just as in the Victorian novel) wins our sympathy, our support, the job and the man. This remains, of course, the stuff of fiction. But interesting questions arise as to the extent to which, in the first place, women still play the typical female roles within the workplace, and, secondly, the extent to which they are perceived by men as continuing to exemplify these roles. In particular, we have to raise the possibility that women themselves may be reluctant to give up the stereotypes, especially the more attractive and flattering aspects of the images. If, as Simone de Beauvoir suggested in The Second Sex, one ‘becomes a woman’ and there is an element of choice or election in this, how difficult is it, then, for a woman to exercise power in opposition to, or at the expense of, her cultivated ‘womanhood’? One must also question whether women may in fact fear the emergence of the ‘Monster’ in themselves, should they begin to exercise power outside the control of significant and powerful others in their (working) life. Some work on female stereotypes in the workplace has already been carried out, and one can cite, for example, Davidson and Cooper’s description (1992: 90ff.) of a number of stereotypes currently discernible in contemporary women’s working experience: the mother earth role; the pet role; the seductress role; and the deviant role (‘feminist’, ‘man-hater’, etc.). What are these but contemporary manifestation of the Mother, the Maiden, the Mistress and the Monster? In this useful analysis, the earth Mother finds herself cast in the role of personal

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counsellor, supporter, adviser and nurturer, a ‘shoulder to cry on’. To some women managers, this appears to be an acceptable and accepted image, gaining them entrée to the managerial culture, and on occasion providing them with a unique insight into their workplace and making them privy to information imparted on a confidential basis. To others, it represents an insuperable barrier to being seen as an active, dominant, task-orientated leader. The Maiden ‘pet’ is genially considered almost as a kind of mascot, a decorative office accessory, complimented but condescended to, and robbed of any chance to be taken seriously. The seductress or Mistress has the problem, not only of not being taken seriously, but also potentially of dealing with sexual harassment, while the deviant Monster, whose assertive personality and ‘masculine’ traits can lead to ridicule or ostracism tends to suffer from isolation, suspicion or dislike. Other analyses have identified different, contemporary models for women in the workplace. Gherardi (1996), for example, draws up a matrix of what she calls ‘women travellers in a male world’. In Gherardi’s model there are two types of organisation positioning: ‘friendly’ and ‘hostile’. In the ‘friendly’ category are the roles of the Guest (an accepted role/cooperative position), The Holiday Maker (a contested role/mismatched position) and the Newcomer (an imposed role/openended position). In the ‘hostile’ category are the Marginal (an accepted role/ stigmatised position), The Snake in the Grass (a contested role/contested position) and the Intruder (an imposed role/unilaterally imposed position). However, while these are interesting and thought-provoking, they do not get to grips with the deeply-embedded assumptions and prejudices which permeate our thinking about men and women, about masculine and feminine characteristics and about male and female approaches to management. We are all the inheritors of the thinking of previous generations, and we continue, wittingly or not, to channel our thinking along the deep grooves of the past. Thus, the images and the assumptions of previous generations linger on to influence our views of our current world. Much investigation remains to be done in this area. Hopefully, this discussion will contribute to an understanding of the ways in which the images of an earlier age continue to haunt and restrict women and, in particular, women managers, in the present.

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Billing, Y.D. and Alvesson, M. (2000) ‘Questioning the Notion of Feminine Leadership: A Critical Perspective on the Gender Labelling of Leadership’, Gender, Work and Organization 7(3): 144–57. Cohen, S.S. (1989). Tender Power: A Revolutionary Approach to Work and Intimacy, Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Davidson, Marilyn J. and Cooper, C.L. (1992) Shattering the Glass Ceiling: The Woman Manager, London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Fausto-Sterling, A. (1985) Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men, New York: Basic Books. Foster, J. (1999) ‘Women Senior Managers and Conditional Power: The Case in Social Services Departments’, Women in Management Review 14(8): 316–24. Gherardi, S. (1996) ‘Gendered Organizational Cultures: Narratives of Women Travellers in a Male World’, Gender, Work and Organization 3(4): 87–201. Gutek, B.A. and Larwood, L. (1989) Women’s Career Development, Newbury Park: Sage. Hirschon, R. (1993) ‘Open Body/Closed Space’, in S. Ardener (ed.) Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society, Oxford: Berg. Höpfl, H. (2000) ‘The Suffering Mother and the Miserable Son, Organising Women and Organising Women’s Writing’, Gender Work and Organisations 7(2): 98–105. —— (forthcoming) ‘The Maternal Body and the Organisation: The Influence of Julia Kristeva’, in S. Linstead (ed.), Postmodern Organisations, London: Sage. Kanner, B. (1980) The Women of England from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present: Interpretative Bibliographical Essays. London: Mansell. Klaus, P.O. (1980) ‘Women in the Mirror: Using Novels to Study Victorian Women’, in B. Kanner (ed.), The Women of England from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present: Interpretative Bibliographical Essays, London: Mansell. Kristeva, J. (1987) Tales of Love, trans. L. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press. Marshall, J. (1984) Women Managers: Travellers in a Male World, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. O’Sullivan, J. and Sheridan, A. (1999) ‘Ms Representations: Woman, Management and Popular Culture’, Women in Management Review 14(1): 14–20. Oseen, C. (1997) ‘Luce Irigaray, Sexual Difference and Theorizing Leaders and Leadership’, Gender, Work and Organization 4(3): 170–84. Parker, C. (1995) Gender Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Literature (The Nineteenth Century, ed. Vincent Newey, Joanne Shattock), Aldershot: Scolar Press. Powell, G.N. (1993) Women & Men in Management, Newbury Park: Sage. Reed, J.R. (1975) Victorian Conventions, Ohio: Ohio University Press. Sinclair, A. (2000) ‘Teaching Managers about Masculinities: Are You Kidding?’ Management Learning 31(1): 83–101. Taylor, J.B. and Shuttleworth, S. (1998) Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830–1890, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thompson, N.D. (1996) Reviewing Sex: Gender and the Reception of Victorian Novels, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tomlinson, F., Brockbank, A. and Traves, J. (1997) ‘The “Feminization” of Management? Issues of “Sameness” and “Difference” in the Roles and Experiences of Female and Male Retail Managers’, Gender, Work and Organization 4(4): 218–29. Zavirsek, D. (2000). ‘A Historical Overview of Women’s Hysteria in Slovenia’, The European Journal of Women’s Studies 7(2): 169–88.

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The mother and the masquerade Elizabeth – whole or unholy woman? Brid Andrews

It may be that the persecution of mothers is a permanent feature of patriarchal societies, but at the end of the millennium contempt for the mother seems to have assumed a new dimension. (Greer 1999: 75)

This essay will discuss the award winning film Elizabeth, whose narrative concerns itself with the early years in the reign of a Queen who ruled England at the close of the sixteenth century, but whose textual strategies interrogate the relation of woman to motherhood at the close of the twentieth. The theoretical centre of this anlaysis will be the influential essay ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’ (Riviere 1986), written in 1929 by the psychoanalyst Joan Riviere. Consideration will be given, however, to commentaries of her work by film theorists considerably influenced by psychoanalytic discourse. Additionally, this essay will attempt to parallel the discourses of the role of the woman/mother found in the film Elizabeth, released in 1998, with those in Germaine Greer’s book The Whole Woman published in 1999. By reflecting upon both a range of theoretical writings dealing with the construction and representation of the female subject and these two dynamic contemporary texts I hope to contribute to the discussion surounding the decline in the status of the mother ‘at the end of the millenium’. The first point to make about the film is that it is not intended by any means to provide a truly authentic account of any part of the life of Elizabeth I. Alison Owen, a producer, outlines the relationship the film Elizabeth has with the historical figure of Elizabeth I. For me, it was very appealing that the central character is a woman. Her story seemed to have lots of parallels with modern twentieth-century women who are often faced with that choice between career and personal life. It is a dilemma many contemporary women are trying to resolve in their own lives that Elizabeth had to face. She had to give up the chance of marriage and children in order to achieve stability in the country. I thought that was interesting. (elizabeth-themovie.com 1999)

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Figure 8.1 Peggy Andrews (née Courtney) late of Castlelambert, Athenry, Co. Galway, Eire.

The narrative of Elizabeth generates a discourse through which the role of the mother’s body in the process of the transference of male power is foregrounded. In The Whole Woman Greer suggests that ‘[u]ntil our own day the only way patriarchal authorities could control human reproduction was by owning and exchanging women much as they did breeding animals’ (Greer 1999: 75). The film explores this position quite explicitly whilst providing the viewer with a curious, yet immensely engaging melodramatic spectacle. This ‘imaginary’ Elizabethan world affords the contemporary ‘Elizabethan’ audience a discursive and diegetic space which marks out the body of the reproductive – and, therefore, useful – female as a site of conflict and appropriation. The opening sequences of the film focus on the problems facing the English state on the death of Elizabeth’s father, the Tudor patriarch, Henry VIII. The future of the Tudor dynasty hung in the balance since Henry’s eldest daughter,

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the aging Catholic Queen Mary, was unable to produce an heir and even on her deathbed believed the (probably cancerous) swelling of her stomach to be evidence of another fruitless pregnancy. The unmarried Elizabeth, Henry’s only other surviving legitimate child, and a Protestant, was next in line to the throne. The film makes reference to a period of English history marked by revolt against Rome and the Catholic Church. This split was largely the consequence of Henry’s desire for serial marriage. Mary and Elizabeth are the offspring who issue directly from this division. In reality, Edward VI, Henry’s only legitimate son, born after Mary and Elizabeth to his third wife Jane Seymour, did actually succeed him and ruled England as a Protestant monarch for six years. He died without issue. Significantly, Elizabeth has elided him from the narrative and so, consequently, the film veers from the course the Tudor succession historically charted, to plot a fictionally direct line between the father and the daughters. Mary and the younger Elizabeth as half-sisters share a bond via the phallus of the Tudor patriarch. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, their respective mothers, failed to produce male heirs and were removed; notably, Elizabeth’s mother was beheaded for treachery. The discursive space of Elizabeth makes a clear distinction between the two sisters: Mary, the barren Queen, is an abject figure and by her death/childbed the male court ready themselves for a political battle centred around the body of the younger sister. The Tudor court owns the patrilocal sisters. However, what the film narrativises is the stratagem employed by Elizabeth to gain control, not only of her own body, but also that of the body politic. She ruled between 1558 to 1603 and whether or not one considers the historical or this fictionalised account of her life, Elizabeth is certainly the more successful of the two sisters under patriarchy. Joan Riviere’s essay, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, is a psychoanalytic critique of the successful woman and has become established as a work which has opened up the discourse of the female subject and psychoanalysis to broader cultural study. Her essay opens with the assersion: ‘ I shall attempt to show that women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men’ (Riviere 1986: 35). This statement provides the primary focus for the essay and has, subsequently, impacted upon a wide range of psychoanalytic and cultural debates; Jacques Lacan makes considerable reference to it in his work (Lacan 1992). The film theorist, Stephen Heath, in his turn, places this essay in a framework to which it would be useful to refer when discussing contemporary texts and film in general: It is not until more recent years that the idea of masquerade has received significant attention and gained a certain currency, this is with the renewal of psychoanalysis and through feminist critique of psychoanalysis (the key moment is Lacan’s commentary on Jones and the phallic phase in 1958, which then also retrieves Riviere and the masquerade). The idea has subsequently known a wider cultural extension and found a place in thinking about questions of representation and sexual difference, notably in connection with the cinema. (Heath 1986: 47–8)

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However, underlying Riviere’s primary analysis of the female masquerade, is an another, and equally important exploration; the relation of the girl to the mother. It is this relationship, experienced by the female subject, rather than the male subject, which is so crucial. Riviere argues that for girls both parents are rivals and: . . . the revenge of both is feared. But as always with girls, the mother is more hated, and consequently the more feared. She will execute the punishment that fits the crime – destroy the girl’s body, her beauty, her capacity for having children, mutilate her, devour her, torture her, and kill her. . . . As we know, she identifies herself with the father; . . . She becomes the father and takes his place; so she can ‘restore’ him to the mother. (Riviere 1986: 41) Springing from this sadistic relation with the parents and particularly from that with the mother, the female child moves into an identification with the father. ‘She was her father’s daughter’, Cate Blanchett, the star of the film, remarks of Elizabeth (elizabeth-themovie.com 1999). By taking his place, according to Riviere, the daughter has claimed the penis, but indirectly ‘due to apprehension lest her possession of a penis should be “recognized”’ (Riviere 1986: 43). This apprehension directs the female subject towards the masquerade of ‘womanliness’, which as Riviere describes ‘could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it . . .’ (Riviere 1986: 38). At one level the narrative of the film charts the manner in which Elizabeth successfully masks this desire for masculinity which may, inevitiably, result in ‘the retribution feared from men’ (Riviere 1986: 35). On another, the visual discourse interrogates how, as Riviere observes, the anxiety arising from a primary sadism is averted. ‘In regard to the mother, this is done of course by denying her existence’ (Riviere 1986: 43). Riviere points to the banishment of the mother from the scene of these early sadistic relations and stresses the importance for the female subject of this act of denial. Now the mother has been relegated to limbo; no relations with her are possible Her existence appears to be denied, though in truth it is only too much feared. So the guilt of having triumphed over both can be absolved only by the father; if he sanctions her possession of the penis by acknowledging it, she is safe. (Riviere 1986: 42) In many respects one could argue that Queen Mary, the elder sister, has in psychoanalytic terms made an incorrect identification. Mary has identified with the mother instead of the father, thus inheriting not only Catherine of Aragon’s Catholic fervour, but also her dysfunctional womb. In Riviere’s structure she will, therefore, not be ‘safe’. She plays out the same drama as her ill-fated mother, especially so in the film, which characterises her, almost entirely, through the

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phantom ‘pregnancy’ which ended her life. In the end she is discarded much as an old ‘breeding animal’. Her lack of physical appeal, which is strongly emphasised in the filmic discourse, makes her monstrous to the court and thus her mask becomes a perversion of the mask of womanliness in the form of a ‘cancerous lump’. The maternal function is signified in the film by a macabre juxtapositioning of the death and childbed. She has fetishised her own body, using her swelling to ward off the fear of her barrenness. Meanwhile, the Catholic faction at court prevails in the delusional hope that she will provide them with the Catholic head they require for the body politic. Elizabeth has identified with the father, inheriting not only his political Protestantism, but also his distinctive auburn hair. She is safe. In terms of the mapping of their respective identifications onto their bodies, Mary gravitates towards her dying womb, whilst Elizabeth ascends ever upwards (as does the eye of the camera) towards her head – and hair. In order to discuss the trajectory of this process of identification and how it may be argued to have become subverted through the visual discourse of Elizabeth, it is perhaps informative at this point to refer to another of the film’s producers, Tim Bevan, who remarks that although originally the project was put out to several writers it was Michael Hirst’s idea to . . . end the movie with the Queen painting her face and becoming the icon we all know and the person where most movies about her would start. We commissioned Michael to do a first draft, and although much has evolved since then, the bricks and mortar of the story were very much laid in that first draft. (elizabeth-themovie.com 1999) This early decision marks up a pivotal point in the narrative. The images we have of Elizabeth at the beginning and end of the film are very telling; the representation of the figure of Elizabeth is coded in relation to her transformation from the ‘father’s daughter’ into a frozen embodiment of ‘the mother’. Before Elizabeth becomes Queen she is in considerable danger; the film offers up a spectacle of a violent and chaotic universe in which torture and imprisonment are common. Her sister Mary’s ruthless persecution of Protestant heretics provides the opening of the film with scenes of graphic realism. The opening shots of Elizabeth prepare the viewer for the burning of a group of Protestant heretics lead by Thomas Wyatt. Amongst them is a young woman, and it is upon her that the camera focuses as her long hair is hacked from her scalp. The bloody and brutal ritual of the shaving of the scalp instigates a significant visual discourse related to the hair and ultimately to the head of the woman. The removal of the hair is signified as an act of retribution and humiliation. The starting point for the design of the narrative, the picture of Elizabeth as the ‘icon we all know’ is positioned in the final sequence of the film; all other moments spring from it and refer to it. Elizabeth uses the ritual of the removal of her own distinctive auburn locks as a preparation for her transformation into the icon and although it is not a scene of blood, it is a scene of tears. Her ladies-in-waiting openly weep as they prepare the fallen stands of hair into the now famous

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ornately curled wig of the portraiture and mix the leaded white of the paste which transforms the face of the young Queen into a sepulchral mask. These closing images of Elizabeth contrast starkly with the initial shots of her as a young princess, in which she is filmed in impressionistic mode. Placed in a pastoral location, she presents a blurred figure dancing with other young girls. Shot predominantly from the rear, the camera closes in on her using the point of view of her lover Robert Dudley to guide the eye of the spectator to this dancing figure who glances over her shoulder, shyly but coquettishly, at the camera. Her hair is worn loose and fans across her back. She is in constant motion. She is in love. As both a Protestant and a pretender to the throne the Catholic factions want Elizabeth out of the way and only sisterly piety prevents Mary from sending her head to the executioner’s block. Mary reminds Elizabeth that her mother, Anne Boleyn, was ‘a whore’ and that she, herself, is nothing but illegitimate. In fact, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate at the age of three when her mother was beheaded and legitimised again on Henry’s death. Given Anne Boleyn’s history and her own precarious claim to the throne, she has a very a close encounter with the executioner’s blade. In a scene before Elizabeth becomes Queen, Mary summons her from prison and demands that she give up allegiance to her father and transfer it to the Church of Rome, to which her own mother, Catherine of Aragon, so fervently clung. An entire wall of Mary’s chamber is covered with a tapestry, through which Elizabeth enters – rather ahistorically – using a door cut into this Arras. The image depicted on the tapestry wall is of the Madonna and suckling child. However, Mary has now come to realise that her bodily symptoms are of approaching death, not of impending birth, and implores Elizabeth ‘not [to] take away from the people the consolations of the blessed virgin, their holy mother’ when she becomes Queen. The half-sister refuses to alter her identification with her father, temporarily risking her own head. However, Mary spares her the blade. Instead she forces Elizabeth to leave the royal chambers via a different door, a portal which will expose her to the gaze of the amassed ranks of the male court and, in Mary’s words, she is summarily fed ‘to the wolves’. Elizabeth finds herself a demurely dressed, girlish figure, hardly noticeable against the harsh grey stone work of the palace walls facing ‘the walk’ Mary has bequeathed to her as a parting gift. The image is startling in its economy; the woman is spectacle; the sight of which reduces the court to silent, but critical appraisal. But of course, as Stephen Heath reminds us, it is ‘the woman who is the omnipresent centre of the film’s world in the institution of the cinema, who is the real spectacle, the place where the look – the desire of the other – is to be finally held and elided’ (Heath 1978: 94). She has no option other than to curtsey to the court and pass by with some semblence of composure. Elizabeth endures the fixed gaze of the male court but it is, of course, an ultimately intimidating experience, her legs virtually giving way in the process. However, the closing frames of the film will offer the viewer a very different spectacle. Once Queen, Elizabeth may no longer be shy, she must face her public. On her coronation Elizabeth wears her hair loose. The hair, which now frames,

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rather than hides her, falls unmediated down her back and is designed to provide a graphic colour match with the gold and cream robes of state she wears and, as a result, the hair is integrated into her body. The distinctive hair colour of the father, so clearly seen in portraits of the time, is extended into the coronation robes, which make the young Queen appear as a lioness clothed in ermine. The coding of the image of the total figure is related to the hair. Visually, the hair both signifies the genetic trace of the absent father and her girlishness, worn down and undressed. This head and hair are placed over the robes of state traditionally worn by male monarchs. The freakish spectacle of the female head on the male body politic is a sight, which well may otherwise provoke the feared retribution from those father figures of which Riviere speaks. ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’ argues that a proper engagement with father figures is essential to the woman’s success and her ultimate survival. She must win their approval and seek their reassurance. There are clearly two types of reassurance sought from these father figures: first, direct assurance of the nature of compliments about her performance; secondly, and more important, indirect reassurance of the nature of sexual attentions from these men . . . flirting and coquetting with them in a more or less veiled manner. (Riviere 1986: 36) The primary father figure at court, in the absence of the king, is an old retainer William Cecil. After her coronation Cecil immediately assumes charge of the Queen’s body and orders her ladies to bring him her linens every morning, telling them, ‘I must know all her proper functions’ and thereupon a relentless search for a husband for the new Queen ensues. Cecil apprises her of the ‘parlous’ state of the country, and of the vulnerable position both she and it are in if she does not follow his advice, telling her: ‘Madam until you marry and produce an heir you will find no security’. She begins to realise that every aspect of her life is open to the searching eye of the father figure. Elizabeth deals lightheartedly with these impositions and attempts to appease the court by vaguely agreeing to meet a range of suitors and give them her ear. ‘Women are illusionists. They fake light-heartedness, girlishness and orgasm . . .’ (Greer 1999: 27). The ‘girlishness’ faked (as Greer would have it) by Elizabeth at her coronation is sustained once Queen. She insisits in continuing in the pastimes of dancing and flirting, especially with her lover Robert Dudley. Ignoring most of the suitors from the foriegn courts she insists on dancing with her favourite. Elizabeth and Dudley dance a Volta, a dance that involves the female partner being thrown up high into the air. Elizabeth soars in delight, her long hair floating around her. However, the filmic discourse signifies this playing and coquetting as a dangerous game. After a night spent illicitly with her lover Elizabeth is rudely awakened by the news that the truly maternally ‘phallic’ figure of the French Warrior Queen, Mary of Guise, is amassing her forces on the Scottish border. Elizabeth is tricked into sending an army of young boys, virtual children, to oppose her. In her silver breastplate, Mary of Guise is an imposing figure who

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wipes the blood of a young English boy-soldier onto her colours and sends them back to Elizabeth in an act of the positively defiant, and the peculiarly menstrual. When Elizabeth receives the bloodied linen, she enquires as to the whereabouts of her team of advisors, especially the man to whom she has recently offered up her virginity. To her considerable annoyance she is told they are nowhere to be seen and that Dudley (the lover) has gone off hunting. ‘While women were struggling to live as responsible dignified adults, men have retreated into extravagantly masculinist fantasies and behaviours’ (Greer 1999: 14). Her comments on the plight of the modern ‘Elizabethan’ woman may well ring antiphonally in Elizabeth’s ears as she struggles to pull the state back from the brink of chaos. At this crisis point Elizabeth instinctively returns to her father. She finds him in the embodiment of a Holbein painting. She kneels before him very much in the mode of the appeasing daughter. However, as Riviere comments, the powerful woman although perhaps privately dismissive, often publicly defers to the man. She may have displayed a ‘wish for “recognition” of their masculinity’ yet her distrust of the masquerade ‘was not openly expressed; publicly she aknowledged her condition of womanhood’ (Riviere 1986: 37). These early scenes characterise Elizabeth as playful but not completely at ease with her role as coquettish ‘daughter’. Her hair becomes less girlish, more obviously dressed, as befits an adult woman and head of state. Privately, Elizabeth has disputed the fact that she need marry at all. But eventually she submits to the law of the court and agrees to consider the suitors from abroad who have come to cast their greedy eyes over the pickings offered by the English court. This decision is triggered by Cecil’s exposure of her lover, Robert Dudley. His offer of marriage is spurious. He has a wife. Betrayed by his inconstancy, Elizabeth realises she can not marry where she wills and thus resigns herself to a politically convenient marriage. The Queen pays the Duc d’Anjou (one of her suitors) a surprise visit in his chambers. What greets her is a spectacle of male masquerade that stops Elizabeth in her tracks. To her obvious amusement and others’ obvious embarrassment, her prospective husband is engaged in an extravagant transvestite display. He is dressed in a distinctive auburn wig and is filmed behind a gauze screen playing with young male admirers. The figure of Elizabeth is at once projected from a position of spectacle to spectator. The emplacement of the female figure at the centre of the spectacle is revealing for Elizabeth. Mary Ann Doane argues in ‘Film and the Masquerade’ that ‘(t)he woman’s relation to the camera and the scopic regime is quite different from that of the male’. Doane outlines in an essay, primarily dealing with the role of the female spectator, the ways in which she is excluded from any meaningful intervention in the signifying process since she is part of a structure ‘which assigns to the woman a special place in cinematic representation while denying her access to that system’ (Doane 1991: 19). For Elizabeth, the spectacle of the male suitor masquerading as the Woman in her ‘womanliness’, or even, arguably, as Elizabeth herself, can only bring the reality of her own position as spectacle into very sharp focus. ‘For the female spectator there is a certain overpresence of the image – she is the image’ (Doane 1991: 22). Having politely refused the Duc d’Anjou’s kind offer of marriage, she requests

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her disgraced lover, Dudley, dance another Volta with her. This marks her last dance in the film; as he lifts her upwards calling her, ‘My Elizabeth’ she disrupts the spectacle and declares: ‘I am not your Elizabeth! I am no man’s Elizabeth! I will have one mistress here and no master’. She announces that there will be no more suitors and that, equally worryingly, that she – and she alone – will rule the court. The paternal Cecil is given early retirement and the enigmatic, deviant Walsingham assumes the role of her chief advisor. Elizabeth has rejected the masquerade, which Riviere describes as ‘successful with men’ yet ‘transparent to other women’ (Riviere 1986: 41). Indeed, Elizabeth’s sister Mary calls her ‘an actress’ and comments to the suppliant, girlish figure kneeling before her bargaining for her life,‘When I look at you, I see nothing of the King, only that whore, your mother. My father never did anything so well as to cut off her head’. The discourse of Elizabeth suggests the masquerade is neither pleasurable nor confirming. As Doane observes in her writing on the Riviere essay: . . . masquerade is not theorized by Riviere as a joyful or affirmative play but as an anxiety-ridden compensatory gesture, as a position which is potentially disturbing, uncomfortable and inconsistent, as well as psychically painful for the woman. (Doane 1991: 38) Elizabeth has glimpsed the scopic realm of the male spectator, and perhaps because of the parodic nature of the performance she has witnessed, she has become sensitised to the fact, that as Heath remarks, ‘[t]he problem is not the mask but its assumption or not, its fit or misfit’. The contradictions for the woman, as Heath continues to outline in the aporia of ‘a mask behind the mask’ which when ‘[c]ollapsing genuine womanliness and masquerade together’, is that the female subject is confronted with an undermining of ‘the integrity of the former with the artifice of the latter’. The ‘frustration (or castration)’ which results from this, points up ‘the contradiction of her identification in the world, of being “the woman”. Riviere’s paper knows that contradiction, in its writing as in its thesis’ (Heath 1986: 50). When confronted by a male parody of the female masquerade one could argue that Elizabeth is brought face to face with this contradiction and is projected into a psychic relation not dissimilar from that which the female analysand experiences in the study. During analysis, whilst the hostile castrating impulses towards the husband were in process of coming to light, the desire for intercourse very much abated, and she became for periods relatively frigid. The mask of womanliness was being peeled away, and she was revealed as either castrated (lifeless, incapable of pleasure), or as wishing to castrate (therefore afraid to receive the penis or welcome it by gratification) (Riviere 1986: 38–9). Elizabeth cannot sustain this position, so potentially threatening to patriarchy, for very long and must utilise the revelation at the masquerade to a therapeutic end. Doane comments, ‘[o]n the face of it, masquerade would seem to facilitate an understanding of the woman’s status as spectacle rather than spectator’

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(Doane 1991: 39). Elizabeth appreciates the position of the spectator and begins to view the spectacle itself as a potentially empowering tool; the problematic of the woman begins to unravel itself. ‘The effectivity of masquerade lies precisely in its potential to manufacture distance from the image, to generate a problematic within which the image is manipulable, producable, and readable by the woman’ (Doane 1991: 32). Her refusal to marry and therefore not to bear children, coupled with her apparent withdrawal into a form of aphanisis, have alerted the patriarchal machinery to Elizabeth’s status as the phallic, castrating woman/mother rather than as the reassuring figure of the ‘masquerading’ daughter. In effect the female head is revealed as a freakish spectacle sitting on the shoulders of the male body politic – an extremely dangerous position. As Greer remarks in The Whole Woman, ‘[w]omen who are inducted into masculinist hierarchies are exported tissue, in constant danger of provoking an inflammatory response and summary rejection’ (Greer 1999: 294). Having ‘peeled away’ her mask she has exposed herself to the wrath of patriarchy and, in particular, to assassination attempts by the Papal envoys working in league with the Catholic factions at court. She survives yet another attack on her life, yet she knows that she can not continue her reign as this potentially monstrous figure. At a loss to know how best to proceed Elizabeth has reached yet another crisis point in her journey. Significantly, she now kneels, not in front of the portrait of her father, but at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary and demands wearily of Walsingham, who has thus far masterminded her narrow escapes from defeat, how did she (the Madonna) contrive to have such power over men and yet remain so revered? Elizabeth has come to realise that men have proved either: absent (her father); ineffectual (William Cecil), or deceiteful (her lover). The discourse of Elizabeth marks out relations with men as being extremely treacherous for women. Even the Warrior Queen, Mary of Guise, meets her end in the arms of a man; the deviant father-figure of Walsingham himself. Leaning against the statue of the Madonna she asks, ‘Must I be touched by nothing?’ Her advisor, Walsingham, confides to her that she must remain untouched because, ‘They [her people] must be able to touch the divine here on earth’. The removal of the Catholic icon of the Virgin Mother, discredited by her father’s Reformation, has left a gap in the desiring psyche of the nation, ‘They have found nothing to replace her.’ quotes Walsingham. Histories of Elizabeth I describe this retrieval of the Catholic icon as an ‘idea calculated to win devotion for the Queen by a psychological transference that made her almost a substitute for the religious concept of the virgin’ (Gaunt 1980: 32). Elizabeth could create a new Madonna, a Protestant Virgin Queen, and one which was totally the property of the English state – not one that had to be shared with Rome – a flash of political brilliance. In a sequence of some cinematic beauty, Elizabeth sets about her transformation. Her auburn, ‘crowning’ glory is cut away from her head in a scene which transports the viewer back to the very first moments of the film. This heretical action leaves the queen closely shorn. This fallen hair is then made into an ornately dressed wig, a self-consciously artificial manifestation of her link to her father and her earlier innocence. At this point Elizabeth, announces, ‘Cat, I have

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become a virgin’ and as Stephen Heath remarks, ‘[I]n other words, she has become the woman men want, the term of phallic identity, phallic exchange’ (Heath 1986: 52). Following on from this ‘castration’, Elizabeth applies the now familar white lead onto her face, and it is this whited face she wore in public for the rest of her life. ‘According to zeitgeist expert Charlotte Raven, feminism “succeeded in making the single state respectable”. As long as it was synonymous with grim virginity, spinsterhood was supremely respectable’ (Greer 1999: 244). In her silver and white splendour, she enters the court. Rather than critical appraisal there is now undisguised awe; she has become a statue. ‘Thus the image of Saint Teresa, the sureness of the religious representation, the woman held as truth of that view. If that image fails, there is nothing left but the threat of castration, the abyss, the tearing vagina . . .’ (Heath 1978: 61). ‘She has become the icon the history of her reign usually centres itself around; ‘the pallid, mask-like features, the extravagance of headdress and ruff, the pallid ornateness that seemed to exclude all humanity’ (Gaunt 1980: 37). The head of the Queen has been deconstructed, by her own hand, and her face made luminous by paint. The ruff worn around the neck isolates the head from the body, decapitating it purposefully from the torso. She, like her elder sister, has fetishised her own body, only in her case, she has withdrawn from the womb and has centred herself entirely in the head, warding off the fear of the executioner’s blade and thus never losing it. The final images of the Queen are a direct reversal of the opening shots of the young Princess, where she was merely movement, hair, the unmediated, and where she played shyly and a little flirtatiously, with the camera. Now in ossified splendour, she returns the look with a mask-like stare – directly into the eye of the camera. However, as Heath points out: To invert, the mother returning the look, is not radically to transform, is to return as well the same economy, the same dialectic of phallic castration, the same imaginary (and for cinema in the fiction film) has always and exactly been concerned to consider the possibilities and consequences within the fetishitic ritual, including the constitutive threat of its endangerment. (1978: 97) In order to return the look of the mother, she has had to revisit the site of this ‘more feared’ figure who will ‘destroy the girl’s body, her beauty, her children, her capacity for having children’ (Riviere 1986: 40). The Jacques Lacan paper, ‘The Signification of the Phallus’, is a thesis which sits, chronologically between both the Riviere essay and the filmic theoretical analysis of her work. Used and critiqued extensively by a wide range of cultural theorists it provides a very well known and hugely influential contribution to the discussion of the problem of ‘the woman’. Lacan refers extensively to the work of Riviere and her contemporaries in this essay and reinforces in his work the concept at the heart of ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’: that of the maternal phallus; ‘the mother is considered by both sexes as possessing the phallus, as the phallic mother’ (Lacan 1992: 282). A return to the mother may be posited as a

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return to the phallus, and as is the case with the male child’s return to the father – something has to be given up. For the woman Lacan describes this in the following and very significant manner; and one, which illuminates the plight of Elizabeth in relation to the problematic of ‘womanliness’ very effectively: . . . that it is in order to be the phallus, that is to say the signifier of the desire of the other, that a woman will reject an essential part of her femininity, namely, all her attributes in the masquerade. It is for that which she is not that she wishes to be desired as well as loved. (Lacan 1992: 289–90) This premise is of course a fascinating extension of the rather worrying formulation at the heart of psychoanalysis, which is as Heath comments, that ‘[f]or Freud both sexes repudiate femininity’ (Heath 1986: 53). Mary Anne Doane takes up this idea in her writing on the Riviere masquerade when she observes that ‘. . . sexual mobility would seem to be a distinguishing feature of femininity in its cultural construction . . . it is understandable that women would want to be men, for everyone wants to be elsewhere than in the feminine position’ (Doane 1991: 25). By adopting, as Greer describes, this ‘grim virginity’, Elizabeth makes her single state respectable and triumphs over the male court’s best attempts to gain control over her body, the body of the woman as Greer describes in the following terms: A woman’s body is the battlefield where she fights for liberation. It is through her body that oppression works, reifying her, sexualizing her, victimizing her. Her physicality is a medium for others to work on; her job is to act as their viceroy, presenting her body for their ministrations . . . (Greer 1999: 106) In narrativising the early years of struggle in the reign of Elizabeth it is significant that the film devotes space to the ways in which the two sisters thrive or wither under patriarchy. Mary is offered up to the gaze of the spectator as a figure of the monstrous, her barrenness is almost metonymically linked with her lack of physical appeal. Interestingly, the courtesan who relays the ‘good news’ about the pregnancy to the Catholic Norfolk, speaks of ‘symptoms’ rather in psychoanalytic terms, since it is common knowledge that the Queen’s consort, the Spanish King, has not shared her bed for some time. Her swollen breasts and stomach, her cessation of menstruation are hysteric symptoms of her fear of barrenness and her disappointment in marriage to a husband she obviously adores. Mary, champion of the Blessed Virgin, has willed herself into an immaculate conception. Elizabeth – witness to her sister’s failure to provide the men with the desired heir and surprised by the Spanish King’s offer of marriage, given to her even before her sister’s death – has struck out in an opposite direction. However, rather as the female spectator in ‘Film and the Masquerade’, Elizabeth finds herself in a structure which assigns her ‘a special place’ in a system whilst also, ‘denying her access to that system’ and as the Queen strives to

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subvert the masquerade and return the look of the mother, she too abuts the problematic raised by Doane: ‘. . . what is there to prevent her from reversing the relation and appropriating the gaze for her own pleasure? Precisely the fact that the reversal itself remains locked within the same logic’ (Doane 1991: 20–1). Stephen Heath when reflecting on the ‘problem of woman’, as theorised by both Freud and Lacan, says, ‘. . . somewhere women do not fit’ (Heath 1986: 53). Elizabeth demonstrates the rebus of the masquerade; at one level her primary and sadistic relation to the mother forces her into an unsatisfactory, and in the film’s terms, ultimately useless identification with the father. Her mother, like Mary’s, has been ‘relegated to limbo’ and in the diegetic framework of the film the representation of the mother has become essentially monstrous, alongside the figure of the Virgin Mary, and has fallen from grace in the English court. On another level, the film narrativises Elizabeth as having no real option apart from a position of ‘grim virginity’. Interestingly, Germaine Greer remarks of the single woman in 1999, that ‘[a]mong the consequences of the loosening of sexual mores is that the single state is now less respectable than it has ever been’ (Greer 1999: 245). Elizabeth has found the discarded husk of an old icon of the mother and attempted to reinvent it, to make a new secular meaning for the religious concept of the ‘virginal’ woman. However, as the film makes clear, Elizabeth’s withdrawal from heterosexual bonding is not because of any lack of sexual appeal nor even her refusal to participate in the masquerade, but more as a result of the value attached to the single state by patriarchy. Germaine Greer remarks: Nowadays her miserable condition is explained as a result, not of her lack of appeal, but of her inability to commit herself through narcissism or frigidity or disrupted pair bonding in childhood. Any explanation of her singleness as the willed consequence of the utter resistibility of the offers she has received simply will not do. (Greer 1999: 246) The lover Robert Dudley, to whom she misguidedly gives her heart, is the only conspirator involved in the Catholic plot to assassinate her who is allowed to survive. Her merciful act is founded upon the premise that it will hurt him more to remain alive and by keeping him at court he will be a constant reminder of how close she had come to disaster. The constant sight of him would serve as a warning should she ever regret the decision to refuse his – or anyone else’s – offer of marriage and legitimated motherhood. The story of Elizabeth is a sad one. Sad, as much because it says so much about the future of motherhood as an institution. Sad, because it frames success and autonomy alongside a continuing retreat from the the woman’s body – she does not fit into it, as Heath remarks: ‘. . . the woman is not all – not quite, not whole, not completely – in that representation: she misses out on the phallus and misses in the discourse which it organizes and which is the relay of her excess, her sexuality’ (Heath 1978: 59). Splitting and fragmentation in psychoanalysis are synonymous with subjectivity. In The Whole Woman Greer sees the splitting and fragmenting of the role of the mother as a direct result of patriarchy’s

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response to a certain set of societal givens surrounding the changing face of the economic status of the woman and that by and large women have . . . been punished for their acquisition of a modicum of economic independence by being left with virtually total responsibility for the welfare of children, while gangs of professionals perpetually assess and record their inadequacies. Idealization of the mother has been driven out by criminalizaton of the mother. (Greer 1999: 13–14) Far from advocating a retreat into a position of resistance to motherhood, Germaine Greer insists that modern woman should be very wary of a manoeuvre which eliminates the mother. She reminds us that [t]he way to sell off a public service is to run it down so drastically that its users come to despise it, and then to fragment it. Motherhood, after being deprived of all privilege and prestige, was further dilapidated by ostracism and neglect. (Greer 1999: 83) The narrative framework of Elizabeth references the extra-diegetic discourse of the fallen/failing mother and the absent/over-present father. Stephen Heath has remarked in relation to Lacan’s theorising on the subject, that the absent or dead father is always a presence: ‘Mother and infant are two, that is one, the imaginary possibility of a unity; the third, the father, makes two, assures the phallus as term of division in each individual subject . . .’ (Heath 1978: 67). In Elizabeth the ever-present father figure, in the shape and form of Walsingham, directs the choices of the young Queen and is instrumental in her movement towards aphanisis and the adoption of the life of a statue. He is a sinister, amoral figure, whose one loyalty is to Elizabeth, or is it to her absent father? When he murders the only other strong woman in the film, Mary of Guise, he appears to have enacted a form of castration. The shot of her dead body intimates quite clearly, with her legs apart, that some horrific, castrating act has been committed. There is a worrying discourse underlying these concerns in the film which, coincidentally, Germaine Greer seems to have echoed in her book – that of the abolition of the woman/mother altogether. Some radical feminists have looked towards a future when children would no longer be born of woman, seeing the functions of gestation and parturition as intolerable burdens. That future may be almost upon us, but it will not bring liberation unless it has been desired and designed by women themselves. Refusing to be defined, dominated against and disadvantaged because of our female biology should not be confused with a demand to be deprived of it. Women (like Vietnamese villages) cannot be liberated by being destroyed. (Greer 1999: 325)

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In Elizabeth a visual motif, which may be argued to perform as a gestus for the entire work, appears in both the razoring of the hair of the young female heretic embarking on her journey to the flaming pyre, and in the cutting of the hair of the young Queen embarking on her life of chastity and solitude and public duty. These moments would seem to illuminate Elizabeth’s choices regarding her own ‘liberation’. What the visual discourse of the film appears to suggest is that if there is a choice it is only in as much as the heretic consents to her fate, which very well may be with bravery and conviction, but surely not with any anticipation of future happiness, except in heaven: a phyrric victory. However, for today’s ‘Elizabethan’ woman, as Germaine Greer goes at length to point out in The Whole Woman, the single life is very often – and ought to be – accompanied by responsibility for others, if not, children. In 1971 one in twelve British families was headed by a single parent, in 1986 one in seven, and by 1992 one in five. Mothers are 91 per cent of lone parents, most of them separated, divorced or widowed; 35 per cent have never been married, 10 per cent are under twenty. (Greer 1999: 202) Elizabeth, in the final scene of the film, announces to her people that she is now married to England. Ultimately she had to say she was married to somebody. However, the point is made that as a Madonna she does have the universal child, albeit miraculously conceived, and it is a conceit which works cleverly for Elizabeth, because she has done as her sister asked of her and returned the Blessed Virgin, ‘their holy mother’ to the people. Germaine Greer takes a similar stance calling for all women, whether they are mothers or not, to assume responsibility for children, in the face of the ever growing ranks of absent fathers, claiming that ‘(w)omen’s liberation must be mother’s liberation or it is nothing’ (Greer 1999: 230) and adding: By the year 2020 a third of all British households will be occupied by a single individual, and the majority of them will be female. Out of 3.8 million British women in their thirties almost a million are single or divorced. The Office of National Statistics forecasts that a quarter of all women will be single by the year 2020. (Greer 1999: 250) Whether living singly or not, children have to be reared and Greer sees a future looming where the function of the mother has been so degraded and so repressed/oppressed that women will refuse to choose to be mothers at all. And even if it is a woman’s right to choose, Greer argues that positive action needs to be taken: ‘At the same time that we insist on women’s being able to eschew motherhood for themselves without suffering a diminution of their femaleness as a consequence, we will have to promote motherhood as an institution’ (Greer 1999: 322).

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Bibliography Doane, M.A. (1991) Femmes Fatales, New York: Routledge. Greer, G. (1999) The Whole Woman, London: Doubleday. Gaunt, W. (1980) Court Painting in England, London: Constable. Heath, S. (1978) ‘ Difference’, in Screen 19.3, Autumn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (1986) ‘Joan Riviere and the Masquerade’, in V. Burgin, J. Donald and C. Kaplan (eds) Formations of Fantasy, London: Methuen. Höpfl, H. (forthcoming) ‘The Maternal Body and the Organisation: The Influence of Julia Kristeva’, in S. Linstead (ed.), Postmodern Organisations, London: Sage. Lacan, J. (1992) Ecrits, London: Routledge. Riviere, J. (1986) ‘ Womanliness as a Masquerade’, in V. Burgin, J. Donald and C. Kaplan, Formations of Fantasy, London: Methuen.

Filmography Kapur, S. (1998) Elizabeth

Internet/resources http://www.elizabeth-themovie.com/genesis.html (10 March 1999)

Chapter Title

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Images of Madonna and fugue A microscopic interlude Klaus Harju

Meu coração não se cansa De ter esperança De um dia ser tudo o que quer Meu coração de criança Não é só a lembrança De um vulto feliz de mulher Que passou por meu sonho sem dizer adeus E fez dos olhos meus um chorar mais sem fim Meu coração vagabundo

Quer guardar o mundo em mim.1 (Caetano Veloso)

Day into night. What is the feeling you get when entering a Gothic cathedral in the brightness of the day? Childhood symphonies, images of crucifixion, acceptance of smallness, the feeling of insecurity, perhaps fear of not belonging, thoughts of mortality. This is merely an interlocution. Imagine the postmodern world and here is Destiny’s Child escaping into the cathedral. This is a refuge. This is where insecurity is being taken care of. This is where individuals can find their true selves by acknowledging their belonging to a greater whole. Or was it just falling into a never-ending hole – a void. Perhaps it was merely avoidance. Filling a whole hole with meaning and thus becoming meaningful. He does not remember when it was. He could not explain why something kept saying that he was supposed to be utile. He had a mission. He sought a meaningful existence. He was looking for an identity and it was supposed to be a proper legitimation. This is an intermission. Signs on gates of all hope abandoned would not move him any longer. He thought he had left the cathedral but it seemed like he could never leave. An old man with

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Figure 9.1 Klaus Harju and parents.

a heavy white beard sat outside the building and painted it over and over again in new rays of light but to him the old institution was just as static as ever. He had definitively been here for a while because he did not know where he was. The cathedral resembled the university and the portraits on the walls of deans and rectors were just as faceless as their ambitions. Staring without impression. Simultaneously it is impressionism that is born. Or is it impression management? So called researchers writing their texts all over again.2 Rehearsals. The same orchestrations. According to this paper organising is defined as orchestration, identification and legitimisation of multiplicities into proper forms. Conductors are principally male.

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The railwaytrack is a good metaphor as it drives into the West killing everything around it (Burrell: 1997b). For repetition see ‘Pandemonium’, a book written in the same year by the same author. Here he is then in The Place, where something is about to. . . . The cathedral is the perfect construct, organisation. But it is also the center of all knowledge the monument around which centres are built. The heart of the city. The core. Momentarily the cathedral transforms into the university and all of a sudden we are brought back to the church. Perhaps this is the mother of all buildings, The Pantheon – The perfect construction. Which the Catholics transformed into a church. Here is con-fusion between search and flight. Simultaneously he wonders why all organisations are so similar? Pop transgressing into Baroque and with it comes Leibniz’ conceptualisation of the event, which according to Deleuze (1999/ 1988) is always an extension. Destiny’s Child now extended into Johann Sebastian Bach. Listening to God’s Organ to the Fuga. The escape (fuga) transcending into Prealudium and Fuge Es-dur. ‘(F)ugue being a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected performs acts he appears to be conscious but of which on recovery he has no recollection’.3 According to the dictionary she does not even have the capacity of such a mental disorder. And here we are looking for her. This time not just any woman but the mother of mothers. Who is she? Looking for the utopian khora where everything can happen and nothing. It could be derived from the logic of the other rather than from the logic of logos Derrida (1995/1993: 89). It is neither ‘sensible’ nor ‘intelligible’, somewhere between the logic of exclusion and that of participation. According to Kristeva’s (1984/1974: 24–30) reading this space is maternal and nourishing. But this place beyond the utopian non-place ou topos that comes from Plato’s Timaeus is beyond topology. In addition, Kirkeby (2000: 205–13) states it is the receptacle of all becoming. It is perhaps a maternal figure with difficulties of naming. This place calls for a kind of bastard thinking. Crucifixes are sexy because there’s a naked man on them’. (Madonna cited in St Michael 1990: 76) This is just a microscopic conjugation. Brotherhood of Man is saved with a KISS4 in the spirit of Case, Lilley, Munro and Sinclair (1996). To give a short story in a sentence this is the search of the virgin which ends in bed with the whore all to the music of toccata and fugue . . . and it is The Immaculate Collection including Justify My Love and Like a Prayer and Like a Virgin and now you can say you know it all the oracle has spoken: all the way from Delphi, Greece, we proudly present the famous words clinging like music and music there will be:

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Gnothi Seauton – Know Thyself The care of the self (souci de soi) was, for the Greeks one of the main principles. For us now, this notion is rather obscure or faded. (Foucault 1997/1982: 226; italics added) Only ‘know thyself ’ prevails which is hard to be identified without belonging. Then one is attracted to being legitimate, bearing a passport, being organised. Simultaneously this being does not carry that caring within. Now Kristeva (1984/1974: 130) elaborating on Kosík, says that care is merely the repression of social practice as objective practice. Kosík (1976: 38) claims that the subject of activity, caring and procuring, appears as anonymity and differentiation. This is the homo oeconomicus ‘abstracting from his subjectivity and turns into an objectual being’ (ibid.: 50). Bataille on the other hand claims that any communication is death because it is beyond ‘the self ’. But who cares. The conscious and the subconscious realms of experience were united so completely that the world of dream and fantasy were joined to the visual discourse between him and the object. The rational and the irrational were brought together in ‘an absolute reality, a surreality’. Lost was the mechanical, legitimate account of experience – enter Miró – providing us with metaphors in pluralism in such extension he cannot imagine but a few. Following the lines of Deleuze and Guattari we have to approach things from the middle. It is a question of interbeingness. We are constantly in a state of intermezzo. We are in-between things. Everything is rather an actuality than a present. The present is stuck in its history while an actuality bears yesterday, today and tomorrow within it. A central aspect with actuality is that it is in an insecure state. It is rhizomatic in nature. This means that it is not a question of a journey that would be initiatory, methodical and symbolic. The rhizome proceeds from the middle, coming and going. In contrast to the tree it lacks hierarchy and filiation. The rhizome has no predetermined binary order. The fabric of the rhizome is the conjugation ‘and . . . and . . . and’. It is a question of alliance. The rhizome follows a principle of infinite connectedness. It also has a principle of asignifying rupture. The rhizome can always be broken into pieces – but it never disappears. And it avoids dichotomy because the rupture is a part of the interbeingness. The different parts of a rhizomatic structure make up a whole, but do not totalise. This unity is rather added to the parts as a new part fabricated separately. Totality is peripheral. There is no beginning nor an end (Deleuze and Guattari 1988/1980: 3–27). If one accepts interbeingness and the rhizomic nature of searching for something while also seeing knowing’s conjugativity, the virtues that grow of such a reasoning are at home with peregrination. One finds oneself tuning into a bossa nova with the heart of a vagabond. Saudade here meaning a homesickness for the unattainable. Such a utopian khora is at home in hope and in finding knowledge.

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In practice it is an impossibility because in actuality its becoming would mean the pulverisation of its meaning. The eternal return of the principle of finding knowledge should be reflective, deconstructive of its own structures and can merely be attained by superman. Having acknowledged this as perhaps5 in actuality the project or result, throwing forward or leaping again, is like Monet, painting the Cathedral in Rouen in constantly new rays of light, finding oneself escaping the polis, the moment of tragedy, through intensity and variance of its tunes and of its rhythm. The immanence of this quasi-virtuality merely accepts conceptualisation as difference. It is this difference which entails the eternal return of the will to be able to.6 Knowing as a consequence must not become knowledge beyond the affirmation of the will. This means that the prime virtue is to create having an orexis – a passion – for the love that never comes true. It is desiring beyond subject. It is even more than just desiring or longing. It is belonging to detachment. This delonging7 is beyond desiring as lack as in Freud or manque as in Lacan or even the simultaneity of belonging and not belonging as in Kristeva. This is what could also, perhaps pathetically, be described as saudade. Researching thus becomes exactly re-searching through repeated motion, finding out and then escaping – a repetition of forgetting. It is a question of escaping by not disappearing. This includes the dissociation of any idea of sovereignity outside the will. It is a question of discussing – shaking apart. It is as Bataille describes it living amidst the fire of the dance between monism and dissemination. But the criterion for this struggle is that it is, as Deleuze interprets Nietzsche, of an active nature. It acts out of intensity. Creation through novel conceptualisations is the peregrination of the student. It entails maintaining the orexis of a novice. Avoidance of repetition is evident. This has been clear both to Kirkegaard and Nietzsche. However this does not by any means imply that repetition would not be of interest. The method then must instead involve avoidance of going along familiar routes. Professing by definition is to declare out openly, act of sworn faith and interestingly it can be derived from pro fateri or before acknowledging. In saying so the will of knowing in researching/organising ideally ultimately entails a vulgar morale. Nevertheless, rather, always just as an addition, there is hardly any issue in discussing whether or not the issue in researching would not exactly be researching, searching over and over again. It is even beyond the metaphor of the nomad who actually tends to follow the same paths. Unless such an enterprise would not include consenting with the death of God,8 one can hardly see any desire in knowing, finding out, willing to be-in-the-world beyond death. Servility to God is losing faith in the will to knowing, because if (wo)man knows (s)he would not have anything left to unfold. With the acknowledgement of God man dies in an extremely practical manner. It is a mastermindedly serflike recognition of the sovereignity of security.9 It is a fantastically absurd reasoning beyond life. It is the commencement of a subjectification that is a self-commandment within a lifeless ascetism. It is an affirmation of life after death. It is an affirmation of verisimilitude. It is to vote for individual ascension, resurrection or rebirth beyond

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being as being-in-the-world. It is foremost a-voidance. It is fear in front of the underlying emptiness that surrounds an agnostical world. And it is se-cure. That is, without care. The medieval Altstadt creates a feeling of being ‘inside’, of being somewhere . . . Of particular significance was the city wall which offered the necessary protection to make the town function as a ‘container’ as well as a ‘magnet’ . . . The medieval town resembles a living organism, where the wall is the hard shell and the church the delicate core. . . . The . . . own . . . is characterised by an interiority which may be compared to . . . spiritualized space. It is as if the existential meaning concretised by the church has been extended to the habitat as a whole. This fact is also emphasised by the dominant location of the church . . . In the Gothic church optical or symbolic dematerialisation is replaced by a real dissolution of the wall and it becomes transparent and interacts with the environment. The building is a diaphanous skeleton whose mass is ideally reduced to a network of abstract lines. Fully developed the medieval church no longer appears as a refuge, but communicates with a larger whole. Basically it was the concretisation of a heavenly image, and through its open structure, the image was transmitted to the entire community. As urbanisation developed the cathedral became the leading building task. The basic function of the cathedral was to illustrate and explain the meaningful organisation of the medieval world. To achieve this end, architecture, sculpture and painting were unified in a Gesamtkunstwerk. The Gothic style was born ‘when diagonal ribs were added to the groin-vault’ . . . ‘The spatial units hence lose their relative independence, and a general integration is achieved’ (Norberg-Schulz 1980: 92–9). ‘Credo ut intelligam – I believe in order to understand.’ Without bringing God close, no understanding was possible. In the Gothic cathedral (he was brought near). The pilgrimage has, so to speak become unnecessary, as God is seen as being present in the here and now. (Ibid.: 97, 112) He wakes up inside the empty cathedral with fearful respect. Filled with suffering and emotion. He feels he has found his way to the centre of all knowledge. Here is the right way. Here it should be. Here are the magic recipes. This is the place to find all rational explanations. This is the home of orthodox theory or is it classical or is it mainstream or where is he. In this place one may find all the norms and codes of wisdom. This is where he can find all the answers. Here is truth. This is the establishment. This is the system. Time has stopped. He begins studying and time after time he is told that he is on the right way. ‘Just follow the path that has been given . . . If you do as your masters, thou shalt find greatness, excellence. Do not go astray. for I am thy lord, in search of excellence.’ He does not know whether he is going insane. It appears as if his priests have different names for every day . . . Ansoff, Porter, Peters, Waterman, Hamel, Prahalad. . . . Strange names to the same faces. . . . They are all painting heavenly images promising eternal life.

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Shocked by his experiences he leaves. For the first time he has returned to a familiar place. He is standing outside the Cathedral of Rouen. Across the street Monet is painting the cathedral. ‘For me the subject is insignificant. What I wish to reproduce is what is between the subject and myself ’, he tells him, adding that his dream would be ‘to free the mind of all memory, of all visual culture, of all preconceived knowledge of nature in order to seize the latter merely as a play of spots floating in space’ (Clay 1973/1971: 136). Hanging a curtain of light on the cathedral, a symbol of stagnation and the Dark Ages became a monument that stood for new ways of seeing and new ways of thinking. Modern art was born. Later Kandinsky said that while he looked at one of Monet’s haystacks he completely lost the subject and started dreaming of a completely abstract art. He had studied economics and was offered a professorship in Dorpat but turned it down and pursued a career as an artist and aesthetic theorist, considered by many as the first abstractionist. Kandinsky sought to paint the unconscious as a kind of music, as compositions. The artist’s vision is a painting which becomes music. Gnothi seauton is fairly easy to pronounce in comparison with epimeleisthai sautou – to be concerned and care about one self. Perhaps this thing was lost in the Dark Ages and could be traced to a cathedral where somebody else would do all the caring for you and your true self. One could let go of this extremely painful enterprise. In those days there were no gyms where one could sweat off one’s burdens in front of mirrors or huge shop windows. Although these things all work with the same mechanism. Consciousness. Bad, bad consciousness. Guilt. There is something wrong with man. Know thyself! And man does. A Kafkaesque never-ending trial. Deleuze (1995/1990: 177–82) elaborating on the work of Foucault says that in the control society you ‘never finish anything’. We have continuous assessment. The flock is constantly being fed with new education in order to serve the system. It is ‘knowledge-intensive’ industriousness. What actually calls for intensity is getting rid of or de-forming the in-formation. ‘You’ll drop out – you will be an outcast unless you accept change as an inherent part of organizational life.’ Organization means order and security behind the walls of the city where the bourgeoise started flourishing. Where the clergy and the aristocracy started losing their religion like R.E.M. Soon this dreamlike state is Blur:Red Hot Chilli Peppers like music of the 90’s. No signs of Nina Hagen and Angstlos which was partly inspired by the latter group. No DDR. Reagan, with God blessing America, killed the ‘evil empire’ and today more than ever before in the history of human suffering we can enjoy the warmth of the despotism of the market economy with the beautiful virtue of efficiency. Look at the enemies of utility: the lazy ones, the ones that are small, simple and stupid. sss. UN statistics clearly illustrate that the free economy has brought more wealth. Back in darker times the pastoral power was a bit simpler. All the shepherding was done by the priests. None of whom of course were women. This was in the

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times when the herd was mainly lead based on punitive grounds. They took care of everything. God ensured that the sss’s were silenced. Hell, yes. Thou shalt not have other Gods before me. This is a revengeful God and one that also has suffered. The shepherds give a clear message of truth and the right way to divinity. There are codes not to be broken. I deeply respect Catholicism – its mystery and fear and oppressiveness, its passion and its discipline and its obsession with guilt. (Madonna cited in St Michael 1990: 77) Back in the future heavens and ascension exist already on the steps of the corporate ladder especially for those who have been utile enough to educate themselves in a proper way. In the dark old days the point was to serve the status quo. Now the status quo is greener than before and marked with the words ‘In God we trust’. (The rest pay cash.) At least Michelangelo paints God as this old man with a heavy white beard. Nowadays the sacralisation of pagan rites by the church, together with a little help from its modern friends, the bourgeoise tradesmen, has lead to the pastiche of the Christmas evangelium and chimneys and Christmas trees producing gifts to the good children. Here we have three shepherds talking. Here we have three wise men. We have an old kind father with a white beard wearing a red outfit. Faintly one may see a glimpse of a woman in silence in the background. In 431 in Ephesus the catholic church decided that the Theotokos, the mother of God was a mother alright. In 553 she was declared aeiparthenos (ever-virgin) meaning she had never had sex. She was however not declared pure and immaculate until 1854. O tempora, o mores, Ave Victoria! Looking at images of Madonna from the Byzantine and especially the Renaissance when ‘The ideal form is first encountered in ancient Greece’. Pythagoras interpreted cosmic harmony with the words: ‘All is number.’ According to Plato’s theory of archetypes cosmos, order and beauty are synonyms. With its idealistic forms the existential image of the Renaissance was Platonic as well as Christian. During the Gothic age, God was envisaged as close to man. Only a small step was needed to change the image of the human God into the image of the divine human being and in the Renaissance divine perfection no longer consisted in the transcendence of nature, but was found in nature itself. Natural beauty was understood as an expression of divine truth, and human creativity was given an importance which approached the creative power of God himself. The self-assurance implicit in the new interpretation of the relationship between man and God actually brought about an enormous liberation of human creativity (Norberg-Schulz 1980: 128). The classical orders were reintroduced and ‘became means to endow buildings with divine beauty.’ Beauty was described as harmony, connection and proportion, while ornament represented even additional improvement of beauty.

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‘Bramante brought back to life the Vitruvian concept of characters, and chose the Doric Order for his Tempietto which was erected on the spot where the heroic martyr St Peter is supposed to have been crucified . . .’ Renaissance architecture thereby received a new psychological dimension (ibid.: 128). In a certain sense the psychological dimension was present from the beginning of the Renaissance epoch, but to start with, it only presented itself as a general freedom of choice. ‘Renaissance man was not automatically divine: He had to prove his divinity through moral action.’ Man’s indeterminate nature brings doubt but Renaissance man believed that he could triumphantly reach divinity through his creative powers, beauty and dignity. Man experienced himself as uomo universale, and apotheosis and ascension became main themes in Renaissance iconography. Man could be proud of himself if he realised himself. ‘Culture, therefore was the primary basis of Renaissance authority – a humanist culture founded on the belief in man’s moral and intellectual powers. In this sense it signified the rebirth of Greek antiquity. . . .’ (ibid.: 128; italics added). Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and the passionate devotion always portrayed in her face. Humbleness, submissiveness, resignation, beauty in the background merely as a predicate behind the subject.10 Grace, dignity and worship all maternalised in her. Materialised in marble in Michelangelo’s Pietà. Looking caringly at the child. Looking after. Looking from behind. Perhaps just as an attribute. Never in imperfectum. These pictures are love, devotion and worship. She was perfect. She was goodness purified. The perfect mother. Untouched by sin. Sine qua non. God’s son had brothers, but everyone is a brother if you are kin. . . . Sisters, who cares. Madonna was the mediatrix between God and man, a pure servant. Nevertheless beyond man – beyond the sinner, who has to accept guilt and remorse through knowing. But she is also the perfect companion in comfort, and ideal for man’s possessiveness. The virgin – being untouched – obviously ideal to male conquest. Star quality in Rhodesian spirit. The world is nearly parceled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far. (Cecil Rhodes cited in Hardt and Negri 2000: 221) One may also argue that Madonna is the archetype of self-control. Today we have learned to control ourselves with the help of Bentham’s invention from 1783 as beautifully pictured in Foucault (1974). The interesting coincidence here is that Bentham actually also happened to be a leading utilitarian. Who cares . . . Now Bentham was also a Protestant and Protestantism sort of combined the idea of human creativity with the concept of God in stating that one can have an individualistic relation to Him. Now Weber (1988/1934) claimed that Protestantism with its ethics lead to the acceptance of a bourgeois lifestyle which in turn lead to the capitalist spirit. Foreseeing our contemporary time Weber concluded

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Figure 9.2 Margit Harju and son, Klaus.

that if the bourgeois values continue to flourish one could say of the last human beings in this cultural evolution: ‘Specialist without spirit, epicurean without heart, and this nobody believes to have achieved an unattained phase in human history’ (ibid.: 86). Why not come with a gay Army of Lovers and sing ‘I’m crucified’? Instead of having to listen to God’s organ in the form of a fugue and a toccata – a touch of higher spirituality that one might be able to experience ‘for real’ in the distance – but oh so secure future. Who cares? Se Cura. The point, what it all comes down to, here, following the notion of the rockband writing its double S like Waffen SS as in KiSS: Who Cares? This is a thesis

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statement of sorts. This is the main argument of this chapter. This is what will be supported and fought for. This is the crusade and the evangelisation in the same package. Care, cura that is in Latin. If this chapter is successful enough it will hit like the infamous poison curare but we are sticking to Germany because of the bombing of Dresden and its famous cathedral. Cura or Sorge was after all for Heidegger the most important notion in Dasein. Care as a primordial structural totality lies ‘before’ every factical ‘attitude’ and ‘situation’ of Dasein, and does so existentially a priori; this means that it always lies in them (Heidegger 1962/1926: 238). In addition it is beyond just care because Sorge has sorrow built within the architecture of the word. And Heidegger was of course a Nazi. And Nazi aesthetics included love of classisism in their architecture which brings us back to ancient times and a heavily debated fable: Cura cum fluvium transiret, vidit cretosum lutum sustulitque cogitabunda atque coepit fingere. dum deliberat quid iam fecisset, Jovis intervenit. rogat eum Cura ut det illi spiritum, et facile imperat. cui cum vellet Cura nomen ex sese ipsa imponere, Jovis prohibuit suumque nomen ei dandum esse dictitat. dum Cura et Jovis disceptant, Tellus surrexit simul suumque nomen esse volt cui corpus praebuerit suum. sumpserunt Saturnum iudicem, is sic aecus iudicat: ‘tu Jovis quia spiritum dedisti, in morte spiritum, tuque Tellus, quia dedisti corpus, corpus recipito, Cura eum quia prima finxit, teneat quamdiu vixerit. sed quae nunc de nomine eius vobis controversia est, homo vocetur, quia videtur esse factus ex humo’. Once when Cura was crossing a river, she saw some clay; she thoughtfully took up a piece and began to shape it. While she was meditating on what she had made, Jupiter came by. Cura asked him to give it spirit, and this he gladly granted. But when she wanted her name to be bestowed upon it, he forbade this, and demanded that it be given his name instead. While Cura and Jupiter were disputing, Earth arose and desired that her own name be conferred to the creature, since she had furnished it with part of her body. They asked Saturn to be their arbiter, and he made the following decision, which seemed to be a just one: ‘Since you, Jupiter, have given its spirit, you shall receive that spirit at its death; and since you, Earth, have given it its body, you shall receive its body. But since Cura first shaped this creature, she shall possess it as long as it lives. And because there is now a dispute among you as to its name, let it be called “homo”, for it is made out of humus’.11 (Heidegger 1962/1926: 242)

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Believing in fables or stories of any kind is of course a question of faith. Deleuze and Guattari (1993/1991) discuss the role of philosophy as a friend or a lover derivating this line of thought from the prefix philo/s- which means love or friendship of in Greek (while sophia is wisdom or the highest form thereof). Philosophy can be seen as a conceptual personality to be seduced in a creative manner. Simultaneously and paradoxically enough one can say that the love of wisdom prefers invention to convention. Invention (in + venire = to come in or to come inside) in other words to find out or come about, requires something other than just coming with (con + venire) or easily convene and be suitable and reach an agreement. This might bear sounds of dissonance with the concept of friendship. In the good old times however, friendship was a privilege of the free men who had the opportunity of struggling with the creation of concepts. Friendship was no longer in relation to the other but to an entity or to being. The birth of citystates according to Plato and Xenophon created a peristasis in which competition and seduction came into being in both friendship and rivalry within administration, sports and thinking alike. One might question what the above is doing here at all. Now looking at her from an organisational perspective one could argue that she stands for total commitment. Now total commitment to organisational values as a pure idea might imply as Richard Sotto (1990) argues – that the organisational member becomes Man without knowledge. But the difference in the commitment of Madonna and that of organisational man is beyond man. As long as man cannot become pregnant and bear life for nine months or so – from an organisational perspective motherhood is nonexistant and de facto actually quite inutile. Now what is lacking in organisations, in the devotion for the system as opposed to the devotion of the Theotokos is exactly philos. It is love and friendship through coming inside and even more – carrying it along. In opposition to invenire it is nevertheless regarded as something that comes with as a compulsory loss. Guillet de Monthoux (1999) following Schopenhauer says that we need aesthetics in order to understand metaphysics. Kallifatides (1978: 15) on the other hand says that it is naïve to believe that the artist understands. ‘To understand is finally nothing else than to at a certain point stopping to think further’. The artist himself knows he does not understand anything at all. The artist needs to paint a window in order to see. . . . And perhaps he is looking for her together with the rest of us. Unfortunately he is not able to find her. Not at least yet. Post coitum is merely a depression. It is the bold mission which counts. It is the feeling of conquest. Destroying thousands of years of culture in America so that Western tourists can merrily construct their rich personalities with awe wandering in the ruins of Macchu Picchu – a place the conquistadores never were actually able to find. Is he becoming old as he reads Kallifatides saying understanding is stopping to think about something? But he cannot know whether the poet is a master or a slave. Nietzsche would call for a vulgar morale but he is not welcome in the cathedral since he has said that God is dead. This is exactly what the vulgar morale calls for. On the other hand Nietzsche was also forever young or rather

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mad or first of all adolescent. If one is to believe in the intensity of the will one will at a certain point have to be infantile before upon returning being able to say ‘been there done that’. The vulgar morale, however, does not belong to the cathedral. It does not actually belong anywhere. Not at least to actuality. It is at the most a virtual state of mind having a utopian character. Being in-the-world, as one supposedly is, one cannot escape morale. One may pretend so but such reasoning is charlatanism. A priest had told him that praying on one’s knees was favoured because the potential of hallucinating is highest in that position. Destiny’s Child sings about surviving. And now he suddenly finds out that the women that form Destiny’s Child are Madonna’s children. The New Madonna stands for emancipation and a faith in ‘girl power’ that was actualising long before it was Spiced Up. Why is this male picture neglecting this aspect? Is this why the new Madonna is pictured like a prostitute? Is there a threat in the masculine voice? He takes the flight and reappears actually above the shop Au Caprice on Place de Rouen. Now this is a historical truth. Factum rectum. Things are not merely in a fugitive state they are also capricious. Monet paints out of pure joy; ‘His painting’, noted Germain Bazin (cited in Clay 1973/1971: 136), ‘becomes a kind of cement, as though to imitate the very material of old stone’. That is some heavy realism. But Bazin’s basin was his era. The fleeing instantaneousness, dying not returning, and suddenly the canvas captures terrestial harmonies in metamorphoses of haystacks. The audience now an army of Wassili Kandinsky’s offered professorships in Economics suddenly deciding to devote themselves to art – abstract painting. Art moving towards music as compositions like bearing a torch shining on forms crystallised long ago (Guillet de Monthoux 1989: 12–13). Who cares? Perhaps only Madonna cares. But she is not in sight. Creative managers must be like children. They have to be unreasonable and able to question. One should be able to destroy in order to create. But who will take care of the children while others are at war? Who will put the toys together after all the destruction has taken place? Who is going to answer all the questions? The managers themselves? No, there is too much security. In Eliot’s words there is no knowledge only information. Perhaps Madonna is the organisation per se. The alma mater. He had come to the heart of all knowledge but what would he do with all this gold? As a child he had already been afraid of the dark sovereignity and his smallness felt even inferior. In his youth he had embraced Renaissance and the transcendance of the individual but who were these men, these true selves who would be given promises of heavens and riches. This novel church of mammon was an absurd place.

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He entered the chapel. The beauty of Bach overwhelmed him. The sound came from above. The heavenly sound of the organ. He was part of the organisation. He had come to the funeral. Sitting down thoughts in time and out of space. With flowers in hand a grip of the withering life. A moment to think about reality through tears. The fugue – the flight – in a disturbed state of consciousness, acting as if being conscious but not being able to recollect anything upon recovery. Bach, Bach, Bach. Toccata and fugue, touches and flight – polyphony and counterpoints, but what is it doing here. Monet is mourning that the images have begun to blanch. In the calm suddenly not realising whose funeral he was attending. Attentive to fears full of ignorance of who was being honoured. Who would be portrayed beside angels and saints? Who would be told the tale of her fate? Murmurs and whispers: Too late! Too late! Nineteen-fifty was the year of her resurrection id est as a dogma of the Catholic Church. Like a Dancer in the Dark for two thousand years and then Von Trier tearing down symbols like birches,12 cutting out every single image of the mother from representations of the opera. The mother here more than anywhere loses her role as master of a process becoming merely a carrier, a body with no real use: a thoroughfare, as Kristeva (1980/1977: 238–41) describes it, together with the devalorisation of man, the homosexual–maternal facet and ‘rational’ censorship of privileged positions. Now, why is the cathedral so similar to ‘the organisation’? There is no imperfection. There is no failure. But the cathedral is not merely a smile factory. This is perhaps the difference. The organisation seems so almighty that although it tries to capture life within itself it is unable to face the sole ultimate truth. There is no death ex communicatio. PROduce & PERform would not be PROPER without the S of Structure in the middle ... PROSPER. But to prosper is to have hope . . . if we believe in etymology. There is hope in organisational change and development. There are promises of more fruitful years. There is ethical management and human resource management. But what happens to HRM and commitment when there is a crisis? Upon doomsday you are no longer the chosen one . . . The hope of humble servants of God praying Ave Maria on their knees. Such human behaviour does not exist in the modern churches. Pictures of Madonna the singer may hang along other kitchy pictures in the aesthetics of male office rooms. But the Madonna who is present in today’s business society represents above all the male stereotype. The successful businesswoman is even worse than her male competitors. Now he is purposedly generalising. Nevertheless Madonna Louise Ciccone stands for the perfect mistress – sidekick. What she represents are values that are actually masculine such as independent, aggressive, strategic and competitive as opposed to submissive, empathic, nurturing and cooperative. Culture is fantastic. Less than twenty years of tabloids filled with Madonna beside 2000 years of the Virgin and the latter is marginalised. . . . On the surface but what else counts. A corridor survey asking the question: ‘What comes to mind when hearing the word ‘“Madonna”?’ results in lustful looks and gestures. Not

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one single male respondent comes to directly mention the mother of god. And less than a third of the women remember Virgin Mary. A total of twenty-three of the thirty respondents mention the singer–actress. From a cultural perspective one must mention that all respondents (from five different native countries) were all non-Catholics, predominantly Protestants. It perhaps (in an extremely superficial way) demonstrates that the foundations of the logic of capitalism and thus the neo-liberalism, which Madonna, the singer sort of personifies in terms of independence and success, can as Weber (1988/1934) has stated be traced to Protestant ethics . . . She takes advantage of parallels with her religious namesake. . . . She is the other extreme of womanhood. Instead of being a virgin for life serving her master she is the master of ceremonies putting an ad in a newspaper looking for the perfect father to fertilise her child. She is not the traditional type, well yes, as one of many faces. She makes the postmodern collage a lifestyle. Envious critics call her the perfect product of capitalism in claiming she has maximised mediocrity. And men dream to be In Bed with Madonna . . . (preferably on top in a missionary position?). But the traditional Madonna is lost especially when the struggle for security is the principle task of organising. Orchestrating, identifying and simultaneously legitimating itself into specific collectives – opening imaginary doors for feelings of rationality and meaningfulness beyond the interlude of life if one is willing to accept the rhizomatic perspective of Deleuze and Guattari, which does not subject – it rather superjects in extension. Madonna represents above all motherhood at its height, which obviously provides a security in terms of hope and care but it is not in any way an ordered state. It is on the contrary a state of flight. A dreamlike fugue. It is an evident absence in organisations and it is fairly apparent why it is so in the terms of the speed of contemporary society. Monotheism, which brings security with it, although it traces back to Plato and later the Stoics, has of course primarily been incorporated through Christianity into society in particular through Protestantism where Virgin Mary merely has a marginal decorative position. Later the position of the Church as the evangelist of certainty has been handed over to the society and eventually to the organisation. The similarities of Christian architecture with monist organising, which reached its peak with the magnificence of Gothic architecture, is still felt in modern organisations. They might not be apparent – perhaps the disappearance of Madonna is the main difference. Se cura. Here are mainly privileges at sight. Ascension and heavenly images. Is this perhaps merely a place that has been constructed to conserve the powers of those who are already in heaven? Serve thy master. Belong as your true self. Do not worry. You do not need to care. Following codes will be utile. This is a story with a happy ending. The absence of death is as apparent in both the Church as in the organisation. Although it is an extremely formal absence – an abstraction. This obsession with security is an ascetic enterprise. It is following the lines of Nietzsche (1987/1882: 28–9) a question of a choice of as little pain as possible. The one who is willing to seek adventure, prepared to be distressed close to

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death may also find that with it comes perhaps the possibility ‘to rejoice in the heights of heaven’. But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and the whole marvellous uncertainty and ambiguity of being and not to question, not to tremble with the desire and lust to ask, not even hate the one who questions, maybe even bluntly being amused by him – that is what I experience as despicable (Nietzsche (1987/1882: 17; emphasis in the original). He believes in order to understand. Nevertheless Madonna is not to be found. The maternal privilege has been taken away. The motherhood of Madonna is merely a tool (and perhaps also a relief of work) for masculine production. The Madonna is just an employee that is made useful. In some sense motherhood is however also the marginalisation of man. Man becomes an ascetic regardless of desire. There is no pain – but most of all it is a question of the impossibility of jouissance. This is a real actualisation of a possible, virtual longing that is unattainable. Destiny’s Child now a sad vagabond with nowhere to go. What may arise from this marginal position? Dissolution of thought . . . The impossibility of art. ‘The destruction of the work of art implies a point where it has to belong to silence’. This is Nietzschean aesthetics elaborated on reading Foucault (1983/ 1972: 297–307). It is kin with khora and the simultaneously unattainable – hopegiving in Madonna. Perhaps Destiny’s Child is merely destined to idiocy as a means of survival maybe like Nietzsche in his last years. On the other hand this position is beyond any given construct. It is devoted to the outside and the inside as being more outside than outside as outside-something and more inside than inside as insidesomething. The organ still plays. Still stuck in the middle. Escaping without moving. Thinking in terms of lines of flight one just might feel the joy of search – music, dance, life ascending, suffering without fear. Images of Madonna and fugue.

Notes 1 My heart does not get tired of a day becoming everything it desires. My heart of a child is not merely the rememberence of a woman’s happy mien – Which passed by in my dream without saying adieu and transformed my eyes into a mourning but without an end. My vagabond heart wants to guard the world in me. (All translations by the author unless indicated differently.) 2 Strips of this text are directly pasted from Harju (1996). 3 Webster’s (1977).

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4 Kiss is an abbreviation for keep it short stupid or keep it short and simple. 5 Derrida (2000) discusses the ideal of the university – as being deconstructive of its own structures – as a state of ‘as perhaps’. 6 The concept of the will to be able to is derived from Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ (Der Wille zur Macht). This derivation, with an addition that is vaguely based on Heidegger’s notion of care (sorge), postulates that the will is not solely constituted by forces of power and knowledge. The intensity of the will is also constituted by its care. the intensity is further a question of the milieux in which it is actualised. 7 Author’s neologism. This concept is inspired by mainly Deleuze and Guattari (1983/ 1972: 22–35). The idea of delonging is based on the affirmative aspect of the will to be able where the eternal return can merely be viewed as difference. Delonging implies no fixed identity. 8 God, here, means God in the wide sense of the concept as sovereignity, truth, reality and finality as a virtual (closed) principle in research. This would not for instance mean that in actuality somebody who believes in God could not be an extremely fruitful researcher. 9 The word ‘secure’ comes from se cura in Latin literally meaning without care. 10 Repressed according to Kristeva’s radical construction in her article ‘Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini’ (1980/1977: 237–70). 11 The original text in Latin Heidegger found in Burdach (1923): ‘Faust und die Sorge’. In Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschihte, vol. I p.1. According to Heidegger (ibid.: 492n) he calls it a ‘pre-ontological illustration of the Interpretation of Dasein as care . . . the fable of Cura (which has come to us as No. 220 of the fables of Hygiunus) was taken over from Herder by Goethe and worked up for the second part of his Faust. Cf. especially pp. 40ff. The text given above is taken from F. Büchler (Rheinisches Museum, vol 41, 1886, p. 5); the translation is from Burdach, ibid., pp. 41ff.’ See also the translators’ Macquarrie and Robinson note, ibid.: 283–84, regarding the originals and their translation. The English translation is also slightly amended by the author. 12 Björk means birch in Swedish.

References Burrell, G. (1997a) Pandemonium – Towards a Retro-Organization Theory, London: Sage. —— (1997b) ‘Linearity, Text and Death’, plenary presentation at the ‘Organizing in a Multi-Voiced World’ Conference, 4–6 June, Leuven. Case, P., Lilley, S., Munro, R. and Sinclair, J. (1996) ‘RRE – Rapid Results Ethnography’, plenary presentation at the 14th SCOS Conference: ‘Exploring the Post-Industrial Subculture: Medium, Meaning & Method’, Los Angeles. Clay, J. (1973/1971) Impressionism (L’Impressionisme), Paris: Librairie Hachette. Deleuze, G. (1993/1988) The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque (Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque), Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. —— (1994/1968) Difference and Repetition (Différence et Repetition), New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1995/1990) Negotiations 1972–1990 (Pourparlers 1972–1990), New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1997/1966) (4th edn) Bergsonism (Le Bergsonisme), New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1983/1972) Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (L’antiOedipe), London: Athlone. —— (1988/1990) A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et Schizophrénie Tome II), London: The Athlone Press. —— (1993/1991) Mitä filosofia on? (Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?), Helsinki: Gaudeamus.

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Derrida, J. (1995/1993) ‘Khora’, in J, Derrida, On The Name, ed. Thomas Dutoit, pp. 89–130, Stanford: Stanford University Press. —— (2000) ‘The University as a Place of Unconditional Resistance’, lecture given at the University of Helsinki, 25 May. Foucault, M. (1974) Surveiller et punir, Paris: Editions Gallimard. —— (1983/1972): Vansinnets historia under den klassiska epoken (Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique), Lund: Arkiv. —— (1997/1982) ‘Technologies of the Self ’, in M. Foucault, Ethics. Subjectivity and Truth, ed. P. Rabinow, pp. 223–52, London: Penguin Press. Guillet de Monthoux, P. (1989) Det sublimas konstnärliga ledning. Estetik, Konst och Företag, Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus Förlag —— (1999) ‘Art Firm Performing the Absolute – Marina Abramovic organizing the unfinished business of Arthur Schopenhauer’, paper presented at the 15th Nordic Conference on Business Studies, Helsinki. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harju, K. (1996) ‘Divine Comedy – A Journey into the Search of Research’, paper presented at the 14th SCOS Conference: ‘Exploring the Post-Industrial Subculture: Medium, Meaning and Method’, Los Angeles. Heidegger, M. (1962/1926) Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), Oxford: Blackwell. Kallifatides, T. (1978) Kärleken, Stockholm: Bonniers. Kirkeby, O.F. (2000) Management Philosophy. A Radical-Normative Perspective, Berlin: Springer. Kosík, K. (1976) Dialectics of the Concrete. A Study on Problems of Man and World, Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Kristeva, J. (1980/1977) Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art (Polylogue), New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1984/1974): Revolution in Poetic Language (La révolution du langage poétique), New York: Columbia University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1987/1882) Den glada vetenskapen (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), Göteborg: Korpen. Norberg-Schulz, C. (1980) Meaning in Western Architecture, New York: Rizzoli. St Michael, M. (1990) Madonna – In her Own Words, London: Omnibus. Sotto, R. (1990) Man Without Knowledge: Actors and Spectators in Organizations, Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. Weber, M. (1988/1934) Den protestantiska etiken och kapitalismens anda (Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus), Lund: Argos. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1977), Springfield, MA: Merriam.

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10 Postmodernisms of pregnancy Maria Letiche and Hugo Letiche

Introduction Art and culture critics proclaim that ‘art has returned to the body’, but that the artists’ efforts are nothing in comparison to what’s happening on the streets: tattoos, body piercing and castration are what is to be found there (Siebers 2000; Gans 2000). All of this has been called ‘The New Art’: There is no way to escape the emotional horizon of the new art, even though one desires to, because there is no perceivable distinction between the thrill and terror felt before so-called artificial forms of violence, such as slasher films, and what is felt before media reportage of biological disasters, terrorist bombings, and famines. We are no longer satisfied by conventional art objects that display violence distanced by an aesthetic frame, despite the fact that these works have grown more vicious by the minute . . . (Siebers 2000: 225–6) For Siebers, art is about terror. It is not a product of a harmonious, reflective or aesthetic urge. New art is not made by artists; it is done to artists. Art is violence that informs powerful and complex emotions, such as pity and fear, love and hate, desire and revulsion. Artist ‘wanna-bes’ supposedly draw attention to themselves by piercing, shooting, stabbing or hanging themselves; but none of this actually reaches the level of ‘real world desperation’. Human mutilation and deformity are the stuff of new art: abortion, disembowelment and mis-formed carcasses are its subject matter. By encountering the fear of human deformation, that can be via environmental disaster, political violence or the self-mutilation of ‘new primitives’, one is party to the new art. Thus, it is an experience of the many and not a creation of a few – for instance, merely of artists. Motherhood and pregnancy as pink fleshy corpses is new art. It defines harmony as a hoax and truth as warfare. New art focuses on the realness of pain, the desires of disgust and the deep sorrow of transformation. Art that is not ideologically charged by any such aesthetics of suffering, or fascination for the body as sacrificial, is ‘old’ art. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century modernist art is attributed with defining, renewing and creating human sensibility. Its evolving ways of seeing supposedly revealed different ‘inner states of consciousness’. For instance if you want to see French ambivalence in the 1900s to the family, you

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can study Degas’ paintings (Nochlin 1999). They show middle class family members who never look at one another, whose gaze is characterised by disdain, avoidance and hostility. In comparison Degas brothel scenes, display camaraderie, open emotion and human energy. Relations are there to be seen; you just have to look. New art puts very different relationships on display. It does not deal in intimacy or its lack? New art puts ritual initiation, in extreme sensational experience, on display. It is not interested in fine textures of emotional relation. Modernist art questioned – How do subjects feel (about) themselves? – but this does not fit into the new art agenda. New art asserts that aesthetically pleasing artefacts may not have (much of) a role in defining sensibility in the twenty-first century. Categories such as ‘beautiful’ or ‘graceful’ may be hopelessly outdated. The tradition of modernism, wherein artists experimented with sensitivity and investigated their feelings, may have come to an end. Who then creates the most powerful visualisations of the current era; who defines taste and perception? Perhaps it is the street and not the artist. But what do we see in the street? Violence and mutilation, arrogance and ugliness – designer labels and consumerist display? Has ‘art’ been transformed into billboards and TV images, glossy advertisements and business logos? Is ‘the street’ defined by consumerism – its embrace and rejection, its champions and dropouts, its products and their destruction? This is not an intimate-ist world of personal statements and poetic involvement. It is an abstract world of products and ideas, industry and politics, mass images and anti-individualism. It relates to a daily existence that has become ever more abstract – that is, work and relationships are increasingly only experienced via representations (Zuboff 1988). The aesthetics of daily existence have changed as direct economic activity has become more rationalised, automated and mechanical. Previously work and daily existence were an immediate, hands-on affair. Provision of representation, and experimentation in visual abstraction, was left to artists. But relationships have been reversed. Increasingly work has become the manipulation of symbols – via control over machines, the uses of ICT (information and communication technology) and (socalled) knowledge work. In all of these, work is increasingly abstract. The handson work of agriculture or the factory has been replaced by abstract activities mitigated by computers. Work has become interaction with a chain of representations, without immediacy (Hayles 1999). Intimate bodily experience and lived embodied circumstance, have been sacrificed to technological dematerialisation and the manipulation of computer, biotech and statistical codes. Immediate materiality has become less important than the networks of (economic) signifiers. Business representation – spread sheets and CAD/CAM, MIS and project software – share the impersonality, and focus on power, of New Art. This depersonalised, mechanically mitigated, regime of production applies the logic of the factory to all human activity. The manifestations of hypermodernity do not lead to the (re-) discovery of a sensate aesthetic. Hypermodernity talks about control and power, manipulation and performativity, abstraction and event. In hypermodernity, what you see is what you produce; and what you produce ought to be what you want to consume. ‘Art’ or the visualised world follows the logic of performativity and of consumerist abstraction. Production is mechanised, rationalised and industrial-

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ised. The ‘object’ is thought through, controlled and manipulated, redefined in hypermodern terms. Hypermodernity is an aesthetic of extreme possibilities – the ‘object’ is transformed and manipulated; often it is disembowelled and made horrific. The idea of the ‘object’ is all-powerful. Representation is on the surface – a mental representation of the maker. Hypermodernity produces flickering signifiers on the monitor and the immediacy of the sales pitch. There is no depth to PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheet analyses, flow charts or the applications of models in quadrants. All of it is made from the computer software, which supplies work with its hypermodern aesthetic. Computer representations, as we know them, are (mostly) linear rationalizations constructed of pre-fab symbols. A series of stereotyped ‘sign-posts’ assembled out of ready-made elements. Such everyday ‘art,’ is abstracted and reified, driven by economic rationality. The rerepresentations are part and parcel of streetwise existence. Its genesis is closer to industrial design than to poetry, closer to operations flowcharts than to modern art. This is not an epistemology of the senses, trying to achieve intimateist awareness. ‘Art’ by becoming ‘computer art’, sculpture by embracing ‘installations’ and painting by nudging up to the photograph, all adopt hypermodernity. The episteme of hypermodernity focuses on the idea of the ‘object’ and not the ‘object’. It follows the economic logic wherein networking and strategy, marketing and design, patents and deals do count, but production and physical labour do not. Just as in cyber culture, the idea is celebrated and the flesh is despised. The logic of business representation – with its missions, goals and purposes; rationality, functionality and profits – is mirrored in new art’s violence, nihilism and victimisation. The language of business and new art share the same logic of performativity – the one as idealisation and the other as a demonic recipient. Impact is what counts – for the one that translates to sales, profits and optimalisation, and for the other into shock, horror and vividness. In so far as postmodernism forms a critique of hypermodernity, we should expect postmodernism to assess new art (very) critically. But we have to turn to the poetic complexity theory of Serres to find such a critique. Many identify new art with postmodernism instead of opposing the two (Assad 1999; Serres 1995). The drawings that will be examined in this chapter attempt to display a renewed love for the sensate. They are intimateist visual statements. What do we assume about looking and seeing, making and experiencing, when we choose to focus on such drawings of pregnant women? These drawings of pregnant women cannot be reconciled to either the aesthetic of business representation or that of new art. What does this reveal, and what choices does it present us with?

Postmodernism: re-appropriating modernism The analysis is grounded in a comparison between four aesthetic positions. To begin with there is the aesthetic (nineteenth century) tradition of realism. This is the regime of ‘academicism’. Art was characterised by visual realism and often by sentimentality. Rather sculptured-looking figures were composed in a perspectivist pictorial space. Modernism rebelled against such conventions. It stressed that the artist was not an academic-ist craftsman, but a (romantic) creative

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individual. The artist’s unicity, originality and imagination were more important than the subject matter to be rendered. Modernism destroyed the pictorial conventions and traditional skill-set of the realist artist, until there was nothing left to rebel against. At this point, two options remained. Hypermodernism or new art has continued down the destructive path of modernism. It tries to destroy the cohesion of the artwork via an anti-aesthetic, which destroys ‘beauty’ as a factor and puts ‘street-life’ above artistic creation. The ‘worth’ of the aesthetically pleasing ‘artwork’ is attacked. ‘Art’ is produced that is a (literary) concept, and is anti- or non-visual. The alternative option returns to the modernist aesthetic in order to reinterpret its poetic episteme. What may have been creative rebellion and the destruction of academism in Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, etc., has become an aesthetic option that can be consciously (re-)applied. Such a return to modernism amounts to a return to the aesthetic episteme of modernism without being a return to its individualist and anti-traditional thrust. Nowadays one can have modernism’s oppositional individualism in new art, or the (Postmodern) reuse of its aesthetic episteme, but not both. Behind modernism’s aesthetic regime there was the philosophical assumption of ‘meaning’. Modernism was neo-Platonist; it assumed that behind the visual appearance there was ‘truth’, significance and meaning. The portrait, still life or landscape was a surface revealing something about human sensitivity, the artist’s qualities of creativity and/or the (transcendental) appreciation of awe and holism. Paintings revealed the unique and the aesthetic. The creative act was a humanist affirmation. The painting was not just some paint and canvass; it was a sign of human activity, passion and innovation. For modernism painting revealed beneath the visual surface, a whole series of lessons about seeing and feeling, creating and being. A return in the twenty-first century to the modernist episteme, contains a reference to all these modernist humanist convictions, without actually embracing them. The hope, individualism and optimism of modernism is an episteme that we can ‘quote’. But a quotation is different from the original. A quotation reasserts a meaning, but in a new or different context. We lack the typical twentieth-century connotation of artistic or political revolt (or revolution). By reusing the modernist episteme, one can (re-)assert the positive meaning values of modernism but one does not identify with the negation (of academism and realism) that went hand in hand with the modernist movement. Realism and (classical) modernism belong to our past. New art and the postmodern choice for the modernist episteme are current possibilities. New art is the path – from the trendy gallery owner to the designer of (visual) business models – that is most taken. The drawings to be examined in this chapter attempt to be signs of creativity and life, of embodied existence and intimacy. The artist attempts to reinterpret or adapt the modernist episteme to her work. The choice for an aesthetic rendering of the female nude, distances one immediately from new art. The effort at ‘poetic-isation’ and the respect for subjective holism – each drawing portrays one woman as a closed or complete entirety – rejects new art’s assumptions. Modernism, of course, is not characterised by a single philosophy of perception. Within modernism there are both Cartesian and anti-Cartesian points of

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view. There is celebration of the relationship between the body and truth, and its denial. There is mentalism – the image seems to be predominantly ideational, and observation – the image is something seen creatively. Modernists like Miro, Klee and Kandinsky created their own expressive languages that appear to be at considerable distance from anything perceptually recognisable. Picasso, Matisse and van Gogh certainly distorted traditional realist ‘language’, but created images that appear perceptually interpretable. Looking and seeing, the situation and its observation, do and do not seem to count for different modernists. Merleau-Ponty, for instance, was a modernist anti-Cartesian philosopher of perception and art, who stressed how the subject and the world are perceptually co-determinant. The postmodernist Lyotard, focuses on the issue of how trustworthy ‘truth’ is in a way that owes much to Descartes. The pragmatic livedconsciousness of Merleau-Ponty is unreliable and ethically questionable for Lyotard. Merleau-Ponty’s acceptance of a partial and experiential ‘truth,’ which prioritises perception above abstraction, is an unacceptable form of conceptual (narrative) ‘sloppiness’, for Lyotard. The line Merleau-Ponty leads to the aesthetic poetry of Serres. Herein the celebration of perception, the emergence of affectively powerful images and an attachment to specific local moments of observing, come together. Serres’ postmodern re-appropriation of (phenomenological) modernism leads to a fluid, musical inventiveness. New art can claim to be a postmodern re-appropriate of Pop art, combining new technology, mass culture and the tradition of the ‘happening’. At issue is which aspects of modernism are reappropriated and how. The division modern/postmodern is fairly nonsensical; art today is postmodern in the sense that it reappropriates themes and possibilities, techniques and options from modernism. But different artists reappropriate different things and put them to differing uses. The drawings to be explored here have taken on the modernist tradition of an ‘art work that is aesthetic, requires practitioner skill and should mean something.’ New art denies both the aesthetic and humanist intention. The drawings display ‘care’ – that is, affectionate generosity and warmth towards the Other (both pictured Other and viewer). The drawings point to the need for social bonds and to acts of interactive commitment. Art is the artist, the model, the work and the viewer all drawn together in an attempt at communication. But this effort at communication is problematic. In the postmodern era one self-evidently struggles with relationship(s) – but social relationship remains at the roots of the art praised here. The artist wants her art to be seen – to be exposed and to be in exposition. Despite her (partial) rejection of the power of the model, her art occurs within a complex social struggle with other artists, in the studio (see below). The emphasis put on ‘studio life’ is noteworthy. The artist reports that she is never alone in her own studio when she draws the nudes. Relatedness may be difficult, but it is never (as in new art) denied. New art is an episteme of violence and self-mutilation, wherein cooperation and the link to the Other are problematised. New art, in its business guise, denies the role of the Other. Visualisation of work, paralleling new art, leads to work performance being analysed with production figures statistically visualised. There is no concern for the people involved in these visualisations. It is representation without the person. For

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instance, a process of producing metal clips is represented to find an optimal form of mechanisation. The fifteen women working in the factory involved, who are made unnecessary by the mechanisation, never enter into the visualisation. When the analyst was asked to talk about the people involved, instead of just showing his statistical computer representations of machines and workflows, he reacted appalled and just a bit angry. The visualisations deconstruct and reconstruct social reality on their own terms, with no care for persons. At issue, are the ethics of the art work. The (post)modernist humanist, questions whether adequate respect is shown and how it is displayed; new art rejects such criteria. The drawings of pregnant women studied here are meant to be acts of respect, affection and feeling. The drawings are characterised by a use of ‘line’ that displays cohesion. The women are sketched by a single line, which (visually) defines the woman in terms of unity and entirety. Contrastingly, a prominent representative of new art, Cindy Sherman, makes photographic collages of women (including pregnant women) that are assemblies of bits and pieces, wherein everything is ready to fall apart. Cindy Sherman’s new art represents a fragmented, disintegrating and angry existence. The drawings focused on here evoke an episteme of affection, tenderness and respect. The values invoked by making drawings of pregnancy are important. Care and unicity, confront the violence of body parts being strewn about. new art produces images of disintegrated personalities, wherein the ‘face’ has no connection with the ‘belly’. The conflict is between different epistemes and their implicit meaning systems. Do we choose to look at pregnant woman and what do we (are we supposed to) see? Postmodernism does not have to mean the ‘death-of-the-subject’, the renunciation of meaning or lead to an aesthetics of (self-)negation. The choice to look at pregnant women – to the body, fertility and motherhood – is anything but value neutral. At issue is what role (if any) do the values the artist puts in her artwork have? If we choose to look approvingly at the drawings, what does this choice say about the dominant aesthetic we choose for our era?

Performance ‘moves’ of the visual Up to now our argument has been phrased in diachronic cultural studies terms. We now turn to phrasing our concerns in more synchronic and visual terms. Modern(ist) art operated four performance ‘moves’ on the visual in order to transform representation, or the (perceptible) ‘window onto the world’ into autonomous expression. These moves define modernism’s visual episteme (Bois and Krauss 1997). The meaning attributed to ‘art’ in general, operates on the level of artistic forestructure. Such meanings can include: ‘Art provides aesthetic pleasure’, ‘Art is politically disruptive’, ‘Art is analytically perceptive’, ‘Art celebrates material wealth’, or whatever. The artwork (artefact) displays an arrangement of visual elements. Assumptions about what visual representation can and does reveal, operate logically prior to the artwork. The artist and the viewer approach the artefact with assumptions about what ‘art’ is, can and ought to be. Postulates about the relationship between art and existence, thus, (logically) precede the creation and viewing of the artwork.

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Modernism can be conceived to be defined by four visual ‘moves’. The aesthetic fore-structure – that is the implied philosophy of perception and art – (logically) defines the theoretical, often implicit, assumptions. On the one hand, there is a modernist ‘look’ – or the visual elements of composition, colour and form; and on the other, there is the modernist ‘purpose’ – or the goals and purposes ascribed to art. The two levels are not the same thing, though they do inform one another. Up to now, we have focused on the ‘purpose’; attention now shifts to the visual episteme(s). But the two levels inform one another. Thus each statement about ‘look’, is immediately followed by one about ‘purpose’. We examine the four visual ‘moves’ of modernism and then we examine their reappropriation into postmodernism. Firstly, modernism identified art with ‘sight’. Painting is about ‘ways of seeing’. ‘Matter’ only counts as ‘form’, recast (‘in-formed’) as composition. Secondly, the artistic visualization is directed to the eye of the viewer, which is meant to capture the image ‘instantly’. The artwork is a ‘bounded whole’, which is meant to be seized in a single ‘gaze’. Fetishism, wherein the ‘object’ is alive as a target of desire, is implicit to this prioritization of the ‘image’. Time as duration, and activity as work, are banished. Only the ‘object’ counts. Thirdly, art addresses a vertical and not a horizontal way-of-being. A universe of independent viewers, who look at images, is assumed. These viewers are not physically connected – no earthbound or material attachments link the one to the other. The viewers are not ‘stuck in the mud’ of common physical existence; they do not share a corporeal bond to the physical and animal worlds. Furthermore, the viewer’s body is out-of-bounds – the viewer exists only as a line of sight. And fourthly, because the art work is conceived of as a visual ‘bounded whole’, modern(ist) art is ‘idealist’. The artwork is construed to be pure meaning, coherence, order. Chaos and disorder are perceived as faults. Art works are deemed to possess ‘formal autonomy’ – that is they make instant visual ‘sense’. The art is supposed to ‘mean’ effortlessly, totally and self-evidently (Bois and Krauss 1997). The iconographic quality of art – that is, how it relates to ‘meaning’ – is sacrificed to the formal and visual aspects. From impressionism onwards, art has shown ever increasing indifference to its subject matter. By the end of the twentieth century, (new) art retained an (anti-)aesthetic operational existence; functioning as so many forms of performativity. The visualisation had to ‘do something’ to the viewer – the work had to have visual impact, but not to offer abiding aims of life or ‘meaning’. Art has become signification without aesthetic signifiers. New art is (re)presentation without highly developed artistic technique. This art does not pretend to permanence, significance or depth level meaning. The visual elements are to have an effect on the viewer, but no depth significance is assumed to exist, as a grounding or buttress to the effect(s). The artist appeals to no depth level code(s) of cultural significance or truth. The image is, in and of itself – art is some sort of ‘writing’, wherein visible surfaces ‘in-form’. Images are put in(to) form(s) and are offered to viewers. For instance, new art confronts the viewer with images of emotional violence and (social) conflict; but what transforms such images into art? New art requires an audience that has been told (in-formed) how to react. For the (un-)in-formed, its ‘art works’ are merely instances of

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violent, repulsive and arbitrary circumstances, events and/or ‘signs’. Traditional (classical) art transformed artistic materials (paints, canvas, marble, bronze, etc.) into ‘meanings’ such as: ‘order’, ‘God’, ‘virtue’, ‘loyalty’. Art dealt in an ideal form of matter capable of displaying what the material (world) should be like. But consensus about what ‘ought to be’ has broken down. Visual images have increasingly been left unto themselves – isolated from any self-evident, culturally shared system of meaning. New art functions as ‘art’, only in so far as its audience is informed to accept that a violent outing of anti-aestheticism is ‘art’. ‘Art’, traditionally, has visualised society’s belief in metaphysical idealism – faith in a transcendent ‘truth’ insured that [visually] experiencing was a token for something more permanent and substantial. Belief in humanism provided modernist artists and their audience with an aesthetic characterised by ‘individuality’, ‘creativity’ and ‘expression’. The emphasis on the ‘individual’ and on the ‘unicity of the act of expression’, defined the paradox of modernism – there was, at once, an aesthetic that stressed creative individualism, and artefacts, each trying to be different from all the others. The striving for uniqueness and difference destabilised the common aesthetic. Artists no longer had common definitions of ‘meaning’, ‘beauty’ and their relationship(s). Some ‘art’ became (anti-)poetry – literary explorations of possible forms of ‘writing’. The artistic artefact served as an angry protest, confronting the viewer with death, decay and horror; and/or it became an intellectual visual puzzle. The modernist episteme, which centred on the ‘truth’ of expression and individuality, broke down. Communication became unsure. Without shared perceptual codes, there was nothing for the artist to play with. Instead of variations on known themes, there was no melody left. The art work had nothing to (de-)mystify, alter or (in-)form – art could not avail itself of any stable meanings. Art became a fetishised object, whose system(s) of re- and deferal, had broken down. Art manifested itself as the negation of the metaphysical idealism and humanism that had spawned it. Art in new art becomes an attempt to confront the viewer with the abject – that is, with disordered, meaningless and (even) perverse images. Art tries, hereby, to hold onto the sacer – Latin for ‘sacred’ and ‘accursed’ (Agamben 1998). But it has abandoned ‘meaning’ – in the sense of trying to put significance, belief or experiential content in(to)-form. But how can art function without an episteme of meaning? Agamben rejects the modernist (social science) explanation of sacer that interprets its double meaning (‘sacred’ and ‘accursed’) in terms of taboo. The taboo identifies the sacred with something that must not (cannot) be touched – the Godly is supposedly inhuman or un-human, it is ‘deadly’ (impure or dirtying) to touch it. The ‘sacred’ is banned – it is not of ‘this life’; contact with it makes it impossible to stay in this life (that is, alive). This idea dates from early in the twentieth century and was formulated by Wundt, Mauss, Freud and Durkheim. New art plays with the frisson – the horror and disgust – of the psychologised sacer. Agamben argues that the taboo amounts to a superficial reduction of religion to emotion, and fails to understand what is important about homo sacer. The homo sacer or sacred man in Roman law may be killed and yet not sacrificed.1 Agamben argues that homo sacer is a product of a double exclusion: he

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or she is outside the law and outside religion. Legal protection insures that one cannot be killed; religious protection insures that one is considered to have a ‘soul’. Homo sacer has no legal or spiritual status; s/he is bare life. Bare life is what is left when existence is examined without any legal/political or religious/spiritual dimension. Agamben’s argument is that human existence from the time of the Greeks was assumed to have religious and political dimension(s). It was bios (social, political, communitarian) and not zoe¯ (bare life). But in the twentieth century bios was abandoned for zoe¯. Human existence unprotected by law or religion made its appearance. A zone of pure power emerged (in the political) wherein no transcendent philosophy of law or being interceded. Nazi Germany produced beings (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals) that were bare life, whose existence was defined as without rights or souls. Such beings are the homo sacer. They exist(ed) in a relationship of fundamental (political, cultural, social) abandonment. Contemporary secular society assumes the homo sacer. It deals with a world without souls or (social, economic and cultural) rights. It is, we assume, self-evident that daily practical existence holds little or no reckoning with the soul. As for ‘rights’ – property rights certainly are protected, but ‘rights’ to participate in the community of one’s choice, to economic justice or to the preservation of a culture, are (to say the least) not universally recognised or protected. Globalised economic activity ignores any such ‘rights’. Not only new art but also the current dominant visual episteme, share the assumption of the homo sacer. Spread sheets and flow charts, performance metrics and PowerPoint presentations assume the de-spiritualised persona stripped of most rights. All of these repeat hypermodernity’s radicalisation of the basic modernist agenda: (i) dematerialised visual representation (reduced to visualisation); (ii) simple, easily grasp-able (‘executive statement’), cognition; (iii) no role attributed to shared physical or existential existence; and (iv) order and meaning are pre-eminent. The modernist visual language, which was created to express artistic individualism and therein contained a vision of the soul and of law, is reused in hypermodernity to exploit its visual effects and power without adhering to modernist beliefs. The stripping away of the modernist faith in creativity, individualism and freedom, created the homo sacer of hypermodernism. As N. Katherine Hayles has claimed, ‘each [business and/or social] category – production, signification, consumption, bodily experience, and representation – is in constant feedback and feedforward loops with the others’ (Hayles 1992). Hypermodernism is characterised by how the one part of this ‘coming and going’ – of the putting of things in(to)-form(s) – influences the other. In business, hypermodernism attempts to be compelling and insightful. The (re-)presentation stands on its own while all the concurrent significations influence one another. The flow charts, spreadsheets and two-by-two models create a common visual regime, wherein the ‘real’ supposedly is directly seen; and the ‘truth’ is grasped, in a glance. Business embraces hypemodernist visualisation. When in business, performance measures are visualised, efficiency models are put to paper and strategies are illustrated as geometric forms drawn in prime colours, the managers

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are (mostly) not aware that they are (re-)producing so much hypermodern art. The visual conventions of constructivism are re-employed to ‘make a business point’. The diagrams and models ‘look good’ because they reproduce established visual episteme(s). Art is remade as business persuasion – the content is an ‘entrepreneurial’ sales pitch, or an illustration of some efficiency measure. Modernist unicity, individuality and rebellion are gone; ‘optimalisation’, ‘control’ and profits have taken their place. The visual episteme is used, without acceptance of its underlying aesthetic ‘purposiveness’. The visual episteme is turned against its original goal(s). The modernist visual episteme is turned into a means of furthering ‘business as usual’ – a world where homo economicus is homo sacer. Business is increasingly grounded in the experience of informational flows and patterns. Work relies on automated production schedules and decisions depend on MIS (management information systems), wherein stakeholders are often not physically present to one another. In the hypermodern episteme of surrogacy, no simple one-to-one correspondence exists between ‘facts’ (the signified) and ‘statements’ (the signifiers). Business makes use of highly heterogeneous and fissured materials, though it nonetheless maintains the pretence of an ordered and hierarchical (managerial) environment. Basic markers such as: (i) customer satisfaction, (ii) improved organisational performance or (iii) workforce excellence are visualised. Idealized business representations visualise ‘critical work processes’ aligning these to the desired results. All of this clamours for the needed measures (visualisations) for the performance goals, standards and benchmarks. Business is remade or informed, as graphs and models, pie charts and flow charts, symbols and icons. The representations are supposedly value neutral – not personal statements or impassioned cries for change, but ‘objective’ visualisation. To quote from the Performance Metrics Charter: ‘it is important that the metrics not represent a value judgement (i.e. define “good” and “bad”), but rather provide unbiased quantitative measures to performance’ (www.ietf.org 17 October 2000). Business is reconceptualised as visual representation. It is conducted in terms of visual tokens – figures and diagrams, charts and models – which are supposedly instantly recognisable and self-evidently understood. The episteme defines a ‘within and a without’, the what is ‘included and excluded’, and the ‘inside and outside’. Spiritual belief and social rights are avoided. Instrumental rationality, profitability and effectiveness are emphasised. Business metrics avoid the experienced and embodied space of life–world activity. The abstracted space of the homo economicus is protected from the (existential) abject. The episteme remains locked into a fetishised dependency on money – profits, ROI, efficiency, etc. The visualizations are uni-dimensional; slippages and displacements of individuality, innovation and change, are excluded. Creativity, emergent change and exceptional developments, demand other sorts of visualisation. The modernist rendering of creativity, via the individualist deconstruction of convention and the championing of particularist activity, no longer works. Hypermoderism is married to techno-philia and -phobia. The homo sacer is an enfeebled actant – mere existence, or bare life, does not provide a strong principle of agency. Thus hypermodernism searches for its principle(s) of agency elsewhere – for instance, in technology-push, actor networks (ANT) or cyborgis-

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ation. The ideology of hypermodernism has been called technoromanticism (Coyne 1999). Business, basically, assumes that there is some essential ‘truth’ behind the figures and statistics that it visualises, exchanges and consumes. More models and graphs will create better practice. The ‘truth’ that insures that the more one measures, quantifies and represents, the more improvement there will be, is not explored. This neo-Platonist assumption presupposes that behind appearances there is ‘truth’. Accompanying the belief is the ‘empiricist’ notion that the ‘real’ or ‘true’ is something ‘objective’ that exists outside the limited human realm of consciousness. It is inherently worthwhile to avoid ‘subjective’ impressions, in order to know ‘objective’ facts. Procedures and computers, business and statistical technologies, are implemented embodiments of technoromanticism. But the ‘truth’ at the centre of all the assumptions, is only present as absent. No individual or social truth (i.e. ‘soul’ or ‘rights’) is to be found at the centre. If we really need pragmatic technologies wherein lived-experience is rendered accessible, then what will the measures or markers look like? Without denying hypermodernism and refusing to acknowledge the nakedness of the homo sacer, how can we construct visualisations or forms that we feel are worth making, seeing and sharing? Staying close to bare life, without denying the severe limits postmodernism puts on meaning and significance, do we discover (some) minimal humanism? In art, this issue can be posed in terms of boundaries. What lines, literally and figuratively, are to be set? Drawing or painting has become a tentative, fragile and uncertain thing. Artwork is produced that is formless, purposefully anti-aesthetic and entirely conceptual (i.e. anti-visual). Every form of ‘not doing modern’, seems to have been attempted. Because modernism contained its own negation within itself – as individual creativity and as nonconformist action – anti-modernism easily ends up as so much (hyper-, post-)modernism. Just as venting anger at the epistemological and existential inadequacies of business metrics will not really get us anywhere; swearing at ‘wannabe’ art won’t help any. We have to return to the boundary setting. The line in the drawing – the ‘stroke’ of the brush in the painting – defines a basic inside/outside – a primary divide between speech and silence, something and nothing. What is to be ‘in-form’; what is to be put in(to) the form, and what not? Modernism defined procedures for signification, an episteme new art rejects. Modernism combined practices of visualisation (such as ways of drawing or styles of representation) and conventions about depiction (subject matter or themes). New art touches business metrics on the level of embracing performativity and rejecting modernism’s episteme of creativity, individualism and aestheticism. New art and business visualisation, focus on the power of action, the will-to-power and depersonalised (anti-personalist) representation. The choice by one of the authors to draw pregnant women, to visualise the intimate, individual and unique, breaks with new art and business visualisation. The rest of this chapter focuses on one of the author’s artistic activity. Her artwork intends to follow an alternative episteme to new art and to the business visualisation(s). A key question is: Is there room for an alternative episteme? Can bare life or what can be construed to be the most basically human – the self, pregnancy, the mother-child relationship – define an alternative? Obviously the

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themes can be construed to be reactionary – a return to the policing-of-thefamily, as a regime of (pseudo-)humanised terror and exploitation (Donzelot 1979). But a break with the dominant episteme, will always appear extreme, emotionally laden and dangerous. The exploration will be undertaken on two levels: (i) in terms of the zero degree of art – that is, the most basic or primary action of drawing and painting; and (ii) as thematised – that is, as pregnancy. (Barthes 1990). Pregnancy is the most basic measure of bare life – of creativity, fecundity and of making. All other forms of production, can be thought of as metaphors of giving birth. Pregnancy is a root allegory for how making and producing are visualised, and can be made accessible to a viewer. Pregnancy can be understood as a matter of responsive adaptability and of sensitivity to the Other. Pregnancy can, thus, be characterised by a double intentionality – at once of the self, and of the Other. In pregnancy the woman is two, herself and the child. Normal intentionality of the body, wherein the body exists preconsciously as a means of attaining goals, breaks down. In pregnancy, the body’s form comes alive – it becomes a changing factor unto itself. Pregnancy can be thought of in terms of emotional bonds: the woman towards herself, towards her child and towards her intimates. Care giving and receiving is crucial to pregnancy and to its results. Pregnancy generates an intrapsychic world of dependency, awe, mystery and fear. Multiple fractious definitions of the situation abound. Is pregnancy characterised by dependence or independence? Is it pleasure or (only) the onslaught of (severe) pain? Is it active or passive? Is it to be feared or rejoiced in? The goal-directed, focused and rational markers of business visualisations appear to be very different from the polyglot subjectivity of child bearing. New art provokes, horrifies and confronts – a totally different emotional pallet from pregnancy. Business’s pursuit of self-interest and new art’s assertions of truth, conflict with the care ethics of pregnancy. Mothering is unpredictable, multifaceted and messy. Businesses like to appear unidimensional and purposeful. New art powerfully conveys its effects. Crucial to nurturing, is that the relationship lives and changes – that it, is not ‘under control’. The mother’s self is not sufficient unto itself – it must be plural or the child’s wellbeing is in danger. Pregnancy announces care giving. The business visualisations lionise rational self-regulation; pregnancy evokes responsive adaptability, sensitivity to the other and inconclusive processes of individuality. Pregnancy is about being the self and the Other – the child is disclosed and hidden. Pregnancy is a regime of radical interconnectedness, wherein trust is all important. Feeling, intimacy and nurturance determine how pregnancy will end. Pregnancy is the very antithesis of new art and of business visualisation (Young 1990; Chodorow 1978). But what do Maria Letiche’s drawings show us?

Drawings of pregnancy The drawings to be studied are by one of the authors, Maria Letiche. Cindy Sherman’s work will be referred to in comparison. We want to clarify two things by studying the drawings: (i) the method or process of drawing – i.e. with what pictorial means was pregnancy represented, and (ii) the portrayal of the theme –

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i.e. what does the depiction say about pregnancy? Then we will return to the theme of what the art ‘has to say’. To achieve understanding of the drawings the following themes will be examined from the artist’s point of view. When and how did the artist start to draw female nudes? What was the process like of making the drawings and how did the artist approach her models? Why are the drawings postmodernist and what does the comparison with new art reveal? Finally, why is it important that an audience see the drawings? When and how did the artist start to draw female nudes? The first contact with drawing female models was at the art academy in Amsterdam. The artist was in her twenties. Three hours a week she had to draw nudes. She considered herself very bad at it and experienced it as a hell. Every week she had to face still more ugly drawings. She compared them of course with the drawings of her fellow art students, and could not help but feel hopeless and disgusted with her work. But nevertheless, she kept on trying. And the instructor kept telling her that the eyes were too high, the mouth was too big, that the arms were not long enough and that the belly button was in the wrong spot. She listened patiently; changed the hands, erased the mouth, extended the arms and made the belly button into a blotch. Or she just started all over again. Until one afternoon, the instructor joined her in her despair. He left the classroom and after a while came back with the art academy director, to whom he began to show the drawings. The immediate reaction was ‘Let her start painting’. And she was advised to only use broad brushes. ‘No details in the beginning, bring them in later’. And that is what she did. The results were much better, but nonetheless drawing female nudes was not something she liked, and she was very pleased to be rid of the course at the end of the year. Her sigh: ‘Never again’. A few years later she enrolled in the Free Academy in The Hague. She discovered that they had studio space for artists, which she did not really need. Further, there was only one course open for registration: the studio course in drawing the human figure. Her isolation on having moved to a new city, was severe enough that she decided once again to give it a try. Besides, she was curious how it would go this time. Lots of things had happened since the first experience. She had thought a lot about the drawing process. She had read lots of art theory and education books and she had come to the conclusion that her problem was really her reluctance to look at the models. Endless staring at naked females was too passive. She objected to the role she was being offered. She felt that the models really were bossing her around. They would take difficult poses and force her to obey the law they had laid down for her. She was being bullied to learn a technique for ‘copying’ what was in front of her. And she was not about to do that. She wanted to have fun. Drawing was meant to be pleasurable and it should stay that way. She was convinced – and still is – that the main thing an artist has to do is to protect his or her integrity. ‘Copying’ amounts to selling your soul. She kept telling herself: ‘You are the boss, you decide what you want to draw. You choose what you want to have on paper’.

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The process of making the drawings and how the artist approached her models Drawing the female nude was obviously not her first artistic desire. She was and still is – perhaps by nature – an abstract painter. Abstract art comes from within. If we make use of the division haptic and visual; she is an haptic. She is a subjective artist. She works from the inside, from her inner reality. In drawing, she tries to make an invisible inner reality concrete; to bring it to the visible world. She seeks concrete forms with which she can make personal statements. The emphasis is so intensely directed to these ‘forms’ that there is no room for anything else. In her interpretation of abstract painting, there is no space, no place and no subject matter. There are only formal qualities such as: colour, line, paint and composition. In classical European art, there were strict boundaries to the forms and content. Abstract art does not have the same limitations. The absence of traditional limitations is the central problem of abstract art, and also of today’s art. As Goethe said: ‘In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister’ [Mastery can only show itself within limitations. It is the overcoming of the limitations, which produces good art]. But if there are no limitations and the artist has to set them her/himself; the artist becomes her or his own judge, lawyer, perpetrator and victim. The artist makes her (his) own laws and has to obey them. That’s how she works. She wants to set her own rules. Her paradox is that she has grown up in modernist surroundings, so that she wants to set her own rules much as modernism prescribes. Her rules tend to be modernism’s rules. She experiences abstract and modernist art as her choices, her wrestling with visualisation and expression. When she is confronted with a (female) model, she looks at the model in an abstract way. She doesn’t look, firstly at the form and the pose. She sits back for a moment and tries to adapt a passive/receptive state. She doesn’t do this (self) consciously. But when she started to analyze her process of drawing, she became more aware of her attitude. It all happens by itself. In front of her is a naked person, who does not move or speak. And normally, who does not even look at her. The model is there to be looked at; in her case, the artist becomes fascinated by who the model is. Then the artist chooses what part of the model she will make use of in the drawing. She tries to find something that really fits the model. She starts to draw, telling herself all along to keep attune to her feelings. The artist has to watch that she does not loose herself in the painting of details. She encourages herself not to become rationalistic. She tries to let go of herself. She wants to avoid wrong tendencies – most especially the tendency to control herself. Modernism The modernist concept of freedom and its distance from realist preconceptions is obviously important to the artist. The comparison with current artistic movements such as new art reveals additional aspects to the attachment to modernism. Modernist art, of course, reacted against the artistic grammar and vocabulary of the leading traditional (Renaissance, Baroque, Realist) styles. Modernism is a reaction against academism. It started to develop when artists no longer could

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identify with the art that was being made. The growing room for individualism in society played its role. Modernist art has a claim to being democratic. It does not assume a complicated iconography, known only to a cultural elite. Modern art can (in principle) be understood immediately. In the Europe of today, ‘modern art’ is widely understood; its gestures are fairly accessible and its language is known. If one wants to make art for an ‘in-crowd’, only to be understood by a coterie, then ‘modern art’ no longer serves the purpose. Modern art has pretty much ceased to be elitist or the restricted property of the intelligentsia. It can, fairly convincingly, be claimed that the modernist canon has, in Northern Europe, gained ‘universal significance’. Modernism has been ‘naturalised’ – it has become ‘self-evident’, a visual ‘truth’ or a way of seeing that is appreciated as if ‘universal’. Modernist art, of course, identifies art with ‘sight’. Painting is about ‘ways of seeing’. If you look at the author’s drawings, you see immediately that they are entirely visual. The drawings have no tactile quality. You feel no need to touch the bodies. There also is no texture on their surface. There is no depth; there are no shadows. The models have been reduced to their visual quality alone. She makes use of the visual as if it was the only thing that counts. Secondly, the artistic visualisation is entirely directed to the eye (i.e. not to the mind). The viewer is meant to capture the image ‘instantly’. The artwork is a ‘bounded whole’ meant to be seized in a single ‘gaze’. Time as duration, and activity as exertion, are banished. The visual effect appears instantaneously and effortlessly. Identification of the drawing’s subject matter is immediate and experienced as self-evident. The semiotics is straightforward. The drawing functions as a sign – everyone can identify the subject matter immediately. For instance, the drawings of pregnant women are selfevidently drawings of pregnant women; it is as simple as that. The figures are timeless; they sit passively, not bound to any environment. The women are signs separated from any context. They could be statues. Just as a statue has a strong contour, the drawings have one. The women can be seen as aesthetic objects. As already argued, modernist art addresses a vertical and not a horizontal way-of-being. On the horizontal there is connection, bonds, relationships; the vertical is stand-offish and defined by parallel lines that never meet or connect. The vertical evokes a universe of independent viewers, looking at images. Distance is assumed between the drawings and the observers. The world of the drawing can be observed, but one cannot enter into its world. Finally, the artwork is conceived of as a visual ‘bounded whole’. Hereby modern(ist) art is ‘idealist’. The artwork is construed to be pure meaning, coherence and order. The artwork possesses ‘formal autonomy’. The artist produces ‘signs’ that seemingly exist unto themselves. The work appears to be independent of both its maker and of the viewer – to exist as pure visualisation, form or image. The drawings have the implicit pretence that they are pregnancy. They essentialise what they ‘represent’. Because the meaning appears to be absolutely clear, no appeal is made to interpretation, interaction or multiplicity. The coherence of the different parts of the drawings seems to be obvious. They exist separate from the viewer – unto themselves. The lines create a unity and an intimate world of their own.

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Comparing The author’s drawings are quite big – 75 by 105 centimeters – which stresses the importance of what is being shown. The artist does not want the drawings to be overlooked. The strong black lines underline this message. The evenness of the lines focuses attention on the form and not on the lines themselves. It is not intended that the viewer be distracted by the technique (charcoal). All the women are shown without any environment around them. Since Cindy Sherman’s photolike collages are well known and her work focuses on the human body. Furthermore, her aesthetic is close to new art’s. Thus, she is a natural point of comparison. Both Cindy Sherman and the author portray women alone. The author stresses the women themselves; Sherman overwhelms them with costumes, allusions to visual genres and (often) the surrounding(s). A similarity, is that both artists leave everything untitled. The author believes that her drawings ‘speak for themselves’ – she does not title them because she thinks that titles are unnecessary. Sherman says (in interviews) that she wants the viewer to see whatever the viewer wants to see – she does not want to impose (reveal?) her own line of thought. The author wants to emphasise the drawing, at the cost of the narrative. Sherman wants to emphasise the viewer’s narrative, at the cost of the drawing. In the author’s drawings, it is clear that the viewer is supposed to see the figure and to focus entirely on that. The artist’s statement – ‘see these figures’ – is unambiguous. The lines are composed to create harmony and the semi symmetrical structure of several of the drawings gives them a static, immobile and classical dignity. The woman often seems to be identified with her body. This basic physicalness renders bare life, while Sherman’s representations call history, society and art into question. Sherman fills her works with references to ‘old art’, which she then distorts. She plays a game of catch with tradition – trying, via distortion and parody, to always stay one step ahead. She makes use of convention to destroy it; refers to visual styles to pervert them. Sherman fights with art history’s shadows – she attacks significances that are long dead and techniques that have fallen out-of-use. She shocks without really offending, because the conventions she attacks do not really count anymore. She is flogging representations of ‘truth’ that virtually no one is deeply attached to. Sherman’s collage photographs mix the tastelessness of contemporary pornography with classical artistic elements. She makes images that in classical art were meaningful, dignified and significant, into vulgar, (a bit) silly and purposeless representations. When she has produced a picture of a pregnant woman (in her series of historical portraits) she took the mood, composition, pose, clothing and ornamentation of the past and superimposed her face onto it. The historical portraits (1989–90) make use of elaborate makeup, costumes, fake breasts and noses to convey a macabre post-fairy tale world. The image of the pregnant woman de-emphasises the belly, which is not in the centre of the picture. The belly, evidently, is not all that important. Attention is directed to the face. The light is focused on the forehead and the breasts. These two strongly lit areas enclose the head and direct the viewer’s attention towards the head. If one isolates the face, you would never think that it was the head of a pregnant

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woman. The face looks at the audience and attracts all the attention. The image seems very narcissistic and the theme of pregnancy is more negated than worked through. The image denies more what it seems to be about, than it confirms it. Likewise in the work portraying a mother with baby, the baby is not the centre of attention. The child is not really shown. It doesn’t appear really to be a baby at all (maybe it is a doll). It is not firmly held. The light accentuates the face and breast. The round simple form of the breast draws the most attention. Motherhood is a mere simulacra – an image for the assertion of the ‘sign’ breast. And the breast is not an image of motherly love, of feeding or of relationship. It is ‘objectified’ – made the absurd mid-point of an image and nothing more. Sherman has produced a whole series of ‘historical’ works wherein she puts all the ingredients together of classical works, in order to imitate them. She destroys the coherence of the images by superimposing her own face. Hereby she creates incongruent and ambiguous pictures. Her art is conceptual. You have to be ‘informed’ of the concept, before you can understand the image. The art is an intellectual and ironic retake, deflating the significance and dignity of traditional images. Seriousness is mimicked; meaning is made ridiculous. This art does not convey a single, unique message. It does not attempt to become a ‘sign’, selfevidently communicating something. The ‘image’ is not meant to be seized in a single act of recognition. It is uncertain – she makes fun of classical art, plays with titillation via (partial) nudity that approaches surrealist farce. Images are constructed and torn down, both at once. She intimidates that meaning is possible and is denied, that the aesthetic can be asserted but just as well perverted. Ambiguity supposedly entails the viewer in both being repulsed by the image, and not being able to keep one’s eyes off of it (Morris 1999). Because the works involve game-playing, dressing-up and (references to) media (film and TV), they are called ‘postmodern’. But they can just as well be seen as icons to the materialism, narcissism and impersonality of hyper-capitalism. The postmodern interpretation stresses the deconstruction of meaning and the mixed media or genre of the work; the hyper-capitalism interpretation focuses on the conceptual and theatrical nature of the work. Is Sherman ‘ironic’ or ‘traumatised’; does she play with (post-)modern culture or is she played with (manipulated and defamed) by it? Is she an ironic ‘Barbie’, or a psychically victimised and degraded one? Sherman does not achieve Baudrillard’s postmodern strategy, wherein original and creative activity plays a crucial role. For Baudrillard, artistic creation remains the single life-giving choice (Baudillard 1997). Sherman chooses not to paint and not to embrace artistic technique or individual creativity. Maybe Sherman embraces Baudrillard’s extase of the postmodern, wherein he explored strategies of hyperreality. But these strategies were meant to transcend the apparent via the ‘object’. Sherman debases the ‘object’ – her images are obviously ‘assembled’ or ‘doctored’. The power of photography – its claim to ‘realism’ – is degraded. Sherman does not confront the ecstasy of the object but runs away from it. (Baudrillard 1979 and 1983). Nor does she embrace Lyotard’s strategy of petites histories – her work does not record specific experienced events, but refers constantly back to media (and/or historical) icons (Lyotard 1979). She never evokes a lived here-and-now, but always an abstracted image of general appearance(s). Her

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disguises destroy the specific and highlight the general. She generates images of film noir or historical art works – she never refers to specific images but always to generalisations. Her work destroys specificity and permits no immediacy. Nor does Sherman deconstruct visual text(s) – there is no exploration of what images imply, what they leave out or how they make (in-)visible in her work. There is no examination of meanings, or of (non-)sense and significations. The photographic collages are icons of destroyed meaning, disguised individuality and the ‘self ’ made hysterical. Sherman’s works may very well be appropriate for postmodern analysis, but that does not make them postmodern in the sense of Baudrillard, Lyotard or Derrida. Sherman’s photos do invite differing interpretations. They have been seen as an expression of feminism: that is as ladies who are busy with the ordinary. But they are also construed to be a parody on womanhood. One can argue that Sherman is displaying the vulnerable and sexual side of women. Hereby, she can be thought to be a sexist and accused of playing to male sexual fantasies. It has been asserted that her success is because she is so multi-interpretable. Sherman herself offers no interpretation. She tells interviewers that the only reason she makes the images is to amuse herself. The photos contain three elements: there is performance (Cindy Sherman adopting a persona), narrative (a genre, style or artistic tradition is implied) and theatre (the image is ersatz, artificial, melodramatic). The photos objectify, violate and even destroy the human form. Looking The first drawing (Figure 10.1) can be divided into three parts: the top part of the drawing contains the breasts and the head, the middle part the belly and the lower part the legs. The belly is to be found in the middle of the paper. It forms the centre of attention. In this drawing, the belly is accentuated by the arms, which are draped around it and protect it. The arms accentuate the belly’s significance and express that they are embracing something very precious. The figure, by looking downwards, directs the viewer’s gaze in the direction of the centre. The belly is the most important part to the drawing. It is further accentuated by the curved line ending in the right leg. The second drawing (Figure 10.2) can also be divided into three parts. The belly is again at the centre. Many of the lines forming the upper part of the body are diagonals. The hair is also drawn with diagonals. These lines point in the direction of the belly. The lines of the right underarm and the upper legs are also diagonals, but they move in the opposite direction as the diagonals, which form the top part of the body. All the diagonals direct attention to the belly. It is protected and made to look as big as possible by the curved line on the right. The expression on the face appears to be directed inwards. Attention is not directed to the woman’s face. The involvement is with the belly; the growing baby. The third drawing (Figure 10.3) is without diagonals. It is constructed from vertical and horizontal lines. All the lines of the hair, the head and the hands, can be brought back to horizontals and verticals. Minimising the direction of the lines maximises the dramatic effect. The verticals of the arms protect and accen-

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tuate the belly. The breast and the upper right leg – together with the arms – enclose the belly. The figure is represented as staring off into the far distance. She does not look at the audience. She looks beyond the immediate, off into the undefined. The relationship between the gaze and the belly is unsettling. The belly is very present, large, solid and substantial; the gaze is projected far away. The belly offers respite, order and solidity. Although the woman is shown fullfaced, the drawing is not symmetric. Balance between the left and right side of the drawing would create a boring drawing, because the form would become predictable. The breasts are different, the length of the two arms is uneven and the belly is actually shown more from the side than from the front. In the fourth drawing (Figure 10.4) horizontal and vertical lines predominate. The belly is again at the centre, protected by the arms. The figure does not seem to want to be looked at. She looks at her belly and pushes the audience in that direction.

Figure 10.1

Figure 10.2

Figure 10.3

Figure 10.4

Figure 10.5

Figure 10.6

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The fifth drawing (Figure 10.5) is characterised by lines with a strong downwards force. The belly is very heavy. Its boundaries stretch outside the protection of the arms. The woman’s view is directed to a spot seemingly in front of the belly, as if she is showing us that the baby is starting to leave the body. The difference in the breasts makes the drawing more interesting. Small irregularities in the lines have the function of adding appeal to the drawing. And in the sixth drawing (Figure 10.6) the baby is threatening to leave the womb. The big circle comes close to symbolising the universal round or ‘global’ shape. To give birth can be expressed as bringing a child into the world. The drawing evokes ‘mother earth’. The belly really has taken over in this drawing. Almost all the lines are found on the right side of the paper. Attention is hereby directed to the left side, which is almost empty. The contrast between the left and the right creates the drama of this drawing. The form represents togetherness and (up-coming) separation at the same time.

The visual is pregnant The hypermodern aesthetic of today is depersonalised and abstract; designed to make an impression but without intimacy. It denies subjective significance. Visualisation is abstraction. Maria Letiche’s drawings try to escape hypermodernism. There is a tension between the visual simplicity (an image immediately to be grasped and understood) and affective claim (introversion, the person alone, an aesthetic statement) of her drawings. She tries to make drawings that are not an idea of the nude but an experience, appreciation or spontaneous reaction to the model. New art deals in ideas alone. Cindy Sherman portrays pregnant women that are not pregnant, aesthetic scenes made into kitsch, intimacy that is vulgar. Her art gratuitously destroys the remnants of past meaning. Herein, their aggressive nature and self-destructive message. They are art as ‘piercing’ – art as self-mutilation. And this is what identifies them as new art. They are art as text – literal investigations of possible images. The images are one dimensional, attention catching assertions. There is no ‘subject’ – no introspection, no introvert ‘self ’, no development of the aestheticisation. This is not art as statement, reflection and meaning; but art as simplification, declaration and resolution. Maria Letiche’s drawings include multiplicity, ambiguity and complexity. They are simple images but ambiguous in their atmosphere. They are very intellectual, in the frequent use of a single line to capture significance; but emotional and dramatic, in the use of contrasting lines to create accents. They are individual and personal, but also ‘signs’ and highly abstract. They do not operate in a single register, nor are they entirely consistent in their relationship of means (artistic technique) to forms (what is ‘portrayed’). There is complexity and movement between these different layers of signification in her drawings. Cindy Sherman and the visualisations of today are not complex. By ‘complex’, we mean woven from diverse elements, tied together from a variety of sentiments and facets. Current new art visualisation is merely complicated – lots of visual elements, many boxes, arrows and diagrams; all thrown at the viewer. Whether it is

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business representation or Cindy Sherman, current visualisation asserts its cleverness, its disregard for finer sensitivity and its will to overwhelm the viewer. This ‘art’ of non-meaning(s), attacks our sensitivities and desensitises us to experience. Modernism had the ambition of linking us to personal experience; new art is only out to assert, dominate and overpower. Art, that assumes that meaning and sense are important, appropriates past artwork to create an experiential ethic of care. New art assumes that the image must perform, whatever its quality of humanity may (or may not) be. In a popularity contest, new art’s performativity and assertions of power may win from an aesthetic of uncertainty and sensitivity. The homo sacer offers no (certain) assurances of individualism (soul) or social justice (law) to protect the artist from her fragility. Bare life is exposed, uncertain and dangerous. New art’s image’s have very little expressive refinement and do not show emotional understanding. Art that overpowers complex feelings may predominant, but that doesn’t make its sensitivity any finer or its images more worthy. The new art aesthetic may be the dominant one of our times – heralded from business models to advertising images, from trendy photo images to ‘realistic’ collages; but that does not mean that it is an aesthetic that can do justice to bare life, pregnancy or to the woman’s sense of herself.

Note 1 Pompeius Festus: ‘The sacred man is the one whom the people have judged on account of a crime. It is not permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him will not be condemned for homicide; in the first tribunitian law, in fact, it is noted that ‘if someone kills the one who is sacred according to the plebiscite, it will not be considered homicide.’ This is why it is customary for a bad or impure man to be called sacred’ (quoted in Agamben 1998: 71).

References Agamben, G. (1998) Homo Sacer, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Assad, M. (1999) Reading with Michel Serres, Albany: SUNY Press. Barthes, R. (1990) Writing Degree Zero, New York: Hill & Wang. Baudrillard, J. (1979) De la seduction, Paris: Denöel. —— (1983) Les stratégies fatales, Paris: Grasset. —— (1997) Le paroxyste indifférent, Paris: Grasset. Bigwood, C. (1991) ‘Renaturalizing the Body’ (With the Help of Merleau-Ponty) reprinted in Body and Flesh (1998) D. Welton (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 99–114. Bois, Y.-A. and Krauss, R. E. (1997) Formless, New York: Zone Books. Chodorow, N. (1978) The Reproduction of Mothering, Berkeley: University of California Press. Coyne, R. (1999) Technoromanticism, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press. Cruz, A., Smith, E. and Jones, A. (1997) Cindy Sherman Retrospective, London: Thames & Hudson. Donzelot, J. (1979) The Policing of Families, New York: Pantheon. Gaus, Eric (2000) ‘The Body Sacrificial’ in Tobin Siebers (ed.) The Body Aesthetic, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 159–78. Hayles, N. K. (1992) ‘Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers’, pp 1–16, www.english.ucla. edu/Hayles 09.02.2001.

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—— (1999) How we Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kline, K. (1998) ‘In or Out of the Picture: Claude Cahun & Cindy Sherman’, in W. Chadwick (ed.) Mirror Images Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krauss, R.E. (1997) ‘The Destiny of the Informe’, in Y.-A. Bois and R.E. Krauss (eds) Formless, New York: Zone Books, pp. 235–52. Lemmon, N. (2001) ‘The Sherman Phenomena’ Part 2 (electronic journal, seen 16.04.2001 at www.brickhaus.com). ˙ ditions de Minuit. Lyotard, J.-F. 1979) La condition postmoderne, Paris: E Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964) The Phenomenology of Perception, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Morris, C. (1999) The Essential Cindy Sherman, New York: Abrams. Mulvey, L. (1991) ‘A Phantasmagoria of the Female Body: The Work of Cindy Sherman’, New Left Review 188: 137–50. Nochlin, L. (1994) The Body in Pieces London: Thames & Hudson. —— (1999) Representing Women, New York: Thames & Hudson. Serrres, M. (1995) Genesis, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Siebers, Tobin (ed.) (2000) The Body Aesthetic, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Van Garrel, B. et al. (1996) Cindy Sherman Exhibit Catalogue, Rotterdam: Boymans-van Beuningen. Young, I. (1990) Throwing Like a Girl, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zuboff, S. (1988) The Age of the Smart Machine, New York: Basic Books.

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11 Foetus on screen1 Leena Eräsaari

The first gaze inside the womb When I was pregnant with my third child, Olli, in 1986, I got my first peek inside the womb and a chance to see the child I was carrying on a computer screen. I was unable to tell what it was I saw on the screen, but the nurse pointed out to me the baby’s head and heart. Finally the picture was frozen and I could see the baby’s profile in an overall picture. I was able to distinguish his (only after the birth did I know the sex) outlines and some bones. I cannot recall feeling especially bound to the thing I saw on the screen, but I must admit that it was exciting to see the foetus, and the experience clearly made me more aware of the existence of the child. Seeing did not only help believing, but it also made me more attached to the future baby. When I went to the ultrasound screening, my pregnancy had not advanced very far, so the foetus was still rather small. It was difficult to tell its actual size from the enlargened picture on the screen. After coming home I described the miraculous experience I had had to the rest of the family. We probably leafed some manuals trying to figure out the size of the baby, for my older children named the future child as ‘spawn’. The baby retained this petname until the end of the pregnany and even sometime after he was born. At some point we even considered giving it to him as his official name. However, reason won over feeling in the end. In 1987 ultrasound screening was not routinely performed on all pregnant mothers in Finland. I got to go to the ultrasound screening because the exact age of the foetus needed to be known in case I would later go for amniocentesis. Now, in the turn of the century, most pregnant women get to see their future child at least once or twice on the screen during the course of the pregnancy. Parents are often given a copy of the ultrasound pictures printed on thermal paper, which they can preserve for the future generations. In the 1990s the father of the child is not only allowed but also encouraged to be present during the ultrasound screening. When I was pregnant with my third child, I was already close to the ‘risk-age’, which was 38 at that time; ten years later the risk-age had fallen down to 35. Being close to risk-age meant that I got tested extensively. Originally I had the idea to keep up a diary during the pregnancy, but I was too busy visiting different

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institutional services, and thus had no time to take notes on my own doings or experiences. From a techno-medical point of view, maternity health care had made considerable progress during the ten years that passed during my second (in 1975) and third (in 1986) pregnancy.

The secrets of the womb on screen In the American film Nine Months, father-to-be Hugh Grant gets excited about his girlfried’s pregnancy only when he sees the ultrasound video of the foetus on the television screen. In other words, ultrasound screening has opened up a possibility for other people besides the expectant mother to get to know the child before birth. For the first time in the history of humankind it is now possible to penetrate into the female body, inside the womb that until now has been considered ‘holy’ and ‘taboo’, untouchable, or a sign of exclusive feminine power. It would seem that conceptions of modern technology and local manners and beliefs have made a particularly hard collision in the Finnish periphery. The beliefs that female genitals held magical and supernatural powers were common in Finland until the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. According to archaic Finnish knowledge, even the sight or a light touch of the female genitals could send you to another world (Apo 1995: 11–49). Now people can view enlargened pictures of the womb and its contents in obstetrics or genetics conferences. Many popular films use ultrasound pictures as narrative devices, very much the same way x-ray pictures were used before (Cartwright 1995). Ultrasound pictures of the foetus are frequently used to illustrate a turning point in the film or to emphasise emotionally distressing scenes. In the film Nine Months, watching the ultrasound tape caused the father of the child to commit himself to the child and the mother. In Alien 3, an ultrasound picture revealed that the protagonist carried a monster inside her, which eventually led her to commit suicide in order to prevent the monsters from reproducing. The film Blue in Kieslowski’s colour trilogy presents a woman who, after having lost her child and husband in a car accident, finds her will to live again by becoming a mentor to a woman who is pregnant with her deceased husband’s child. We briefly see an ultrasound picture on the screen when the woman is contemplating her decision. Thus the film industry is advertising the new medical technology and making common property of the unborn baby. But the plot in common in all these three films is the same: The pregnant woman is of no importance, her opinion or desires are not affecting the important others. It’s the content of the womb that matters, in Alien 3 to the extent that the woman has to commit suicide because of the alien baby. Both health-care personnel and the immediate family can now bypass the mother and look straight at the enlargened picture of the foetus on the ultrasound monitor. Ultrasound screening enhances the autonomy of the foetus in many ways. Furthermore, it is possible to enlargen the picture to any extent; ‘spawn’ can grow to the size of a grown man. The new technology gives the impression that the mother’s body is no longer needed. Simultaneously with the new technology, the idea of new fatherhood has progressed amidst the Western

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Figure 11.1 In the past, the female genitals were associated with both good and bad magic in Finland. The powers deriving from the female genitals could be used to cause damage in and out of the house. These female powers were also used to protect children when they left home, or cattle when it was let out in the fields in the spring. The drawing above made by Jenny Eräsaari is depicting how the ancient wife of the farmer lets the cattle out of the cow-shed in the spring. The cattle is led out ‘between the legs’ of the wife.

middle classes. It might not be that far-fetched an idea that in the case of divorce, new fathers might be more eager to fight for the right to an unborn child than before. In her study Carol Smart (1989) has noted that many fathers become only interested in their children in a divorce situation. It may be that in the future ultrasound screenings can create a new kind of relationship between the father and the baby. At least the American courts nowadays are reported to handle cases of frozen semen and eggs of deceased people. The economy or shape of feelings seems to take new forms because of the new technology involved in reproduction. It is obvious that there are a variety of opinions concerning ultrasound screening and testing among pregnant mothers as well as health care professionals specialised in prenatal health care. There are doctors who eagerly lobby for

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ultrasound screenings and other testings. There are midwives both for and against the increased testing. In her study of Norwegian health care professionals, Ann Rudinow Saetnan (1994) found many credible reasons for being against prenatal testing. Hesitant or resistant views were based on a variety of arguments. For example, the midwifes said that the new technologies diminished their professional competence and increased the power and authority of the representatives of technically orientated medicine. Some sceptic-minded professionals argue that the medical benefits of the ultrasound screening technique have not been sufficiently proved, whereas its drawbacks have been well documented. The chance of double or multiple pregnancy is used as the main motivation to persuade expectant mothers to take part in ultrasound screening. I do not know how common it is to have feelings of anxiety when one finds out about double pregnancy, but in the case of my own daughter, who gave birth to twins, finding out was a traumatic experience. She felt that the ‘other’ child was somehow alien, a stranger inside her body (Figure 11.2). Claude Levi-Strauss’ (1989: 24–33) study on ancient native American conceptions of twins shows that they have been either rejected, killed, or sometimes respected on the basis of their alledged supernatural abilities. In Tanzania, twins were killed alongside disabled and albino babies (Ulvila 1995). One possible explanation for this cruel practice is that in primitive cultures birth of twins was quite a burden for the mother. However, uncertainity of the father of the children played a major role in many of the views studied by Levi-Strauss. According to ancient native American myths, twins had two separate fathers, one good and one bad, or one right and one false. In a sense twins represented ying and yang sides of humanity that were indistinguishable to the human eye. The fear of twins felt by native Americans or other primitive peoples has transformed; modern technology has given it new instruments while modern times provide new arguments. Many feminists who have criticised the intervention of medicine into the reproductive sphere (Turunen 1996a 1996b) consider ultrasound screening the start of a process whereby the womb becomes transparent, the mother becomes invisible, and the ideas of the ‘autonomy’ and ‘individuality’ of the foetus increase. The idea of the imagined autonomy of the embryo or the foetus lies behind the discussion concerning so-called ‘foetal rights’, which has been linked to discussions on abortion and contraception as well as the pregnant woman’s right to decline medical treatment or restrictions of life-style. Riitta Turunen observes some cases in Finland too where medical doctors have publicly demanded that pregnant women should be committed to non voluntary treatments because of their alcohol/drug abuse. Saetnan claims that there are no diagnostic grounds for the routine use of ultrasound techniques in prenatal testing. According to Saetnan, the technique is in such wide use partly because of the eagerness of medical doctors and their ability to influence the opinions of, for example, midwives. However, although the eagerness of those who use the technique is not to be forgotten, I would not forget the product of the technique either. The attractiveness of the product, that of a visual image, is what mainly makes expectant women choose ultrasound screening.

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In his study on family or album photos, Pierre Bourdieu (1990) claims that parents’ documentation of their children has played a major role in the rise of the popularity of photography during the twentieth century. Families with children have got a camera, nowadays a video-recorder, more often than families without children. Families with children have more photographs than families without children. Taking pictures has become an integral part of any ritualistic family celebration to the extent that if the camera is absent the value of the celebration decreases. One of the most popular subjects of family pictures has been the birth of a child. The nervous father who rushes around the delivery room with his video-

Figure 11.2

Now that I am already recovering from the shock, thanks to all the people who have been so supportive and showed such enthusiasm, I thought that a cartoon of the event might be in order. ‘When I went to the ultrasound screening’ – – – – –

Have you not wondered why you are so big? Does she mean that I am too big for this bed? I can see two tiny heads here! Oh no, my baby has got two heads! My dear woman, you are having twins!

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recorder has already become a classic figure in childbirth folklore. According to Bourdieu, the newborn child is taken into the family through the photographs its parents send to the relatives. Photography has played an important role in the processes of individualisation and democratization in the lives of people in Western societies. Before the invention of the photograph, portraits of ancestry were a priviledge only the rich and the noble could enjoy. It can be said that photographs are an integral part of the democratisation process of society, for it gives everyone a chance to have visual memories of their ancestors and personal past. In comparison to the written word, photography is a faster method of documentation, and pictures have partly replaced words, which were the foremost mode of documentation in the nineteenth century (Plummer 1983). The photograph is part of the process of individualisation. Apart from looking at the pictures of our ancestors, we are able to look back at the highlights of our own past. Album photography aims at the integration of the family and thus contains quite little of working life for example. ‘That is how I looked on my second birthday, those and those relatives were present’. Photographs of personal past add to our self-worth; I am valuable enough to have pictures taken of me. It is considered a sign of social success if one has plenty of photographs with plenty of people in them. The process of individualisation has now gone one step further. The ‘spawn’ inside the mother’s womb is increasingly being regarded as an individual. I firmly believe that this is the ultimate reason for the popularity of the ultrasound screening and why doctors do not find it too difficult to persuade mothers or parents to take part in it. In his book The Birth of the Clinic, Michel Foucault depicts the beginning of the development of the medical gaze. Until the late nineteenth century doctors did not look directly at the patient; they listened to what the patient said, but avoided a direct gaze. The emergence of ultrasound techniques have added one more direct gaze to the patient. The medical gaze has got many forms. Particles are gazed through the microscope, whereas x-rays and the ultrasound go right through the patient’s body. In the field of visual medicine, medical gaze and the control apparatus of the society meet in a particularly powerful way. Ultrasound techniques that reveal the secrets of the womb represents the technical peak of the medical gaze and control, and the culmination point of many ethical problems. Photography has had two sides since its birth, the ying and the yang. Photography has been used as a method of control right from the beginning. The police and penal establishments have photographed prisoners and criminals. Photographs began to be used for identification; it found its way to passports and identification cards (Tagg 1988). During the time when it was believed that criminal qualities could be identified by the shape of one’s skull, size of ears, or the posture of one’s head, medical doctors and criminologists tried to identify criminals and mentally ill people with the help of photographs. Even psychiatry has used photography. For example Freud’s predecessor Charcot had pictures of (mainly female) patients taken in order to capture the essence of a hysterical seizure (Rose 1983; de Marneffe 1991). The use of still and living pictures for the

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purposes of control is continually increasing. Video surveillance has become common in urban public spaces, like at universities, in banks, the underground, shops, and at the doors of the wealthy (Koskela 1999). Feminist philosophers and epistemologists have emphasised that visual imagery linked with knowledge represents male power. In many languages words that mean knowing or seeing can be used synonymously. In the case of visual medicine it is especially easy to see how male power is exercised through visual images. The focus of visual medicine is largely on the female body, it is not only pregnant women who are the target but also breasts are frequently examined by ultrasound. So far the female reproductive organs are the main target of the ultrasound screenings. Several feminist researchers have gone even further,

Figure 11.3 Grandma and the twins at the supermarket (by Eskil).

Figure 11.4 Grandma and the twins at the supermarket (by Aada).

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claiming that we are finally witnessing the realisation of the age-old patriarchal dream. The womb and birth-giving are finally controlled by men (Turunen 1996a, 1966b; Balsamo 1996: 95–7).

On gene-manipulation of reproduction In her study, Hilary Rose (1994) has drawn a parallel between gene-manipulation technology used to improve the qualities of vegetables and plants, and research presently done on human genes. Rose refers to the technologies that have enabled us to alter the qualities of vegetables and plants so that they do not spoil so easily, endure longer transport times, are about the same size and quality, and are not so sensitive to pests; all in all, technologies that have helped to make the products more suitable for the market. Rose says that although it is not yet possible to control the human genepool, it may well be possible in the near future. Although we have not yet witnessed the birth of the ‘new and improved’ people, technologies involved in human reproduction have been developing so rapidly over the past few decades that even the slowest of us may get a little suspicious. Some representatives of the medical profession have given reassuring speeches in an attempt to convince the public that human genes are untouchable. However, other professionals of the field have declared that it is only a matter of days before the scientists will possess a complete knowledge of the human gene pool. Prenatal testing can also be viewed as one form of gene-manipulation. One central reason why gene-technology has advanced so rapidly is that the field has been heavily injected with risk capital. Plenty of finances have been invested in the pharmaceutical industry, plants that design and make medical equipment, and private and semi-private laboratories (ibid.: 188–91). As a consequence, state-sponsored and maintained public health care systems have been pushed to include these privately developed techniques as part of public health care, including maternity and child health care. In the 1970s and 1980s English-speaking feminists discussed and wrote about the politics of reproduction extensively. The official view of that period crystallised in the phrase ‘women’s right to choose’. Women demanded the right to choose between contraception, pregnancy, and abortion. Presently the idea of ‘women’s right to choose’ covers a wide range of interests depending on individual needs. Women who suffer from involuntary childlessness may want the right to be treated for infertility, whereas for women living in the poor parts of the world the right to legal abortion, or just the right to birth control, is on the top of the list of priorities. Within the field of feminist studies the questions of reproduction besides other questions of maternity have been slowly moving into the focus of study since the late 1970s (Okely 1997). Now, in the late 1990s, the discussion has finally reached Finland. One of the central problems from the feminist point of view is that because of the extremely rapid development of reproduction technology, women scholars who have focused their attention on humanities or social sciences, have lost the track. As a consequence, women do not know what is happening in the field of reproduction. It is paradoxical that for this article, which is after all based

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on my own experiences, I was compelled to study biological, technical and medical vocabulary and practices quite extensively. Not only the medical technology, but also institutional settings have been under constant change. Institutional change is routine (Brunsson 1993) and this concerns also the organisations of maternity and prenatal health care (Wrede 1996).

Expectations I initially became interested in prenatal testing on the basis of my own experiences. I have got plenty of experience of the Finnish maternity and child health care centre organisations thanks to my three children and two grandchildren. Besides that I have discussed the issue with friends, colleagues and acquaintances, I even recall having disussed it a few times with my mother. Since the end of the Second World War when this organisation (maternity and child health care centre) was established, several generations of mothers and children have become familiar with the institution. Only one mother among my friends and relatives has raised her children without the help of these centres. The success story of the Finnish maternity and child health care centre institution goes like this: Since 1950s Finland has had the world’s lowest numbers of mothers dying in labour as well as infant mortality. Furthermore, the modest mortality rates of infants occured already at a time when the standard of living in Finland was pretty low and the economy was mainly rural. There is also a popular saying which claims that ‘Finland has got the healthiest small children in the western world whereas the middle-aged population is the most sick one’. The ‘good start of the Finnish population’ is generally supposed to exist largely because of the maternity and child health care centres. The institution is run by municipalities but legitimated and regulated by state laws. The social security of the mother as well as the child are bound to visiting the centres, which of course has affected the popularity of this organisation. My three children, Jenny, Matti and Olli, were born in 1970 1975 and 1987 respectively. Jenny’s twins were born in 1995. Each time I went through all the possible tests and health checks offered at the maternity and child health care centres, and each time everything was different – the advice given, that is. What had remained the same was the assurance of the health care personnel that they were telling the absolute truth about pregnancy and labour. When I was pregnant with my first child in 1970 the maternity centres concentrated on giving mothers advice and information on proper nutrition and labour. The foetus was monitored by listening to its heartbeats from the outside. My weight was monitored, and in order to prevent excessive swelling I was told to avoid salt and carbonated drinks. I also had a craving for peanuts, which I discussed with the midwife during the visits. I mentioned my craving for peanuts, because in her book ‘The Second Sex’ (1988: 516–32) Simone de Beauvoir claimed that pregnant women behave irrationally and think more with their hormones than with their heads. According to de Beauvoir, pregnant women help to maintain the cultural hierarchy in which women are viewed to be closer to nature than men. As an example of

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the foolishness of pregnant women, de Beauvoir mentioned their cravings for particular foods. I cannot recall having had any similar cravings during my two other pregnancies, and I wonder whether that was more because of better nutrition or because mothers are not encouraged to have weaknesses such as food cravings any longer. During the last pregnancy I had the feeling that the mother was of no interest at all. I can readily think of at least two kinds of reasons why pregnant women do not admit to having weaknesses any more. It might be that after years of struggle for equality between the sexes, it is preferred to emphasise pregnant women’s similarity in comparison to other women, perhaps even to men. Such phrases as ‘pregnancy is not an illness’, or ‘a pregnant woman can go about her life as usual’ tell of the attempt to normalise pregnancy and draw attention away from the unique characteristics of the condition, such as increased need for sleep, hormonal changes and mood swings. It may also be that the pregnant mother is not at the final focus of interest, whatever her cravings may be. Kirsi Lallukka writes about the normalising effects of maternity care centres today: As soon as I started to read baby books and women’s magazine articles about pregnancy, I noticed that the central ideology of pregnancy in the mid-1990s seemed to be that of ‘liberation’: pregnancy is not an illness, pregnant woman can go about her life as usual (as long as you do not drink or smoke and eat healthily), a pregnant woman is beautiful and erotic (they can even pose for men’s magazines), women can finally choose how they want to give birth etc. I have nothing against this ideology of liberation on the contrary, it just feels somehow fake. It seems to me that every single time something is promised, it is drawn back in the next sentence. A good example is the advice pregnant women are given concerning physical exercise during pregnancy. It is stressed over and over again that pregnant women should/must continue to exercise as before pregnancy. If possible, one should take up more exercise. Women’s magazines put most emphasis on the fact that physical exercise helps woman to recover after childbirth, whereas ‘official’ manuals point out that a physically fit mother is good for the baby’s health. All in all, the message is clear: exercise and enjoy. Unfortunately, one thing that is common to both women’s magazines and advice manuals is that they do not stand behind their words. For example the leaflet ‘We Are Having a Baby’, handed out to all pregnant women at the maternity and child care centre, tells about physical exercise as follows: ‘it is recommended that one continues to exercise as before the pregnancy, however, one should avoid such activities and dances that include jumps, streching or other sudden movements. One should be careful of swimming in cold water because of the danger of infection or contractions. Walking is a suitable form of exercise for a pregnant woman.’ So, after one has eliminated activities that include jumps, streching or sudden movements the only mode of exercise that is left is walking. Besides the previous text’s concern about the fit body it also expresses the fact that the interlocutor is uncertain about the contents of the advice. The writer of the text cannot decide whether the pregnant woman should exercise or not.

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Back to the 1970s and my experiences of pregnancy. The idea of painless childbirth, more accurately, the Finnish version of so-called ‘psychoprofylaxis’ became the theme of my first pregnancy. It was the first phase of psychoprofylaxis, later less rigid versions of it have emerged (Valvanne 1986: 205–44). When I was expecting Jenny I was completely alone and inexperienced as a mother. None of my friends had given birth, and my own mother had passed away. I had to rely completely on the information the maternity and child care centres gave me. At the clinic I was told that if a woman does her share ‘competently’ enough, one does not feel a thing. If the mother is physically and psychologically prepared, she can give birth without noticing much. I took part in all of the courses offered by the maternity and child care clinic and believed everything they said. The labour itself turned out to be a great personal defeat. Although I did everything by the book, it still hurt. I figured that there had to be something wrong with my head or psyche, because I could not do it right. Compared to the advice given to Kirsi Lallukka on the 1990s – when the adviser cannot decide whether mothers should exercise or not – the ‘Stimmung’ of the 1970s was straightforward: labour doesn’t hurt. When I was giving birth to Matti in 1975, psychoprophylaxis was no longer taught in its most extreme form. It was admitted that childbirth might actually hurt a bit, even if you were not completely nuts. However, by that time I had heard several stories of childbirth, all of which were heavily influenced by the first phase of psychoprofylaxis. Fast and easy labour was the word of the day. Fortunately, my second child was born according to prevailing norms. I barely got to the hospital in time. In any case the mother was playing the leading role in the maternity services during the 1970s, and she received advice about cravings and childbirth. When I was expecting Olli in 1986, I decided that being a mature mother of two children, I was not going to take any advice, especially those given by maternity and child care centres, too seriously. What happened during the pregnancy had changed radically partly because of the development of foetal diagnostics. Apart from routine visits to the maternity centre, I had to go to ultrasound screenings in a hospital clinic. Back then I thought that ultrasound screenings were performed solely for the purpose of determining the exact age of the foetus. The ultrasound screening improved the quality of our family’s life in the sense that we grew more attached to the future baby. Only years later did I realised that ultrasound screenings not only reveal the age of the foetus, but are used to detect foetal abnormalities and disabilities. Some have even claimed that the ultrasound screening might be harmful to the foetus. This also happens today: few expectant mothers know that this technique is for detecting abnormalities. Anyhow, going to amniocentesis was more dramatic an experience than going to the ultrasound screening. I also found it morally difficult. Before going to the test, I discussed it over with my husband and even cried a little. I wished that I had had the courage not to go to the test. The persecution of disabled foetuses is not that far away from eugenics. And because I am strictly against eugenics, my own unethical actions disturbed me. It was the time for a decision – the border between knowing and not knowing was here. I thought then, and I still do, that if amniocentesis had revealed something to be wrong with the foetus, I would have

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aborted it. I had two children already, I had a job, friends, and many other things I valued in my life. I believed that many good and important things in my life would suffer, if I took up such a time and energy-consuming task as taking care of a disabled child. In other words, I would have chosen ‘comfortable life’. I remember thinking not only about myself and my family, but also what would happen to the disabled child after me and my husband had passed away. If I could not trust that everyone is taken care of when the welfare state was still doing well, I would really like to know what goes on in the minds of those parents who are expecting a ‘risk child’ now when the welfare state is withering away. Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim (1994: 329–30) has proposed a similar view: the fact that most women are nowadays employed, increases the pressure to minimise the risk of having a disabled child. Sirpa Wrede (1996: 133–80) explores Finnish prenatal health care from the 1970s until today. She argues that the notion of ‘risk’ has changed several times during this period. The change is due to respective organisational and professional changes. Although the institutions of the prenatal care have remained quite unchanged – for a large part prenatal care takes place in maternal and child health centres – visits to maternal clinics in hospitals are getting more frequent. In Finland where distances are long the pregnant mother may spend a lot of time moving from one place to another – for example I travelled about 200 kilometers to amniocentesis. Also the professional personnel working in prenatal health care has seen radical alterations over the years. During the 1970s prenatal health care was dominated by the midwives, today their impact is diminishing both on the factual and ideological level. By the 1980s health nurses together with general practitioners have taken a leading role in prenatal care. When the midwives were still ‘in charge’, the primary risk or pathology to be prevented was the ill-health of the mother or the baby – the aim of prenatal care was to promote the wellbeing of the mother and child. During the 1980s the maternal centres concentrated on picking out the risk families and educating them. In the course of the 1980s, maternal clinics – situated mostly in hospital localities unlike the maternity centres – have in effect taken over the care of risk pregnancies. Nowadays over 50 per cent of all mothers are referred to maternity clinics and hence to specialised medical care (ibid.: 152). Now, in the 1990s, the family is no longer considered the primary source of risk – the focus has shifted to the baby/foetus. ‘Hence screening tests intended for the detection of malformations and hereditary diseases have gained a major role in prenatal care services in Finland during recent years’ (ibid.: 152). The scienceoriented field of obstetrics is increasing its control over pregnant women through the use of new technologies. Medical interventions have gained in importance whilst other aspects of the care of pregnant women have lost ground. Even practising obstetricians have lost some of their control over prenatal care. In recent years the knowledge elite in obstetrics has gained more power, since obstetrics occupies a central position in the making of the guidelines of prenatal care policy. (ibid.: 153). The power of defining risk has been allotted to experts within the national health policy. The preoccupation with risks in prenatal care and the

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persistent questioning of the ability of health-care teams to manage medical risks, shapes the practices of primary prenatal care. The criticism of the services coming from obstetricians and midwives may generate anxiety among all the health-care providers of maternity centres as well as their clients. This anxiety may in turn cause an increase in the number of unnecessary referrals to specialised care. The health care teams may begin to use referrals as a self-protective strategy against potential accusations in case something should go wrong. The battle of professional dominance concerning midwives, public health nurses, municipal health centre physicians and obstetricians generates ‘a risk climate’. Thus Wrede confirms that my impressions of the increasing medical technology in prenatal health care seem to be more than accurate. The situation of the expectant mother is somewhat paradoxical when more visits to laboratories and clinics and more high quality medicine is demanded for monitoring the health of the foetus whereas the mother is ‘not ill but normal’ as Lallukka confirms. This may be why the mother, and especially the healthy mother, withers away during the process. It may be also that the ill mother is not to be seen – the mother is transparent and unseen. The adviser of the mother may act wisely by telling her not to jump or swim but to walk. In case something happens the adviser cannot be charged by the knowledge elite in obstetrics.

Always in the vanguard of progress The Finnish maternity and child health services are currently the best in the world. Pregnant mothers and small children are not looked after to this extent anywhere else in the world by the public health authorities. The current procedure in prenatal testing has the widest coverage in the world; double screening of the foetus is nowadays performed routinely and triple screening is common in the case of ‘risk pregnancies’. The first phase is the ultrasound screening, the second is the maternal serum screening, and the third one amniocentesis. Ultrasound screening and amniocentesis were already in use when I was pregnant in 1986 and 1987. The latter test was offered for mothers who were in the risk age. In some municipalities the maternal serum screening was introduced in the name of cuts to the welfare budget, but nowadays it is offered to all the pregnant mothers. The matter was taken up in one of the local papers: ‘The care of one severely disabled child costs 250,000 marks a year. If the child’s life expectancy is approximately fifty years, the child will cost twelve million marks to the society’ (Vantaan Sanomat 17 January 1993). The number of abortions performed on the grounds of alledged abnormality is small. In 1993 there was a total of 210 pregnancies terminated on these grounds (Santalahti 1995: 5). So, the point is not the number of abortions but the ethics. According to doctors of genetic science, the only obstacles for more extensive use of prenatal testing is the lack of funds and suitable methods. The tests at the moment find mostly Down’s Syndrome which is not the most severe of disabilities. The maternal serum screening is problematic from the point of view of the pregnant mother, mainly because it is highly unreliable. Especially in the case of young mothers these tests are not reliable at all. Even though the

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result is negative the clild may have Down’s Syndrome. If the result of the test is positive, the expectant mother is offered amniocentesis, which carries the risk of a miscarriage. Moreover, the results take a long time and a false alarm can cause great distress (Santalahti et al. 1996). Kirsi Lallukka writes about her experiences of the maternal serum test: On my first visit to the maternity and child care centre I was given two information leaflets on prenatal testing. The first one was titled ‘Information on Prenatal Screening for Disabilities in Central Finland’, and the other ‘Information on the First Trisemester Ultrasound Screening’. The nurse suggested that I read the leaflets at home and then decide whether I want to have these tests taken. That was about all that was discussed about the subject. I asked how common it was to have these tests taken and the nurse replied that about eighty percent of women take part in the first test of the double screen. In the beginning of the pregnancy I was quite convinced that I was going to go to these tests. I thought that I had a right to be selfish. However, as the pregnancy advanced, I began to hesitate. In the end, I was only certain of the ultrasound screening. Me and my partner Pekka discussed the subject relentlessly, several questions revolved in our minds: now that we had made me pregnant on purpose, did we have the right to abortion if something was found in the tests, and if we ended up deciding for abortion, would we have the right to try again. What would happen if I gave birth to a disabled child and he or she would rather have not been born because of the suffering? What it is going to feel like, if I do not go to the tests and we do not find out about their results, whatever they are. Why is it that only certain kinds of children are welcome? How anyone is able to decide anything at all, when it is known that these tests are unreliable. How it is possible that we have this kind of system in such a wide use and it has not been publicly discussed? Or has it been discussed, but for some reason we have just missed the debate? I tried to share my worries with some relatives, but the subject made people notably uncomfortable. Some of my acquintances told me that they found the system humane in the end. They thought that it gives the parents a chance to get used to the idea of a disabled child and in this sense it works for the ‘benefit of the child’. Finally we decided that I should make the decision. I would go to the blood test and after that we would reconsider. However, that monday morning when I had my appointment to the laboratory, I got cold feet. I was in such a state of panic that I stopped twice on my way to the health care centre and was on the verge of turning back home. When I finally got to the centre I felt so ill that I only got to hand my referral to the receptionists before I fainted. So the blood test was taken in the end. After the test we had to wait for the result for a whole week. The practice is that the hospital only gets in contact with the patient if something out of the ordinary is found out. I could not just calmly wait for that week before the results came. I phoned several people asking them why it took so long and managed to annoy some of them quite badly in the process. When we finally got the result, we began to wonder

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what the three week waiting time for the results after the amniocentesis would feel like. I think that for me the worst thing about the waiting time would be knowing that all the time the child is growing, developing and getting stronger inside me. The body of a pregnant woman, her blood, urine, womb, amniotic fluid, etc. are used for several purposes without her necessarily knowing about it. Women are tested for HIV, their use of alcohol or drugs is tested, and based on these tests they are forced to change their behaviour or seek treatment. Anne Balsamo (1996: 99–111) writes about women who have suffered miscarriage and have been taken into court for the most fantastic of reasons. Although women have gained many rights concerning their body after the Second World War, their rights are diminishing in the field of reproduction. Paradoxically enough also that organinisation, maternity and child care centres, the aim of which has from the very beginning been the wellbeing of the mother, is the cause of anguish and distress. If some malformation is to be found in the baby there is very little to be done except abortion. Beck-Gersheim (1994) considers our need to know about the future child as a reflection of the society that has become more and more unstable. The society is marked by various risks; the balance of nature is faltering, the athmosphere and the climate is changing, and it has become increasingly difficult to predict changes in society. In Western countries the middle classes are growing, and the change has been particularly radical in Finland. A typical feature of the middle classes is the search for certainty and the tendency to eliminate elements that cause uncertainity in one’s life, another typical feature being the belief in knowledge and sience. On a personal level people want to increase control over their own lives. Over the recent years a new reason of uncertainity has emerged in Finnish society. There is no guarantee that the welfare state, the social security system and social services will survive. The cutbacks in health services have been more radical than in the other Nordic countries. Beck-Gernsheim sees a link between the increased will to be in control of one’s own life and parents’ will to know about their future child, even to manipulate the offspring. Beck-Gernsheim writes that in present-day Germany middleclass parents are required to get as much information about their future child as possible in advance in the name of ‘good parenthood’. This is the situation in Finland too. The official view of Down’s Syndrome foetuses, for example, is that the parents decide, but unofficially the doctors and nurses may recommend termination of the pregnancy (Puskala 1995: 40–3). There is relatively little cultural diversity in Finland and the country has even been called a monoculture. We have one dominant language as well as one dominant religion, the Swedish-speaking minority as well as gypsy and Lappish populations are small. In order to be able to deal with difference we need difference. The less we have what is called the diversity of life, strangers – people who represent different ethnic groups and cultures, who speak different languages, and have different social backgrounds, people who have different abilities, hopes and desires – the less tolerant we are to them (Kristeva 1991).

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Epilogue The focus of this paper is on such an organisation that produces maternity in the first place – when the mother is pregnant. This instutition, the maternal and child health care center, has (re)produced the wellbeing of mothers and children for decades. Evelyn Fox Keller (1990) has written about the way birth and life turn into death in the hands of scientists. ‘The scientists unravel the secrets of life’ when they study human genes or ‘they give birth to a healthy boy’ when they build an atom bomb. Acquiring detailed information about the unborn child is not as lethal as an atom bomb, but it does have its risks. People, mothers and fathers, want to protect themselves from any unnecessary risks, accidents, illnesses, injuries and abnormalities. At the same time as the ignorance and uncertainty concerning the foetus is supposed to diminish, is caused anguish, uncertainty and fear for the mother. Nobody seems to have enough power to stop the progress in technology and take the feelings of the mothers into consideration. Knowledge and knowing have been depicted in many ways. On the one hand, knowledge liberates, on the other, it restricts. Knowledge can be light in the dark, but it can also be used to control people. There are good and bad fruit in the tree of knowledge. On the one hand it protects life and saves mothers and children in risk, on the other hand it gives out information that is lethal for disabled or sick children. The Finnish society has got an effective tool in its use – the maternity and child health care services. Handing out information to parents expecting a child, especially to the emotionally vulnerable mother, is a highly ethical question. Unfortunately it has not been considered as one inside the maternity and child health care institutions. It seems that while pregnant, there is not a trace left of the mythical strong Finnish woman who is in charge of her own life and body. The Finnish woman appears invisible and mute in a manner similar to the women of the developing countries in studies by male anthropologists. Like Kirsi Lallukka, I too was left alone with my moral ponderings. Only later did I learn that 98 per cent of the women who find out they are expecting a disabled child terminate the pregnancy. I was told over and over again that it is up to me what I decide to do. I decided to have all the tests that were available. Most Finnish women do the same. The biomedicine is not only muting the mother but also the midwives and the health nurses, it is difficult for the latter to say anything that is in conflict with the obstetrics. If the midwife has got a view different from the leaflet she is handing to the client, it is best not to say a word. In the maternity centres two mute women encounter, the mother and the professonal nurse. And the script of the play is written somewhere else, more and more by biotechnical medicine. We cannot hold back the technology from progressing. However, my wish is that mothers would be more aware of where the new reproductive technology is taking us. Rosi Braidotti (1994: 41–56) argues that the aim of biotechnical medicine is to separate the human body from time and space – especially in the field of reproduction the bodies are becoming less attached to time and space. Body parts that are detachable are also replaceable. Nowadays it is not only possible to acquire semen and egg cells from a ‘bank’, a womb can be rented. In this supermarket of medicine, doctors, laboratory assistants, chemists, test-tubes,

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and freezers alongside with outpatient departments and operating theatres, provide the new leading characters and setting for reproduction, instead of the bedroom and other spaces of home. The rapid development of bio-power requires radical rethinking of various moral and ethical questions. Legislators face a set of completely new questions, unfortunately the law drags far behind the technology. During the summer and autumn of 1997 the rights of parents and babies have been discussed in the Finnish media because of a new law concerning artificial fertilisation. Questions concerning the screening of foetuses have not been taken up at all. I will briefly go back to my primary subject; the mother’s body in the light of biotechnical power. In Finland and in the other Nordic countries the resources allotted to public health care are decreasing. More and more funds are invested in biotechnical medicine at the same time as budgets of maternity and health care centres have been cut. The shift in allocation of resources means that mothers are being used more and more as guinea-pigs for biotechnical medicine. And thus pregnant mothers and women wishing to conceive will be subjected to ever-increasing amounts of tests, visits to hospitals and laboratories. However, the path that has been chosen is damaging to women’s autonomy. All that feminists have demanded (and maybe achieved) is in danger of disappearing in the tangled paths of laboratories.

Notes 1 This article was read and commented on by my colleague Kirsi Lallukka. Also, as the reader will note, she told about her experiences of the so-called double-screen. Intially my idea was to write this article in the form of a dialogue; however, that was not possible because of limited resources. My warm thanks to Kirsi for her help. 2 My daughter disagrees with me about my interpretation of the letter or rather with my anti-technology view. Nowadays she thinks that knowing about the twins before the labour was worth the short shock during and after the ultrasound.

References Apo, S. (1995) Naisen väki. Tutkimuksia suomalaisten kansanomaisesta ajattelusta ja kulttuurista, Helsinki: Hanki ja Jää. Balsamo, A. (1996) Technologies of the Gendered Body. Reading Cyborg Women, Durham and London: Duke University Press. Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1994) ‘Gesundheit und Verantwortung im Zeitalter der Gentechnologie’, in U. Beck und E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds) Riskante Freiheiten, Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschaften, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamph, pp. 316–35. Bourdieu, P. (1990) Photography. A Middle-Brow Art, Oxford: Blackwell. Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, New York: Columbia University Press. Brunsson, N. (1993) ’Reforms as Routine’, in N. Brunsson and J.P. Olsen (eds) The Reforming Organizations, London: Routledge, pp. 33–47. Cartwright, L. (1995) Screening the Body. Tracing Medicine’s Visual Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. de Beauvoir, S. (1988) The Second Sex, London: Pan Books. de Marneffe, D. (1991) ‘Looking and Listening: The Construction of Clinical Knowledge in Charcot and Freud’, Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17(5): 71–102.

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Eräsaari, L. (1995) ‘Hyvän ja pahan tiedon puun hedelmä lasta odottaessa’, in R. ReinikkaTevalin (ed.) Sikiödiagnostiikka – näkökulmia, Tampere: Kehitysvammaisten tukiliiton IKI-instituutti: pp. 28–33. Eräsaari, L. (1997) ‘Sikiö ruudussa’, in E. Jokinen (ed.) Ruumiin siteet. Kirjoituksia eroista, järjestyksistä ja sukupuolesta, Tampere: Vastapaino. Foucault, M. (1986) The Birth of the Clinic. An Archaeology of Medical Perception, London: Routledge. Franklin, Sa. (1996). Embodied Progress. A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception, London: Routledge. Keller, E. F. (1990) ‘From Secrets of Life to Secrets of Death’, in M. Jacobus, E.F. Keller and S. Shuttleworth (eds) Body/Politics. Women and the Discourse of Science, London: Routledge. Koskela, H. (1999) Fear, Control and Space: Geographies of Gender, Fear of Violence and Video Surveillance, Helsinki: Helsingin yliopiston maantieteen laitoksen julkaisuja, A137. Kristeva, J. (1991) Strangers to Ourselves, New York: Columbia University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1989 orig. 1978) Myth and Meaning, London: Routledge. Lundin, S. (1996) ‘Power over the Body’, in S. Lundin and L. Åkesson (eds) Bodytime. On the Interaction of Body, Identity, and Society, Lund: Lund University Press. Okely, J. (1997) ‘Women Readers: Other Utopias and Own Bodily Knowledge’, in Own or Other Culture, London: Routledge, pp. 115–38. Plummer, K. (1983) Documents of Life. An Introduction to the Problems and Literature of a Humanistic Method, London: Unwin. Puskala, R. (1995) ‘Marika’, in R. Reinikka-Tevalin (ed.) Sikiödiagnostiikka – näkökulmia, Tampere: Kehitysvammaisten tukiliiton IKI-instituutti: pp. 40–3. Rose, J. (1983) ‘Femininity and its Discontents’, Feminist Review, Summer, 5–22. Rose, H. (1994) Love, Power and Knowledge. Towards a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences, Cambridge: Polity Press. Saetnan, A.R. (1994) ‘Ultrasonic Tales. Gendered Controversies in the Construction of Ultrasound, Obstetrics, and Pregnancy’, unpublished paper at 2nd European Feminist Research Conference. Feminist Perspectives on Technology, Work and Ecology, July 5–9 1994 Graz/Austria. Santalahti, P., Latikka, A., Ryynänen,M. and Hemminki, E. (1996) ‘Women’s Experiences of Prenatal Serum Screening’, Birth 23(2): 101–7. Smart, C. (1989) Feminism and the Power of Law, London: Routledge. Suomalainen, S. (1997) ‘Tahaton lapsettomuus: Näkymätön menetys’, unpublished MA Thesis, University of Jyväskylä. Tagg, J. (1988) The Burden of Representation. Essays on Photographies and Histories, Hong Kong: Macmillan Education. Turunen, R. (1996a) ‘Asuinpaikka: äiti. Reproduktiivisen teknologian ihmeellinen maailma’, in Vanhemmuuksia, University of Helsinki: Yksityisoikeuden laitoksen julkaisuja 45. Turunen, R. (1996b) ‘Ultrasound Technology and Women’s Reproductive Freedom’, in Harriet Silius och Sirpa Wrede (ed.) Moderskap och reproduktion. Möjligheter och marginaler, Institutet för kvinnoforskning vid Åbo Akademi. Ulvila, M. (1995) ‘Learning with the Villagers. An Account of a Participatory Research in Uluguru Mountains’ Tansania’, unpublished MA Thesis, University of Tampere. Valvanne, L. (1986) Rakkautta pyytämättä. Valtakunnankätilö muistelee, Helsinki: Tammi. Vertiö, H. (1995) ‘Seulonnat lääketieteellisenä toimintamallina’, in Päivi Santalahti (ed.) Näkökulmia sikiöseulontoihin, Helsinki: Stakes, Aiheita 21: 13–17. Wrede, S. (1996) ‘The Notion of Risk in Finnish Prenatal Care: Managing Risk Mothers and Risk Pregnancies’, in Eliane Riska (ed.) Images of Women’s Health. The Social Construction of Gendered Health, Publications of the Institute of Women’s Studies at Åbo Akademi.

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12 Triptychs of curating Conversations with mothers of the in-between Pierre Guillet de Monthoux1

Triptych 1 [A sunny afternoon in the year 2000 on Kollwitzplatz, Berlin in company of Frau P. Small talk about her life in art over a cup of tea. Met Frau P. quarter of a century ago when east was East and west was West –- in the late 1970s in Berlin. We met in a new café called Einstein. Frau P. had then graduated from the Berlin west Art Academy. She fell under the spell of Flux, Beuys. Vienna actionist Otto Muehl had his AAO people preach the death of family and advocate free love. Frau P., I recall, was a real painter and I enjoy her painting very much. Now we talk about her actual position. For a decade she had managed a non-profit art space in the centre of Berlin. The space is not really a gallery, or a public museum. It does not operate commercially, and it gets no public money either. Her space is run as a Kunstverein and financed through a foundation that owns the house where it is situated. Its budget is covered by rent from other tenants. I am curious about her career. About someone gaining respect for furthering art in a third position between the private and the public. I am curious to listen to this inspiring person that always shows me new things in Berlin while providing me with her personal, well-informed views on the contemporary art scene. How can you manage both difficult artists and rigid members of the board in such a good natured and kind manner?] Centrepiece – independence I recall when a painter friend got in touch with a pharmaceutical firm from Japan. They made heart drugs and wanted my friend to paint something with a heart on it. One day they simply phoned her up; came to her studio. They paid her DM 50,000 and time passed by. Finally five months later she phoned me up and I went to her studio. She had done nothing on the commission yet. We sat down and talked it through. That was how it all started. Since then I regularly coach her in connection with many of her commissions. She takes them seriously; you have to, when you are paid those sums. And she needs the money badly. She also needs to talk things over with someone she trusts, who would be both honest and critical. We have developed a special relationship over the years. We are very close. We were both at the Academy, although we became friends when working

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Figure 12.1

This is what Maja Guillet de Monthoux, with slight assistance from Pierre Jacques Guillet de Monthoux, delivered once she became confident that the Second World War was over and done with . . .

as extras in the Schaubühne Theatre. We were in the reception and had long hours for talking while the show was on. Now we talk in her studio and I have also put her on the board of my Art Association. I often come to her studio when she works at the easel. Give hands-on advice on what to do, what to paint, what colour to choose even. We brainstorm in her studio. But this has become difficult recently. She brings in jobs and I am more or less helping her do them. You come to a point where you feel that what you do deserves some recompense. We talked through most of the major jobs she did for fashion houses, watchmakers, and department stores. I helped her plan them. When I brought that up, she was cross and our friendship was tested severely. She considers that she does all the work by herself. It is actually her nanny that assists her in the studio, cleaning and so on. She was honestly cross when I brought up the subject. As if friendship completely excluded transactions or even rewards. I feel it is wrong. I have heard about writers paying cash to pay those who provide them with fertile ideas. How could anyone work in isolation? Artists cannot have all the ideas themselves. Creativity takes support and help. Not even van Gogh, the artist everyone regards as a solitary, lonely genius, was unsupported. Just scratch the surface of this false image of the romantic solitary

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artist, and you will find friends, acquaintances, mentors, supporters and other relations. Without his art-dealing brother we would never have heard of Vincent. Without a supportive father Picasso would never have developed. Would Giacometti have ever been able to realise a show without a brother? Who would have heard of Dali without the advice of Miro, the writings of Breton, the friendship with Lorca, the cooperation with Bunuel and the money and networking of the Duke and Duchess de Noialles? Where would Marcel Duchamp be without André Breton, the Arensberg couple, his two sculpting and painting brothers, Peggy Guggenheim or Katherine Dreier? Art history does support the myth of lone wolf, but also teaches lessons of friendship, respect, networking, relations and inspiration. All comparison apart, this is what my friendship with this painter is about too. I remember once my friend had another commission. On this occasion we sat together chatting and she wore this magnificent golden piece of jewelry. It suddenly struck me that she should use gold paint, which she did with tremendous success. Simple as that: an idea flashed up in small talk. She painted in gold pigments on the wall she was asked to decorate. She used different reddish gold pigments that gave it a wonderful glow. I was happy about it, but at the same time could not help feeling annoyed that she never recognised my help and support. Maybe she did not realise, for usually she is rather generous. It is anyway highly problematic. My little story is important, I think, because it indicates a classic problem in the art world where I live. As a painter I know from my own experience that artists consider themselves superior to others. This superiority is part of our own self-confidence and it pollutes the relationship with those who assist and help us. On the other hand artists are dependent upon respect shown them by others. You simply cannot work with an artist without feeling respect for her. In an ordinary job there are formal proofs of authority, degrees, ranks in a hierarchy or organisational positions to protect someone and remind others to show respect. In the art world it has to work without such formalities and regulations. All the same, the artist depends on others. Just as a politician needs a ghostwriter, so artists need an entourage of supporters, mentors and coaches to assist them. But the position of these people, as well as that of the artist, is informal, subtle and vulnerable. I feel this now that I find myself no longer painting. As a painter I did not grasp it, but today, on the other side of the counter so to speak, I work in this sometimes awkward position. In other words: I have discovered the use and function of management, something we were certainly never taught in the Academy in my day. On the other side, my background makes me appreciate the situation of artists. I was one myself. You are under pressure, both externally and from your own ambition. You have to believe to explore something new, to be pioneer, to be the first. You have also to be accurate, ambitious, and capable of learning. A work of art cannot be the fruit of chance; you must be able to redo a drawing tomorrow that you did today even if you claim yourself a Flux artist inspired by random Cage or lazy Duchamp. The reason I find myself in the position I am today, the reason why I am not an artist today, has to do with this. Aggressive ambition and

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technical precision are not my cup of tea. Over the years I realised that I lack such ambition and, I am sad to say, that I cannot draw, as I really wanted. I think I share my technical shortcomings with my generation of artists. It is the tragic consequence of the limitation of Western art education. Today I realise that if you want to be an artist you cannot rely on emotions, whims or luck alone, contrary to what people believed and what we were taught. Only those with conservative masters or who come from artist families with a solid craft tradition have really made it despite art school. For an art student like me, having neither such a master nor an artist family, it took fifteen years to realise that I should take another position in the art world. I had to redefine my role myself. Find something important to contribute that matched the art world’s need of care and management and that was in tune with me as a woman and respectful lover of art and artists. What do I do then? It took so long for me to find what to do. I wanted to become as good as Picasso; I felt I wanted to be a great painter. But I was perhaps simply not good enough; I was no Picasso, no Baselitz. Or, at least, I was not as focused on stardom and myself. When I came across someone talented, I always admired them and supported them even at the expense of my own art. But I can still take art seriously; I can help artists, perhaps mainly by being honest to them. When I took up this job I suddenly found myself confronting artists in my new role. At first, I often found them pretentious and arrogant. Sometimes I was even shocked by their way of doing art. I recall this Russian artist in the early 1990s seriously offering me three different collections of paintings in different styles; it was for me as curator to pick the one I liked. Today I try not to judge, but still sometimes you have to be honest. For instance I went to visit an artist in her thirties, a very critical age in such a career. Oh, it was all such a sad story. Her entire production consisted of painted squares, carreaux. On a table in the studio I noticed some magazines with photographs of that sort of thing too. It was obvious where she had picked up the idea. She came from the provinces, had not a clue that this was old hat. Then she asked me to tell the truth, to tell her what I thought about her work. Would I like to put on an exhibition for her? There was a painful silence in the studio, the moment of truth. She kept on insisting that I tell her my true opinion of her work. I told her that probably she knew inside herself what it was all worth. That was all I said. Why be cruel? As we parted she thanked me for my honesty. She was almost crying; someone else might have committed suicide. This is such a terrible job. As an independent art presenter, I have a fixed salary and budget and do not depend on sales; I have slowly found a special niche in our local art world. You know in this world the little-known painters seldom get any feedback. They crave for attention and nobody says anything. Few write, and I must admit we have problems getting reviews too. You may stay in your studio for months, painting alone, hungering for attention. But I can help them in other ways. It is difficult for them, especially at a certain age when you can no longer make contacts yourself; in our world you have to be introduced by someone else. A young artist can knock on doors and show their slides and videos. Young artists support their own generation and help each other too. To try to connect my place to them I

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have opened a part of our art space to young guest curators who can do a number of shows with a small budget for period of a year; then I ask another one usually suggested by the departing person. This is my trick to keep links with new generations without intruding or trying to impose our values on younger people. Younger artists help each other: they network. But if you are a middle-aged artist it does not work like that. You must have a collector or a gallery operating on your behalf. The lesser-known artists are not organised like Baselitz or Immendorf, who have their galleries handle everything and usually also have assistants helping them paint. Sometimes such famous artists agree to have a show, but in fact their galleries are the ones planning for them and often they turn you down. The show, they think, does not fit in with the career of the artist or in his schedule. Galleries work for the star system of art. Their job is to make the artists into world stars; but that was never my inclination and I am not in a position to contribute anything to fulfil such ambitions. I would not be a good dealer, because I don’t believe in the star system. Mind you, I accept it and respect their job, but I define my mission as being to present a broad spectrum of art, not only the stars. I want to show women artists and interesting work that might be difficult to see in commercial galleries. A gallery moreover has to specialise and focus on a group of artists, on a special kind of art. I could not spend my entire life with the wild Berlin painters, for example. I also like realism or design. I feel that constructivism, surrealism, dada and other tendencies have always in fact existed in parallel. The same thing today: art is plural, there are many tendencies. This is the situation I want my space to present: to play around among various tendencies and different personalities. I want to open a window to the broad manifold. But having a gallery forces you to choose, to focus on a few, for business reasons mainly. I think this way of working is rooted in my childhood. Not wanting to be a star artist, or to specialise as a gallerist; maybe it is all a matter of my upbringing. I had the impression that I should make art for pleasure, not for making money. I was brought up in the 1950s when women were just about moving out into the labour market. You should become a housewife. But that was long, long ago. Have you noticed the TV cooks? They are all men, women can’t cook anymore, they have forgotten all the old recipes. Now they have a career. My mother was a real Hausfrau; took care of the soup, the main course, the linen, the porcelain, everything. Who shops, prepares, cooks today? Who has the energy for it? You go to the restaurant and experience a meal. It has become entertainment. I did not even think of jobs, careers, when I took up this position ten years ago. The art space is called the ‘Haus’, so I am still a kind of Hausfrau, but for art and artists. I want to bring life to a sleeping organisation. We often cook together; in the summers we eat out in the garden and now there is even a nightclub in the house if we feel like having a drink. My Hausfrau project is an aesthetic project, not a job. Now, perhaps, I look at it as a means to earn my living. I have, over the years, acquired some professionalism in this job and in handling both artists and the board of the foundation that runs the gallery. But I do work very differently than I did at first in one respect: I realise the importance of exchanges.

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In the beginning I recall the visit by a very important art collector and former gallery owner, whom we would have needed in our network. He is one of the main figures of contemporary art, so I was very happy about his visit. He came with a project in mind; he wanted to suggest a show of one of his Fluxus friends. What happened? I told him we wanted to present younger artists and that it would therefore be better if he considered someone younger. He left and never came back; today I would have handled it very different. If someone important approaches you, you have to listen and if possible accept what is offered. Otherwise you are alone and nobody will help you, because it is always a matter of exchanges. You show someone who has been suggested and you will get support for your own ideas later on. This is the kind of barter the art world rest on. Artists work alone; they see themselves, mainly for psychological reasons, as solitaries. But if you are managing in this kind of world you have to realise that it’s basically about networking. Even solitaries depend on others. An artist has to work every day. Every day someone, his wife, his chauffeur or someone else has to wake him up and urge, beg, command him to work, to give his genius to humanity. We all encourage the lonely artist’s fighting spirit, even this strange form of sometimes brutal smartness. I must admit that before I took up this position, I had a very naïve idea of art, an idealistic conception you can no longer maintain: that art and commerce occupied separate domains. I clearly see the dominance of men in the art world and this is because men know that it is about career and money, while women still, maybe, cling to the old dualism. Here again those of my generation are marked by this false, artificial separation of art and commerce. For us in Germany it was reinforced, not to say conditioned, by the Berlin Wall. The dualistic propaganda was a matter of cold war ideology. Art became political; the whole discourse that developed over the series of Documentas in Kassel was a political one. I recall for instance the battle between critical realism and photorealism. This was no doubt a clash between communism and capitalism. We, the art students, were caught up in this cold war debate. We wanted to be political but, at the same time, we were heavily manipulated on a scale that we only realised after 1989. The result was a lost generation that learnt nothing. During the s1960s we in Europe spent our time demonstrating, fighting the windmills of ideology. We had passion – nothing more. Some future big names retired from the public arena, or went to the States where they could develop their craft under the protection of pop art. That was how Baselitz, Polke or Immendorff could develop. Instead of the ideology of conflict, they opted for an ideology of success. My generation, inspired by Beuys and others, thought canvas, easel and brushes were hopelessly outdated. So we quit painting, we drew in the spontaneous emotional way of Dieter Roth or the Fluxus movement. Fluxus was the peaceful playful continuation of violent Dada; but it was also a radical movement against commercial painting. Bueys was part of that but he pushed it further, much further. He used art to design models for socio-political action and you can say that he actually invented the Green Party. Like Einstein who could not prove his theories, Bueys used imagination; he probably did not understand or intel-

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lectually grasp what he was doing. This fantasising is what is lacking not only in politics but also in management. It has to do with intuition and the way you rely on that and help others to rely on it. Take for instance when I have to make a speech for an opening in my art space. I was an artist, and very shy and timid. I am not a speaker. In order to prepare my little speeches for the openings I often go to museums or other art shows. I then rely on my intuition to bring me to something important. I just stop before a work that I feel is good for me. Something generating energy that I can tap for my work. The same thing happens in my home or in my office. In search for an idea for my speech I roam around the piles of books in my flat and the stuff I have collected over the years. An art space is an empty space, but next to that space there is my office and my home. They have to support my inspiration and give me confidence to rely on my intuition. So when I go home in the night I might, for instance, grab a book out of the pile. I open it up, and have it speak to me. I know that I can trust my intuition. It is my only certainty; the only secure foundation for my kind of management. I think this is a matter of biology, the difference between genders. Men don’t trust their intuition, they calculate and think. That was why Beuys said he liked stupid people or claimed that he thought with his knee, not his head. There is a beauty to this difference of genders, for without men we would have no washing machines. But they cannot let things come to them. They cannot have things playfully fly to them, come without effort, like a gift. Intuition to me is about the simple, the lighthearted, a childish feeling. There is no feeling of property accumulation, of effort and labour. There is not even a feeling of being good, or being proud. That simple, light feeling is my only gift. Intuition. Art is also about giving gifts. When I sold a piece of art recently I told the buyer to give DM 3,000 of the total price of 10,000 to Greenpeace. But I never want to steal, I make things together with others, like Leporellos I ask artist friends to cooperate. I have several such projects in the mail art tradition. I sent sets of drawing around to groups of artist friends asking them to contribute to the whole in their own way. Such projects are based on applied altruism. I know that some artists feel happy about being clever and making a joke, poking fun at their audience. This is cynicism, which is a kind of intellectual exercise. No, nothing for me, I am too stupid to be cynical. Stupidity is my capital. Left – the office [Her office is situated in the same house as the art space. It is made up of two separate sections; one where her two assistants work, and the other her own room, which is actually almost in the gallery space. That is where artists come to visit her. It is a room full of artwork by many women artists like Elvira Bach, Christa Näher, Marina Abramovic, Nikki de St Phalle, Ursula Brither, Hedwig Bollhagen, Renate von Brehmen, Nathalie Thomkins, Betty Stürmer and others. There is always fresh coffee or tea on the table, served by the assistants. Many of the objects, books, catalogues, paintings, and drawings belong to the house collection she has acquired. All objects have their very special stories.]

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This is a painting by a welder working for one of my friends who is a sculptor. He lives in Italy and works with ceramics. The welder helped him install his ceramics oven but he also paints. My desk here is designed out of an armoured glass windowpane with a bullet hole. It was the window of a Munch bank that was robbed in 1964. I don’t like this desk anymore. I find it too destructive, too kaput. Why such destroyed objects? Why this one. What is the meaning? And there must be a meaning! It is not enough that it is fun, clever or sexy. Meaning, fine nuances, the subtle, the gentle, is very important Under a reproduction of the classical hare by Dürer, again a piece in honour of draftsmanship, you find the text for an object called Russian Folklore; from 1986, by a feminist artist a score in red wool with Cyrillic text on the music stand over here. It is, as you can see a score wrapped up in red woolen yarn, I find it fun this red thread and in-between you can see the texts, covered, hidden by red wool. And on the wall here you see a box with miniature buckets, I bought it for the tiny small buckets. What does it mean? You see my earrings, do you see that they are small buckets too? Like the ones in this art work, but in gold; that’s why I bought it, simply. Cute eh . . . This picture is made out of ceramics, made by an Australian born ceramist. Notice this work: what skill! This vase is another object from the same workshop but by another artist. They know but hate each other. Their work is so different. A craftsman taught by one of the few famous Bauhaus ceramists still alive made this piece. The vase is huge, as you can see, decorated in a somewhat oldfashioned way, but a marvellous piece of craftsmanship; it’s wonderful. Over here I have an Opening invitation to ‘After the Dance’ by Matisse. It’s one of an edition of 1,500 only. Today it’s a collector’s piece. Here is cup decorated by X, a book cover by Y; here is a photo of a Z picture bought by curator W, a photo sold by C for only 700 DM, a little booklet by a young woman painter B, I would soon like to expose. Forceful and original, don’t you think? And here another piece of ceramic: which looks like metal, and here a book all made of clay. This picture inspired by club culture with neon, disco and DJs. The artist works like that; she stays away from success-oriented art markets. Over here an invitation to a show with an artist who recently died and had been a friend of Man Ray, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Magritte. He started out as a gallerist, was a very wealthy man. I saw his work first in Max Ernst’s house in Fayence, and then in 1982 on the Documenta. But I never met him; his last trip to Europe was in 1965, I think. He was an outsider, only known by a few people in the art world. He did not leave a large number of works. Today, art scholars are about to include him in history. Here a reproduction of the daughter of a famous painter. Her work is less known but at least as interesting as that of her father. I love her landscapes. You can smell the cornfield, like on a van Gogh painting. I exhibited her, her father and 400 works by the whole family in 1994. This is one of my ideas: to show groups of artists like families or master classes. I want to make my audience realise the interaction and, sometimes too, the male domination in highly talented families where the women have acquired much less fame. I also asked the family

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A from the former GDR; mother, father, two sons and more. But they did not want it. We are no artist family, they said, it is just merely coincidence that we all paint. OK, I said candidly, then let us make a show out of that; of this lucky coincidence that you all paint. We want to document that. But they still refused. I have several such shows in the pipeline. Those about families are often highly problematic to prepare. There are lots of tensions underneath the nice surface of a creative family life in art. Those who are in the shadow of others, men and women, parents and children, applied artists like designers or architects, and fine pure artists like painters or sculptors. Three of the master class shows with students from Berlin, Frankfurt and Braunschweig were headed by women professors all working in very different ways. Mothers fostering their kids differently and with varying degrees of insight, wisdom and concern. Right – the home [There are many mothers in art. Was Gertrud Stein a mother for her artists? Mutter Ey was legendary caring mother in Germany around the same avantgarde period. My friend in Berlin is not really motherly in this caring way but her art space is always full of guests. The artists exhibiting tend to turn up often during the period of the shows. The office kitchen is often full at lunchtime. In her annexe, the so called studio gallery, she keeps her kind of kindergarten, the protected space for the younger artists still often studying at the academy. She gives away this space on a one year basis to guest curators. In the main space, she has ‘Gastgeberinnen’, women politicians, scholars, artists, who host shows and explain their relationship to the art on exhibit in nice lectures and unpretentious gatherings. In her private flat, situated on the top floor of the building her home is full of traces of a life in art. The library, the chests for drawings, the walls and floors are full of art pieces that not only awaken memories, but also link creativity to current questions and topics.] I feel that art and design are mixed and blur a lot. An artist decorates my hallway and kitchen, the same one doing the landscape pictures in the office and over there on the wall. She spent one week here and also painted my bathroom. I gave her total freedom and she did a lovely job, I think. She came with her partner who has recently retired from his job and taken up tapestry work. He made the pillow over there. I like it, but can’t help thinking that he somewhat intrudes in her creative space. Why should he do tapestry? Maybe I am wrong, but it is almost that it has to do with this male urge to compete. Perhaps he should rather do something different and let her expand her talent. I really admire her skills, she is really a painter. She knows her craft as I longed to know it. What we in the 1960s lost she got from her parents; the family became her master class. On the wall you see a little picture I got as a gift. Many things I got by barter. This one I paid with one of my drawings and the big clay urn over there I bartered against a pair of shoes. The sculpture over there is a tree with a colourful

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snake on it. An Italian mason made it. When he is out of building jobs he makes objects like that. You can order your animal and he makes it for you. I met the mason and asked him to make a tree- snake for me. Over here there is a portrait of Franco by a Fluxus artist; it’s a thorny leaf cast in Plexiglas. In 1966 he was the first one to make such portraits. And there you have a painting we once exhibited. It had been previously shown in Centre Pompidou and I got a loan to acquire it. In the little wooden box you have a little bag with plaster knocked down from the walls of a gallery in Berlin that was moved to New York in 1979. On the last day everyone who came to the gallery could buy a signed bag for 30 DM. Today they are collector’s items, but just guess how many came to this finissage in 1979? Not more than 30. And here a picture, by me. I painted it in 1971, I then painted mountains and in 1992 I brought home a tablecloth from Greece with a checkered pattern. So then I took my old picture and covered it with this grid of carreaux. And this teapot from Copenhagen I love, Royal Copenhagen porcelain and the Bauhaus bowl here. My wine glasses are all Mexican and behind you see a piece from a porcelain firm that went for artist signature design after 1989. And they have indeed survived, thanks to their artists. The ceramic object here is designed after one of my drawings. It is very strange in shape, don’t you think? I can’t help it, but ceramics, and design really fascinate me today; the older I get the more art turns into a physical, practical thing. How do you like the Janus head on the table and the print on the wall? Next to the picture of a huge Amazon penetrated by arrows, the female St Sebastian, you see a stitched goblin by one of strangest women artists in Berlin. It is her homage to me, she calls it: La Puta.

Triptych 2 Right – the gallery [This young friend, Madame R, happened to cross my path when I was wondering about what art management could be in practice. I had just read somewhere that Christo Javacheff prided himself on not having an assistant and at the same time claiming that all management for the Christo Corporation was done by Jeanne-Claude, his wife and lover as he put it himself. Co-signing their work as Christo and Jeanne Claude was the consequence of this. But what if you are not part of the family. What does it mean to assist someone in art if it is not about technical work? Art today is indeed technically complex, but still the work of art is different from manufacturing products, building houses or printing books. We engaged in a conversation about the role of management in art and the place that it can have in the career of famous artists. The story became a second Triptych with a woman a generation younger than the first, with, it seems, different views on art but not so much on her place in the art world. This makes it a Triptych. For here too the problem is to find a third in-between position from where to influence your own life and manage that of others, in a way helping art evolve.]

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I studied business administration in Amsterdam, Holland; then I worked on public contemporary art. This kind of art is usually large and rather expensive. One day I had the opportunity to work with an American conceptual artist in his mid fifties. He asked me to run a studio for him in Belgium that he had opened recently and later to help him with his New York studio; I ran back and forth for several years. I learnt a lot and worked a lot. He is rather famous as one of the founders of conceptual art in the 1960s; art that shifted from focusing the object to the idea. A piece of art as such has no value – the idea counts. There are roots back to Marcel Duchamp singing the ready-mades he bought in hardware stores: Duchamp was the chess master of John Cage, whose wife Xenia helped Duchamp in the early 1950s manufacture the small boxes he sold as miniature museums containing mini copies of most of his artwork. That was his way of duplicating his original objects while making a meagre living on the sales of editions of boxes. Duchamp preached against the ‘retinal fixation’ of art. For conceptual art, which came ten years later, texts and theory are the starting points. Visually it is site specific, dealing with the architecture and the space. The trademark of my artist has since been works with texts, using quotations by writers as material. Citations are his ready-mades. So for this kind of art, the physical objects have no value per se, and the way he sold it was by certificate. This I think was his quite revolutionary idea. While Duchamp signed ready-mades, he made artwork with citations and issued certificates of authenticity. Conceptual art is about the idea, about the meaning of art, and it is not about the actual piece. In the beginning, in the 1960s and 1970s, it did not matter if the object was worthless. This was actually a central proposition; life in its entirety was art and it was pointless to single out or monopolise on pieces of life and turn them into commercial goods. In the early 1960s the artists were all young, just beginning to exhibit, and nobody bought this sort of work anyway. But it was vain to try to keep it pure, business is a part of life too and therefore it sneaked into this happy paradise. So at one point Leo Castelli, the white cube innovator of the New York art scene showing Johns and Warhol, picked it up. Suddenly conceptual art became a hype, and collectors wanted to buy. At that time, my artist was only 23 and found himself making lots of money. The problem was that this art was not signed. Only Castelli, the gallery, was a brand, and the pieces of art remained wares under his brand. The wares were not even products; they were combines and set-ups, using various materials and media. My artist, for instance, worked with texts on walls, billboards, neon etc. As long as the brand of the gallery backed it, everything was fine; but what happened if it did not? How could the artist himself sell? So he started making certificates. Take an object such as the neon work; anybody can make those. You can just go to a neon company and ask them to remake it. I can do it, you can do it, which was part of the whole idea Duchamp had launched. On several occasions Duchamp had friends buy their own bottle racks or urinals he would sign later. In the 1960s my artist seldom did the work himself; he had silkscreen done for him, for example. He split up mind from matter, keeping a firm link by this new kind of document. The value of the work then became the certificate. The

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certificates, not the physical objects, are signed, titled and dated. So if he sells a work it always comes with a certificate that used to be a hand written paper, or a production drawing, with a signature and a date. Now they are mostly being designed on the computer. It gives the title and its date and is issued only when the work is sold, never before or after. If you don’t have a certificate, the work has no value; you have to know this as a buyer because the artist would hardly ever reissue a new certificate to an old work. He signs them all, and he embosses the paper with a new embosser each year and the signature over it, so that you can’t really forge it. In the beginning, with what is known as the ‘Definition Pieces’ which are silk-screens of blown up words from a dictionary, he made signed certificates with the original cutting glued to small pieces of board, like a drawing. Later the certificates became a separate entity linked to the object by a quasi-legal bond. The certificates for old work deposited somewhere are kept in his safe. Certificates of destroyed or vanished objects are also kept locked up. So the value lies in the little piece of paper; which is sometimes hard to understand for collectors. Our job was to inform about this and, if possible, enforce it on the market. Physical works can always be reproduced, because drawings still exist with the size, the scale, and the font, so that any neon maker can remake it. Anyone owning a work can easily repair it or rebuild it if they want. But when they sell it, it must go with a certificate – this was his great innovation whereby he was able to found his studio. The certificate was the basis from which his studio could challenge the power of the galleries. The firm I was supposed to run rested entirely on these pieces of paper. For we made both the work and issued the certificates. So when we met, he decided he wanted a studio in Europe too. This was in 1993 and for the Venice Biennale that year they wanted to skip the nationalist idea; Americans were showing a French artist and in the pavilion of the country his parents were from, they picked him, a second generation American, as their Biennale artist. This was a very prestigious show and the work was very complicated, as we had to transport materials as well as translate the texts he had chosen to use. He had picked an Italian writer not one from the country that invited him to do their pavilion. Which was, of course, not too popular a decision. In addition, he wanted ironical citations from newspaper clippings in the language of the pavilion, which we did not understand and therefore had to get translated by a crew of students. All his work is of that kind and demands lots of research and coordination. You spend much time reading books and journals, fishing for quotes and citations for each project. When I started to work for my artist in the early 1990s, he had only done one public installation, in France. But after the art market crashed, more artists moved into this kind of market where galleries had less and less influence. Galleries still count a lot for those making images and objects. Artists working like photographers shooting pictures they have developed in a lab only keeping archives of their stock in the computer still use galleries. But most artists today need another kind of organisation. They have returned to the old workshop model by founding studios. You need a studio to design and assemble installations and the studio implies a new way of working. A gallery is only a marketing

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organisation and cannot handle complex productions of installations over which the artist must keep complete control. Galleries have a short-term, commercial outlook. They have little sense of long-term investment. Galleries thinking in terms of money would never bother putting on an exhibition show in a poor country without collectors. Besides, installations cost so much to produce that artists feel it is pointless to pay a gallery that does nothing its regular commission of 50 per cent on sales. In addition, galleries usually have so many artists that they have no time left for marketing public installations. Artists also have bad experiences, like galleries not telling them when they sell work, storing work correctly or even keeping accurate inventories. Galleries are very hard to control, you end up not knowing where your work is, or whether it is lost, destroyed or simply sold without paying the artist. So artists must always keep records themselves, and put updated inventories on the computer. Finally, sales by auction are on the increase, which in turn makes the galleries into a questionable outlet of art. There are many reasons why artists today are moving away from galleries and establishing their own businesses. Today, maybe too late, some galleries like Hauser and Wirth recognise this trend. The Zürich gallery employs three assistants to take better care of their artists. But it is the studios and not the galleries that land big installation contracts. Left – the studio [We met and talked for over a year, usually I went by her place around breakfast. She made nice strong coffee and had a smoke, which I really did not mind, although I am not a smoker myself. Her husband was running an art magazine with very interesting stuff and lots of managerial hassle. They were also doing projects together and on one occasion we met in Italy, where they were planning a show next year. They travelled a lot and on our last phone chat she told me I had called her in Germany where she was on an assignment for the next Documenta, while her husband was concretising the Italian show, trying to save the journal and doing a number of other things I cannot recall.] The actual production always happened on site and in different media like stone, neon, silk-screen. Christo, for instance, works with fabric and has done so for the past decades but we used various kinds of media. As he was doing about ten big shows on an average a year, there was lots of work. In addition there were smaller exhibitions and book projects. We had to hire extra people and technical personnel on site. So we worked with Jetlag in Paris, one of the specialised firms that can do any kind of installation and are very good from neon to silk-screen to other productions. They work for many different artists like Boltanski, Graham and for museums. The routine part of my work was more about psychology. You sometimes function as a shrink, spending hours on the phone hearing about personal details that may be boring or you don’t want to know. But this is part of the trust an artist wants to have when he works with someone, so it extends to your personal life. When I worked in Belgium my artist and his wife were foreigners and we spent a

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lot of time together. Psychology is however also important for technical matters like how an artist reacts to deadlines, if they care. It was very stressful; you sometimes worked for 24 hours. And it was financially very insecure. In the 1970s conceptual art was very successful; then in the 1980s painting came back and it was very hard for conceptual artists. I gather it must have been like that for Duchamp too when the abstract expressionists were popular after the war and Dada was forgotten for a long time. But that was before I started to work in the studio. When I started a new generation of young artists were coming into the art market. They wanted to do something different to that in the 1980s and turned to my artist who became their hero. So in the n1990s things were picking up again. He was suddenly asked by young curators to put on exhibitions, by which you can tell if things are moving in the right direction. As he is theoretical, he always had an academic market. In Germany they love him, not so much in France. My kind of position was not so clear and there were things I felt had to be changed. When moving to New York I tried to incorporate the studio, to turn it into a small company, in which the artist would get a regular salary paid by the company. As an art manager I wanted to shelter money and to protect the artist, so there would always be some money in the studio. It turned out to be impossible. Artists seem to go crazy at the idea of not being able to always touch their own bank account. The problem is that artists don’t see their studio as a company. It was not an entity or organisation to them and its costs were therefore their lowest priority. Artists would rather buy a house, or a car or whatever for private consumption than invest in their studio. Simple purchases like a computer were a big struggle. However I was hired on a salary and did not work on commission or per project. So basically the studio was a small business. Sometimes we could cover the costs from the museum budget. The situation could be bad and sometimes we didn’t get paid for a few months, then a big amount came in and disappeared again. I basically had to have my own savings to be able to work for him. There was no fund of money. And every year the same for taxes: there would be enough to pay but they would refuse to pay before the due date and then ended up paying big fines. This is of course why for some artists galleries do the management job. Some keep the money and pay out stipends each month to their artists. Although this might protect the artists from both taxes and spending it all on consumption, the gallery gets all the interest on the amount. For a successful artist this might be a considerable sum of money. So I tried hard to manage, to organise the studio in a professional way. I had to carve out what I was supposed to do. I did not, for instance, take on the job of a traditional personal assistant doing personal things, making coffee, and buying make-up. Such people, some call them secretaries, are regarded as studio expenses and given a ridiculous sum of money. Then there were the technical assistants who work things out for big installations. They have to have technical skills but nevertheless often find themselves doing things the artist does not like dealing with like walking his dog or buying underwear. But for such odd jobs we easily found young students or artists loving to work for a star or just badly needing the money. I tried to position myself in between the personal and

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technical assistants, but structural changes were very difficult to introduce in the studio. In fact mostly the organisation was crazy, dysfunctional and messy; but you had to make it work. This is the real burden for us managing art and it seems that’s what we get paid for doing, But a working studio is still becoming increasingly important when dealing with big installations and public commissions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is like an architecture firm working under pressure most of the time. Once we did a work for a big bank, a terrazzo floor inside a building. In cases like that, we always worked with contracts with tough deadlines that the studio had to ensure the artist kept. The terrazzo installation had to be done in a few days, as the building was to be finished up and would remain closed for trucks needed to pour the terrazzo. So the bank had a contract that made the studio pay $15,000 for each day in case of delay. In such cases you work with construction engineers who don’t care about art and won’t work at night for instance. We worked out the models to scale in our small studio in New York and then had to install it on time in full size elsewhere overseas. Museum commissions are of course less stressful than such assignments, because you get more support from the curators. Usually my artist himself brought in the work; he was very good at marketing. At the same time he was a very bad businessman, at least until the kids he got pretty late began growing up. Then he started to think about how they would be able to go to university in 20 years time. That was how planning got some attention in the studio. Money is of course tricky in this kind of business; prices are volatile and depend on the market, on sales. Sales fluctuate, like when big collectors like Saachi sell out whole collections, making prices drop radically. For an exhibition you will get a production grant, sometimes you may have to raise funds. The main incomes are from sales and commission. For instance, in Holland there is a 1 per cent rule for decorating buildings that mattered a lot. The tax legislation on different markets matters too. In the US, museums used to put collectors on their boards, who expected donations deductible from their incomes. We might produce for the museum and expect a collector to buy the installation after the show. When you can no longer deduct donations from tax, museums rather tend to put people from the financial sector on boards for the same crass reason. Works of art of the kind our studio produced were not necessarily sold. We might produce a piece for one show, cover the costs but still not sell it. Sometimes the work was also deposited, like on commission, after the end of the show. It might be stored in the museum hoping for either a private buyer or an institution to fund its future purchase upon which we would issue the certificate. Once we made a neon work in Europe, in a city where you are not allowed usually to install neon anywhere in town. So our work was supposed to be there for the show only. It was a big hassle to install, so when they asked to keep it up we agreed, hoping of course that they might eventually purchase it. Another one, which was made in Stockholm, is still stored by the curator waiting to be sold. It is based on a text in a language that has a limited market. For works like that, certificate included, the price is several hundred thousand dollars, of which some 10 per cent covers the production costs and the rest is the fee to the studio.

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Centerpiece – independence [One evening we met at a launch party in town. It was one of those Italian fashion boutiques and the art journal that was to be launched lay in piles on one of the counters. There was an art fair in town and the guests were mostly critics, artists, gallerists and art dealers from the fair. They seemed to enjoy themselves a lot, although they complained about business; it was just art sellers, art admirers but no collectors or buyers around. We were told that casting for the waiters and hostesses had taken place earlier in the shop. One young selected waiter had obviously been so narcissistically impressed with his own looks that he had run into a huge mirror, smashing a tray full of champagne glasses. We chatted with an extremely low-key press agent from the Italian headquarters who said she liked art and was proud to have us all in her shop. Upon leaving the shop she handed me a copy of a book. On our way back we discovered a highly interesting publication with fascinating and ambitious presentations of Italian contemporary art. We strolled home in the night and met some friends saying they were happy that the IT start-up frenzy was over. They were sick and tired of pizza-gulping hackers and now they hoped for a new boom in biomedicine – the bioresearchers are such cultivated people . . .] It amazes me that the traditional galleries are still working because 80 per cent of the artists don’t make works you hang on the wall. My 5 years working for famous artists gives me many attractive job offers. But I have had enough of the studio experience. I got married and moved to Europe. The whole system in New York is different from Europe where there are often government grants. In the US art belongs to the private sphere, financially at least, whereas in Europe there is public support for art. In the US people working for artists were usually themselves artists. I did not have this background and I think this is better for the job I was doing. If you are an artist yourself it could be very frustrating not to advance in your own career. That creates lots of additional tension and therefore my artists liked to work with someone not an artist herself. But again there are not many such art management jobs in studios. Not many artists can afford to hire someone on a permanent basis. In the US I would think of maximum a hundred artists can afford it anyway. Now I am working in a different way. I work like an independent curator consulting artists who want to get help with marketing and organising their careers. This is needed in Europe for here, as opposed to in the US, artists have a very practical training. In Europe you learn to do artwork but not so much theory. Artists don’t get trained like in the US to talk about their work and that’s what art marketing is really about. To sell yourself, which is essential in the US context with very few grants, you completely depend on networks, on people like movie stars or fashion designers who want to hang out with you to be considered artists themselves. This hanging out has little to do with private intimacy and friendship; you need a place in an arena like New York to be seen together. Again European art school is centred on individual work and if you have done your 5 years Art Academy training, you end up being alone in a big studio. When you

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graduate, they throw you out of the academic cocoon and you find yourself all alone. It works simply thanks to all the public support you can get as a younger artist. But in Europe I think it will change and this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you study art, why should you have special grants or subventions? Why not, you might well argue, give it to those studying history, philosophy as well. At the same time, the warehouses in Europe are full of bad art bought from local heroes. The whole art scene is changing and I am now working with a group of independent art consultants. Just now I am helping a young artist doing video installations. He has no big studio and does not really need a gallery. We try to work for his international career, doing what a gallery should do except for a space of our own. We have just had a show in a space owned by a big department store. They had an ad agency promote the space, making it known as an art space. As we don’t have a space, we take only 25 per cent or 30–40 per cent, instead of the usual 50 per cent galleries take on sales, depending on what we do. We still need a place, not for shows, but as an office and for small release parties for books and so on. It does not have to be expensive and downtown, like a gallery. A new in-between art scene is emerging where it feels right for me to work. After the gallery and the studio comes the independent art manager, I think. Nowadays museums put on shows by guest curators. Galleries no longer present new art for the market, for now independent curators track down new artists for museums and art spaces. Then galleries follow up what museums show by making it available. Leo Castelli is dead and Soho is full of fashion boutiques, design stores and museum shops. This makes gallery hopping pretty boring today, I think. It is still nicer in Europe, although many galleries are extremely local and rarely travel. Galleries are passive and wait for people to come; they are boring, and that leaves lots of room for independent operators like me. Maybe that’s why every city has its own art fair and discovers new spaces for showing art. The independents push for such events. They land new projects and put together new types of deals in the art world. You see things like Armani publishing a book on contemporary Italian art and franchising a Guggenheim show curated by Robert Wilson. Prada is another acter in the art arena, buying big pieces for its art foundation and contracting famous architects for designing a series of Fashion Temples, where eager outlet shoppers can go on tours. Hugo Boss began that trend by doing this very smart thing giving Guggenheim money for a Boss art price. All this might be the result of independent operators pulling strings, clinching deals and making projects. The art manager turned into an art entrepreneur. I must however add that I think all this highly questionable. Compared to someone paying $10,000 dollars for each ad in five or six magazines each month, a Guggenheim show costs peanuts. The fees of any regular management consultant, advertising agent or event organiser are doubtless tenfold higher than what it costs to get Robert Wilson to direct your advertising campaign. Art spaces today count on such commissions to cover their operating costs. Guggenheim builds spaces in Las Vegas, in Bilbao, in Berlin or Brazil without having a budget for the shows. But for independent operators and art presenters it is no new thing to work for corporations.

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I recall an artist I worked for who did a project for Camel. We did it in her studio but her gallery utterly disapproved. But everyone was smoking Camel in the studio so she simply sent a little drawing and got $15,000 for that. She equally did special issues for newspapers, shot fashion and did special assignments for Sunday magazines. She thought it easy money and we did not realise that it was nothing compared to regular costs for marketing Take for instance ‘Absolute Vodka’. What they do is a very clever idea; they pay a fairly small amount in commissions to the artist to make an ad and also have the original artwork. I think such smartness will be difficult to repeat; this is anyway what my kind of job is there to avoid.

Triptych 3 Right – corpus [I recall the first time we met in the early 1980s. We were having one of those delightfully British deserts, ‘ trifle’ I think it is called, at the house of a professor of geography when she arrived too late for dinner. She was on her way to Stockholm to meet another famous Swedish geographer. Arriving late with her backpack she had the air of an old ‘Wandergeselle’ or vagrant orthodox monk. Her subject, human geography, at that time was a very exciting subject where social science foundations were interpreted in a rather innovative fashion. Some time later I heard of her in Stockholm, when she arrived with a beautiful table manufactured by herself in Vienna. It was a table in wood and crystal and now stands in the home of the professor, by now our common friend.] I am Austrian and at home one had to choose two subjects when beginning higher education. I wanted a job and was good at sports so I studied sports. Then I combined it with geography and then got a job as a gym-teacher in a college. I worked there for a year and a half before getting a position at the university in the department of geography. During the time I was teaching, I also signed up for a ski coach diploma that was really hard to get. You know Austria is full of old ski champions wanting a job in some ski school. I was then able to start working on my dissertation at university. It took me a very long time to complete the dissertation and during that time I was mostly travelling. The reason was that Austrian higher education is extremely bad. The university is in a deep sleep, all the posts are tenured, and in consequence innovation is blocked. They should be ashamed of how bad it really is and the only way to survive is to go out and search for your own sources of inspiration. First I went to Toronto and one professor I talked to listen to my problem, and urged me to read a book by a Swedish colleague of his. That was what brought me to Sweden. I had found my father figure in that Swedish guy, and in retrospect I am very happy that he did not deform or stifle me in my research. I came back to Vienna, and began lecturing, which I was not allowed to do because I was just a temporary assistant. When asked if my lecturing was a provocation or if I thought the others were lousy lecturers I replied yes. I was

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fired; I was far more stubborn then than today. A short time later I however found myself hired again by recommendation in a Swiss university. We never met but they accepted me and I them. The freedom was complete in the department and I could continue to work on my dissertation. Actually I was changing places and academic environments but all the time I was obsessed by my thesis work. I worked on it all the time, my head was full of it, and my whole mind was devoted to it. It was about to eat me up and it felt as if I was stuck in the snow in a car with wheels spinning around at full throttle. When I look back to all this travelling it does not feel that I was uprooted or nomadic because all the time I was firmly anchored, not to say fettered, to this god-damn thesis work. I was carrying this work around the world in order to be able to work at it, but it really was not finished until the day I had some other relationships outside this obsessive scientific problem. Actually better relationships with people helped me terminate the work. And I finished it not when I finally solved the problem, for there was no solution to the problem I posed, but when I solved my personal situation. One could psychologise a lot about that, but that is not my cup of tea. I was looking for places to talk with other people about my research problem. In Austria few were able to listen. When I came to Cambridge I found people who had other references, other theories but who were hardly prepared to talk with me. They were all the time putting questions to you, testing you, as if they were finding out what you knew. So I clammed up, played tennis and continued my solitary work on my thesis. Left – anima [In the early 1990s, I went to see my friend D in Zürich. She lived in a nice little flat with a balcony not far from her job in the geography institute. We had conversations and she showed me interesting books and articles. After meeting with D I always went home with new ideas and texts and this time she gave me a tape of an interview with a guy I had never heard of: Paul Virilio. Later we met in Vienna at her mother’s place close to good old Berggasse where Freud lived and worked. D once remarked that she had never visited the place. Again she introduced me to some of her friends who all seemed to follow her work with much interest.] I disliked Cambridge and never took the trouble to go into their kind of quiz game. To me it was obvious they were bluffing, but simply in another way than continental universities. So I went back to Switzerland and took up various projects that were useful for getting into society, to get to know Swiss people and the country. I wanted to settle down and get a home and build up friendships. First I spent 3–4 years working on a project about ecology and society. I did lots of interviewing, realising how incredibly split society seemed to be. A CEO did not have a clue as to what a worker in the post office did, a worker not a feeling for the reality of a housewife. This, it seemed, made them blame each other; no communication gave rise to lots of conflicts. Something else that shocked me was

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that half of all the people we interviewed seriously seemed to believe that all people were bad and needed norms and regulations to be good. We wrote this up and presented a bottom-up approach to ecology that did not fit the dominant, moralistic, top-down perspective of our funding agency. The book was good but the acceptance of our work not widespread. This was in the early 1990s, and I was still struggling with my thesis. Its main problem was whether real life processes could be researched by means of classical scientific logic. At that time we were all influenced by theories about writing and texts. We read Derrida and I remember reading something of Gertrude Stein about spacing and rhythm in texts. I began to try to write very compressed and compact scientific texts in a kind of new poetic style. Language offered new ways of representation other than logic. Then another important figure at that time was a guest to our university for while; Paul Feyerabend the anarchist anythinggoes philosopher. I asked him if he wanted to cooperate in a project on empirical science and logics and he said I should do it, but he was engaged in some kind of new love affair and had no time. In some way I met a group of women artists in Basel, among others Pippi Lotti Rist and Miriam Cahn. We raised a lot of money and put on a conference 3 days long in 1991 that many still speak of. The project was not only empirical research, but also how women do art and research and we had the Gorilla Girls from New York and Inge Feltrinelli from Milan and many others. I had invited women scientists to the debates. It was a great success and lead to an assignment, I got to arrange a lecture series with such a mix of people from both art and science that I was afraid it would only be confusing. On the contrary, the audience found it highly stimulating and I went on working on a problem that was bugging me. How come so many women leave science? Why do they not complete their dissertations? How come they tend to experience crises in their academic work? This project made us realise how many women drop out and that the reason may be inflexible hierarchies, mediocracy and dominating father figures who suffocate women or at least an important part of them in the job of doing research. I was shocked by the particularly fierce attacks on our findings by women who were following an academic career. By then, believe it or not, I had always believed I did this kind of work for others. For the poor women who did not make it in academia for instance. When in England I recall how once someone asked if he had ‘hurt my feelings,’ and how I had sincerely admitted that I did not understand what the man meant. No one had ever hurt me. I had protected myself mentally and physically to such an extent. No doubt my time in sports was part of that kind of protection and I could go back in childhood too if I needed to find reasons. This was all part of my psychological problem and it seemed now that the dissertation was easy to conclude. I realised I had to end it and so I did. That was that! Centrepiece – art [D and I have now been doing this show in Frau P’s gallery for one week and Madame R just phoned to say she would turn up next week. Frau P and I had

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long planned to do something on the theme of management and art and I had then asked D to join our team and arrange a show. The idea was to show and debate how art might bridge society and businesses, and after having put up some posters for our show we found ourselves flooded by young artists, mainly women, joining the seminars we had arranged in the Berlin gallery. The first session had been about prejudice about work and economy on one hand, and art and artists on the other. We had met two artists working with the personnel of Daimler Chrysler. One was coaching teams in the firm and the other explained that his job was indeed an artistic one but that he had now abandoned the idea of making art, of producing a distinct physical piece of art. They seemed to make processes in the firm like helping engineers to better problem solving by opening communication in groups. In other words, here was maybe a new generation of artists working out there in order to smoothen and soften up big technology producing firms. Was the ‘real world’ opening up to people having such capacities of bridging and uniting different worlds, of being mentors and facilitators? One could, so it seemed from the debates that were going on in Berlin, almost see a new way of working that resembled a kind of curating. The artists out there were turning the organisations into aesthetic spaces. A meeting with an artist taking part turned, some said, into a kind of performance. Madame R was now operating one of the ‘platforms’ for Dokumenta 2002 – a key position in preparing the big art event. Frau P was, as usual, energising our show by inviting lots of artist to the meeting that took place in her gallery – an ideal space for having such open-ended conversations. And now D explained to me how come she was doing art after sports and science. The reason why she was turning to activities of curating and how she was now about to transform science she made into art . . .) In my dissertation I concluded that science couldn’t be used to grasp life processes. There were then two ways to go. First to loosen up science into something not strictly logical. This was the debate that had emerged in postmodernism and it was a position likely to be taken by someone who wants to remain inside science and do things that can only be done if logics is postponed. The second stand is to save the authority of classical logical science by restricting its scope and area of application. After my meandering walks in academia and my encounter with art and artists I opted for the latter. I left science and this was such a relief you cannot believe it. I realise it is a relief for me as woman too. I can pick and choose intelligent people to communicate with and do not have to talk to those blockheads in academic hierarchies. I no longer have to put up with stupid people. The women who do science, so it seems, try to escape from something. They cut off a huge part of human life and become reduced and small. I saw how I had been clinging to the idea of the dissertation as an escape from my father and other problems I was now about to solve. At the time I made up my mind to leave science and accept an offer to join a team preparing a huge art show in Switzerland. My professor at the university was also retiring and his department was dissolved.

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For some time I found myself projecting ideas for art shows and approaching firms for sponsorship money. It was a hard job and I was always on the move. But of course it is satisfying to clinch deals with firms. Once I came home with a $6 million grant. All in all we launched some thirty different art project during this time. It was a transitional time for me. I had originally thought that I could have two days a week to reflect. Not that I wanted to do scientific work, I realise that I will never get the peace and quiet to write a scientific paper again. But I wanted simply to be able to sit down and ask myself; what am I doing? Do I like this? What are my priorities? So I stayed away from the job two days and worked 4. This was impossible and soon resulted in conflicts. You simply have to be there physically or it does not work. If you want to be in the art world you have to join it fully. Especially if you come from science. I often find myself in situations where people seem to appreciate me for my analytical skills but I think that my strength is more emotional. Once, when I was interviewing a gallerists, he got into such a fit of rage that I was intrigued why. The guy was polite, he answered all my questions but there was this underlying tone or attitude of disrespect. I realised that this man from the art world would never accept me as a full member of his world. I understood that the only way was to do something without being dependent on people like him. I wanted to enter this world and it was now clear to me that you could only gain a position inside by doing something by yourself. It is not a matter of negotiation. When I made up my mind not to apply for a new academic job it had been for similar reasons. I did not want to subject myself to the judgement of others that I knew were corrupt and would only make superficial evaluations. I wanted to be taken seriously for the content of my work not for performing some initiation rite correctly. The last academic seminar I attended I ended my presentation by eating my manuscript, I had written it down on plates of jelly. Paradoxically this position of mine resulted in a university offering me a chair in geography. I never applied for it; I was sincerely reluctant when I was approached. But now it seems they have accepted all my rather demanding conditions. The academic climate is different from when I started out. None seems to claim a strict scientific logic anymore and I almost feel a need to defend what remains of science. From the bombastic claim for universal truth science today has shrunk down to something small and almost insignificant in need of protection. Where are the scientist that were repressing us, the experts that reduced us? Scientists have lost the authority they had in the 1960s and 1970s, they have turned human and humble. Neither me nor scientists are interested in science with a big ‘S’. So maybe time has come for women to return to academia as some kind of artists?

Note 1 The paper is based on research in project Flow supported by the Research Foundation of the Swedish National Bank.

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13 Beyond the fetishism of the mother A remark on the event as folded effects Martin Fuglsang

There is a moment that is no longer anything but a life playing with death. The life of an individual has given way to an impersonal and yet singular life that disengages a pure event freed from the accidents of the inner and outer life, that is, from the subjectivity and objectivity of what happens. A homo tantum with whom everyone sympathizes, and who attain a kind of beatitude. This is a haecceity, which is no longer an individuation but a singularization: a life of pure immanence, beyond good and evil. (Gilles Deleuze, L’immanence: Une Vie)

What is left of the notion of ‘Organisation’, the so-called Mother of all Hexis in the Empire of modern capitalism and its eternal pursuit of critical conviction in the stubborn, persistent and not least violent machine of organisational enunciation,1 whose peculiar history is so very new in the infinite ocean of thought, as the gods, together with the decay of the ‘Geistesgeschichte’, have given way, not to the affirmative desire for life, that which could be called the hope of Nietzsche – but to the continuous repetition of folly, whose habit it is to say I: ‘I say I, I say’, the Mother of all essentialism. All too much we might say, as the notion of Motherhood par excellence is the stratification and imprisonment of intensities and singularities, not so much as the judgement of gods, they have already left the building, but of Man himself, as Motherhood, whereby the modern concept of ‘Organisation’ is Man’s pure organising of matter into form, as the oedipal stratification of bodies, even though the answer – following the hope Nietzsche – should have been absolutely nothing, nothing at all, as thought moves towards the force of life and its flow of vitality. Even here the repetitive appearance of ‘I’ has controlled, but has also reduced the intensity of displacement to the meaning-phenomenon of existents, and even more brutally than the early Heidegger’s double birth, who all through his conceptual persona wanted to be Greek in heart and, therefore, was well aware of the fact that the Greek ‘Theoria’ means nothing more than one delegate from the townstate of Athens could recount of the Olympic games taking place in another town, since the conceptualisation of being takes on a much more grotesque form, as it enters into the micro-fascistic ideal of communication, of which its idiosyncracy and idiocy is the transcendental master-free dialogue in the

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Figure 13.1 Mrs Bridget Yates (formerly Langford) late of Darwen Lancashire, 1902–2002, the grandmother of Heather Höpfl’s former secretary (1992-1999), Sue Hollinshead.

circumlocution of Logos into Ratio, where its production does not take the form of enlightenment, but ends as nothing more than Human Resource Management, pure modern marketing. That, which indeed tragic-comically accomplishes the mastery of the ‘I’ in the semantics and the syntax of socialpsychology, whose mere content is the indifferent and banal obviousness of opinion regarding the typology of ‘self ’, where the force of life is reduced and labelled in a slogan, of which Man is kept, as a permanent re-sentiment, in the

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moralising anthropocentric, or more precisely, anthropomorphic self-referentiality which is traversed by the plague that attacks its particular characteristic, exactly the ability to speak, a language-plague which manifest itself as a loss of realisation and spontaneity, as an automatism which tends towards a vulgarisation of our expression to general, abstract or anonymous formulas, and which ends by extinguishing every spark which leaps by words and new circumstances in the world (Calvino 1995: 63) and where life as a consequence is so very far removed from that movement, that has detached thought from the distanced chains of Motherhood and given it a concept, whose form or rather anti-form is the Event the only one capable of ousting the verb to be and attributes, as it is elegantly formulated by Gilles Deleuze (1995: 141). But care is needed here, as the Event seems to be in collusion with the absolute horizon, a pure immanence whose ordinate is the concept itself – at once, a descent towards chaos and an ascent towards the concept itself, an open-ended totality of which its heterogeneous components seems to be so very difficult to place and designate before thought is occupied by completely different components and thereby different concepts. For this reason the Stoic concept ‘Tynchanon’ is chosen, whose ‘departure’ is the event as ‘Eventum’, ‘that-whichhappens’ or rather, ‘Tynchanon’ is like a ‘before’, which is not to be understood as preceding, as taking place beforehand, but as that which exists simultaneously with its ‘after’, therefore, with ‘that-which-happens’ and, thereby, the event is by necessity detached from its everyday linguistic sense, since the event in this sense stands in correlation to the relative horizon, which inscribes the vision from the recollecting subject whose history of effects is carved by Chronos, where time is

Figure 13.2

A White Wall.

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dissected into three dimensions as the precondition in every distinction of reminiscence,2 wherefore the event stands forward as an object for the intentional consciousness’ grounds for the meaning-abundance of existence, that which is believed to be the Motherhood of all thinking just as the event in the existence of the phenomenon of meaning stands in a condition of ‘To Ef ’ Hemin’, ‘in our power’, as something we both transcend in our production of meaning by this power and as a fundamental negative dialectical condition in the actual constitution of a substantive self. That is to say, that the event in the everyday linguistic sense, as Event, inscribes itself in a dynamic negative dialectic between the One and the Multiple, where the subject comes to its own consciousness as a substance in a movement for the One to the Multiple and back to the One, as the subject is at once that unity which thinks ‘an sich’, but also, that which forms multiplicity, to think ‘für sich’. For this reason there exists a chasm which has to be mediated, since the precondition for the subject is the multiplicity of thoughts that are thought, but this is only possible by that identity which thinks. Therefore, the subject has to come to consciousness of its own existence through a negative exclusion and thereby as the sole unity in the multiple. This dynamic movement, which Deleuze calls the false movement par excellence, which exactly exists in the mediating of the chasm between the thought ‘an sich’ and thoughts ‘für sich’ is the movement of double negation, where the thought negates itself as to be lost in thoughts, the multiple, in order to find itself as thought, as substance, by negating all that it is not, for which reason we are talking of a movement from the identical to the multiple to the self-identical. This is exactly the same movement we find in the stratum of recollection, when the appearance of recollection is viewed in the image of Chronos, since the recollection out from the infinite ocean of experience has to find itself in the present, as a spatial category, by negating and splitting itself from the multiplicity of experience, where Chronos precisely forfeits itself to the past, as to find itself as a self-identical and continuous present in its movement towards a future, in quite the same manner as every conceptualising of Organisation, the Motherhood of all Hexis, has to forfeit itself to the multiplicity of the smooth space, to find itself by negating all that it is not, as self-identical in the striated space. And thus, all three movements find themselves through the same form of subjectivity, a subjectivity, there has to loose itself to the Other as the negation of itself to find itself by negating all other, Other, as the self-identical subjectivity producing an individuation we could call the reactive passions that find form in the habit of saying ‘I’ and thereby are so very far from Cusanus’ ‘non aliud non aliud est quam non aliud’, ‘the none-other is none-other than the none-other’, that which is at once a pure singularity and the same beyond resemblance and the identical, this is the event as Tynchanon through Eventum. So when the event is detached from its everyday linguistic sense, it is exactly detached from man’s spontaneous phenomenology of meaning, as a form situated in the event about an event, the actual occupation of giving name to events which inscribe Man inside the timely and which through Chronos seems to stand before us as a stratified body, as the Motherhood of Organisation and

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thereby as a state of affairs which habitually recalls the meaning-satiated content of existence. Wherefore, in this very concrete sense, when Man is dissolved from the phenomenon of meaning itself, we are talking of ousting the verb ‘to be’, since ‘to be’ in its classical phenomenological tradition maintains the existence in a name-giving interaction with the multiplicity of life, as a stratification of space through the interpretation of the subject. Thereby, the verb ‘to be’ is the only verb that is not an infinitive or more precisely, it is an infinitive, which performs exclusively as an empty expression, as a non-real abstraction which is supposed to designate the total sum of the always already existing forms of appearance and times. This verb is, so to speak, the largest empty signifier in history of the subject and its individuation. But this may give rise to the misunderstanding that the Event does not designate itself in exactly this manner, that is, as subjectifications that are individuated in the form of the subject, but this it is not its fundamental subjectification, on the contrary, this is the event as ‘Eventum’, ‘that which happens’. But, ‘that which happens’ and thereby is ‘occurring’ is not connected with any kind of fatalism, solipsism, irrationality or contingency, but with a pure necessity whereby Being is that, that which it is, where ‘is’, is not to be understood in any essentialist sense, but as a differentiating and transformative movement, as Do. But ‘Do’ is not a harmonisation of form and therefore it does not reside in the form of the subject and its organisational Motherhood of matter, since the harmonisation of form exclusively produces individuation that are embedded in binary segmentation, and where these lines of segmentarity are inscribed within the distinction between the actual and the possible and thereby presupposes a surplus of reality in the realm of the possible and an abstract identity between the One and the Multiple. That is to say, a unifying identity between the identical and its difference, which after all is the fundamental principle of the harmonisation of any form, so to speak of an individuation created by the Eventum is to speak of affects detached from the verb ‘to be’, as a vitalistic impulse, where affects are a condensation of time and not to that of form, a ‘Haecceity’, as an always absolute and singular intensity. Or, in short, to Be-come. But to become is not a question of time, at least not under the gaze of Chronos, as time here is punctuated along a stratiated line of before and after, where every relation is seen as a connection between points ‘to be’, as differences of degree and not a pure metamorphosis: Melville becoming Ahab and Ahab becoming Moby Dick, Alice becoming smaller and larger at the same time and, and, and, and attributes Gilles Deleuze, a ‘Haecceity’ that never begins nor ends, but is in the middle – this is ‘Chora’, the middle, the Tynchanon,3 at once the fold and the causa sui of the Eventum, since the Eventum as a nonpersonalised subjectification transforms into the Infinitum of the verb, intensities expressing the floating, nonpulsed time of Aeon, the Tynchanon is this folding of the Eventum to a ‘Haecceity’, freeing it from the Form par excellence that of Genus and Species, and giving it a cause internal to its effect, so very far removed from the Motherhood of Hexis and as such the Tynchanon is not an immanence in the first sense, but an absolute standstill, an implosion of immanence into immanence itself, the only thing capable of producing a transcendental field beyond the idea of transcendence, as such the

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Tynchanon is a pure singularity and the same, beyond resemblance and identity, it is: Never again, Always.

Notes 1 We recognise that some notions inside the domain of ‘organisational studies’ such as ‘Theory’ and not least the ‘Critical’ in the social and humanistic Anglo-Saxon tradition is often used in the attempt to transgress the immediate philosophic-pragmatic soil (note, not pragmatic in a Deleuzian sense), where every ontological endeavour is categorised as metaphysical nonsense and what is installed instead is an optic of mere utility, as a consumeristic hyper-consumption of thought in the global meaning, marked for the ever so usable knowledge, but this does not transgress the fact and thereby escapes the consequence, that every notion of theory and critique ultimately inscribes the idea of a ‘Third’, independent of how this third is thought, be it the grand Object of thought (objective idealism), the pure Subject of consciousness (subjective idealism) or the Double subject of communication (inter-subjective idealism as the consensus-terror of opinions), they all inscribe themselves in the phantasm of transcendence, be it in the eye of Eternity, the cunningness of Universals or the necessity of the Axioms etcetera, because the notion of theory and the critical, first and last, has determination and finiteness through the firm predicate of meaning as its modus of production and thereby it operates in the classical logic of notions through the segmentary of intension and extension. Every conceptualising of ‘Theory’ and ‘Critique’ is thus both reflexive and discursive and in this sense it is always ‘about’ something and especially for someone, where ‘for’ means ‘for their sake’ and ‘in their place’ and not in the sense as a ‘before’, which always is a question of becoming. We therefore no longer focus on concepts such as ‘Theory’ or ‘Critical’, but on a dissolution of the denotative language, as to create an actual minor inside the language of the Molar! 2 It is interesting that the encounter with this inscription of recollection finds such a intense impact in two so seemingly different thinkers as Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze, where Heidegger in ‘Sein und Zeit’ e.g. emphasises: ‘The unity of the horizonal schemata of future, Present, and having been, is grounded in the ecstatical unity of temporality . . . Just as the Present arises in the unity of the temporalizing of temporality out of the future and having been, the horizon of a Present temporalizes itself equiprimordially with those of the future and of having been’ (Being and Time 1962: 416–17) and where we find in Deleuze, in the later doubling of Bergson, the same destruction of time in the gaze of Chronos, as he writes: ‘The past, it is true, seems to be caught between two presents: the old present that it once was and the actual present in relation to which it is now past. Two false beliefs are derived from this: On the one hand, we believe that the past as such is only constituted after having been present; on the other hand, that it is in some way reconstituted by the new present whose past it now is. This double illusion is at the heart of all physiological and psychological theories of memory’ (Bergsonism 1991: 58.). It is obvious that the basis, not least considering the figure of Perfectio which haunts the philosophy of the early Heidegger – (seeking an origin for a unified whole and relating it to a ground even though it is in the form of ‘Esse’ (Being) and not ‘Essentia’ (Essence) – is different, but nonetheless, the consequence of these contemplative readings of the dimensionality of time is astonishingly similar, since the present, as a spatial category, as having extension and thereby as something in which we can find ourselves, is destroyed. As a side remark in this regard, since there seem to be great many similarities in their philosophical endeavour, especially in what it is creating as a consequence, it seems puzzling that we in the works of Deleuze, we do not find a more explicit consideration of Heidegger’s

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philosophy, but only small quibbling comments, not least in relation to Being as ‘Dasein’ and Heidegger’s preoccupation with the genius of the Greeks. However, maybe there is, as Giorgio Agamben (1999) seems to suggested in ‘Potentialities’ a larger flight of inspiration in the thought of Deleuze, than he himself is letting shine through and it also seems that we in the end, in the last book of the authorship in the chapter ‘Geophilosophy’, is being given a partial explanation of this very moderate focus, as Deleuze and Guattari (1994: 85–117) explicitly comment what they call the Heidegger affair and at once recognise his grandeur and regret that even the most splendid philosophers can choose the wrong side in the double motion of reterritorialisation, thus as Heidegger chose the wrong nation, the wrong people and especially the wrong time to have his philosophy find soil. 3 In this sense the ‘Tynchanon’ is an absolute haecceity (a ‘Thisness’ as a ‘Hereness’), an absolute standstill, that is accessible only as chorography (from the Greek concept of ‘chora’ presented in the dialogue ‘Timaios’ by Plato) that does not yet exist, precisely because it delays itself allowing the Eventum to be captured by the topography, to let itself become an hour, a breeze , a proper name, a date, a document, a film, because it abolishes the point with the point’s own forces, which are the vital force of the surface; it simply allows time to bleed to death. And precisely this, the fact that the Tynchanon conjures up a vitalism, a movement, a flow, which it more than takes at its word, because it is its right, to CREATE THE TIME IN WHICH IT ITSELF APPEARS, that transgresses point and eternal, flesh (sarkos), and omnipotence, let us call it the infinity!

References Agamben, G. (1999): ‘Potentialities’ (trans. D. Heller-Roazen), Stanford: Stanford University Press. Calvino, I. (1995): Til det næste årtusinde. Amerikanske forelæsninger [For the Next Millennium. American Lectures] (trans. L. W. Petersen), Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter. Deleuze, G. (1995) Negotiations (trans. M. Joughin), New York: Columbia University Press. —— (1991) Bergsonism (trans. H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam), New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1994) What is Philosophy (trans. H. Tomlinson and G. Burchill), London: Verso. —— (1987) A Thousand Plateaus – Capitalism and Schizophrenia (trans. B. Massumi), London: University of Minnesota Press. Hegel, G.W. Friedrich (1988) Phänomenologie des Geistes [Phenomenology of Spirit], Hamburg: F. Meiner Verlag. Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time (trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson), San Francisco: Harper and Row.

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14 Space and silence1 Monika Kostera

[T]he command to care, to ‘be for,’ had been given before it was spoken, and it would have been given even if was never spoken and was to remain silent forever. [. . .] Saints are saints because they do not hide behind Law’s broad shoulder. (Bauman 1993: 79–81)

My Mother taught me about the dignity of silence. She said: ‘When there is nothing wise to say, be silent.’ Silence was the face of inner peace, of personal beauty, far more important than physical appearance. It was something you could emanate if you had an internal gracefulness, beyond the grasp of the profane and the demands of the world. Silence made a person attractive, if you knew how and when to keep it, everyone around would be thrilled. People were usually deeply impressed by her. True, she was, and still is, a beautiful woman. But in her narrative, it was the silence that was more important than the superficial looks, they did not really matter that much. I felt insecure: would I be able to be silent? I am talking too much, will I ever be worthy of silence? It was okay to say wise things, but nobody will notice that they are wise if I drown them in unnecessary words. I then thought silence was something like one of the beautiful gold embroidered Indian shawls that she wore. I did not understand, not until much later, that it is not something you wear, it is an experience: like love, like anger, like desire. Silence can be many things. It may mean guilt, insecurity, indeed it is often seen as the acknowledgement of guilt, used by lawyers in court as an argument (see Silverman 1999). It may seriously disrupt a conversation, making its continuation impossible or difficult, changing its tracks (ibid.). It may mean that one is unable to speak, because of sudden shyness, high emotion; both hate and love can make that effect, both the unwillingness to talk with the other, and the desperate desire to do so. It may be a way to concede that one has nothing to say, the confession of the lack of knowledge: although it does not need to be so. Silence can also be the expression of wisdom, of the knowledge that insight is beyond words, or as Anthony de Mello (1992/1998) put it:

Space and silence

Figure 14.1 Krystyna, my beautiful mother.

Laboratories and libraries, halls and porch and arch and learned lectures – all shall be of no avail if the wise heart and the seeing eye are absent.

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There is a kind of wisdom that consists of looking and listening, rather than talking and symbolising, it is openness and meditation, a silence making the encounter with experience possible. In Anthony de Mello’s writings (1992/1998), silence of this kind is a spiritual door to the experience of both absence and presence, of becoming, of the divine, and of what is – or perhaps is not – beyond words and images. Silence is the passage into the empty space, where one sees the futility of categorizsations, the hollowness of definitions, and the illusory character of passing and remaining. It offers freedom, the feeling of flying over a huge ravine. Silence can also be a form of resistance. Some time ago, I did a study of ZMP, the Polish Communist Youth organisation, active within the most oppressive period of Stalinism in Poland (Kostera 1997). It was created with the Soviet Comsomol as a model. Membership was collective, i.e. whole school classes were made members as soon as the pupils became 14 years old. It was virtually impossible to be admitted to a university or get a good job without having been a member of ZMP. The organisation was highly hierarchical and centralised, it performed tight control over the members, through indoctrination, long and frequent meetings with the infamous degrading ritual of self-criticism which almost everyone had to go through. Spying and denunciating were frequent among peers, one could never be certain of the loyalty of his or her colleagues, friends, relatives. I interviewed some ex-members of the organisation, among them one woman who had kept silent about her experiences of ZMP for 40 years. She told me about the oppression, the terror, the fear, the humiliation. She also told me that she had then tried to keep as silent as possible, answering only when asked, never volunteering anything herself. That seemed to be her only defence against the system, her only means of rebellion. Even though the system humiliated people, it could go only so far. The silence was a border where it had to stop, not because it was not aggressive and intrusive enough, simply because it was too vulgar to cross it, too impure. Silence was the only private domain of the interviewed woman. During the 1980s in Poland, martial law was imposed on an enthusiastic society of the Solidarnos´c´ rebellion of 1980–1981. All hopes were crushed, all resistance declared futile and absurd. In the years that followed, years of increasing cynicism, corruption and disgrace, many people adopted an attitude that they called ‘internal emigration’, a tactic similar to that of my ex-ZMP interlocutor. It consisted of avoiding official positions, public speeches, managerial roles, and of taking part in the official social life as much as possible. Many Polish actors withdrew from all jobs for the state TV and even for theatres. They started to perform abroad and in churches. Writers refrained from writing in official papers and publishing with official publishers. Professionals rejected managerial positions and concentrated just on ‘doing their job’, somewhere within a company where the autonomy was relatively high but visibility as low as possible. A group of my students at an MBA-type course I lead in the early 1990s, engineers, recalled their struggle for such niches in the state-owned enterprises. The best position was the ‘specialist’, a person doing a job nobody else understood, often with a rather minimal salary, not desirable for anyone with managerial aspirations, perhaps very demanding in terms of both education and effort, but ‘where one did not have to talk with those people’.2 A well known

Space and silence

Figure 14.2

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Monika in Stockholm aged 8.

Polish ballad singer, Wojtek Ml⁄ ynarski coined the slogan ‘let’s do our jobs’, it meant that we are to do what we think is right and fair, what we enjoy and what we believe in, for ourselves, within the confines of our private domains, no matter what the officials say about it or how they scorn us for it. This was a rather silent practice and many people engaged in it. The exiles, be it ‘external’ or ‘internal’, wherever they geographically are, are people who move lightly, who are aware of the pitfalls on the road but also of the boundless horizon, Zygmunt Bauman reminds us in his wonderful narrative of the thinking in exile (1999). The exile knows that his or her fate is to travel, that language cannot be taken for granted, his or her fate is to explore the depth of dilemma of the human condition, Bauman tells us. The silence taught some of the internal emigrants a new language, but often a difficult and painful one. Many others did not volunteer to become exiles, but instead stayed and suffered impaired participation, they lost their faith, hope, they started to drink enormous amounts of strong alcohol, some lost their principles. Many of my friends from the times of my Polish university studies, in the late 1980s, became alcoholics, as heavy drinking seemed to be the most popular and legitimate hobby. Some became religious, taking their activity with them to the organisations of the church and withdrawing it from all things that could possibly be related to the state. My Mother was among the professionals on internal emigration, she was a perfectionist in her

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job, but she refrained from all honours, public duties, and the like. She engaged in what I would call a deliberate removal of her job from the state’s domain and defining it into the domain of the profession and her own personal ethical standards. She is an expert on tea with international recognition, and she insisted on not compromising the standards even in times when this was completely unrealistic and everyone around cheated or just did not care about the quality of products, among them a product so unimportant as tea. The ones who cheated and traded their ethical standards were loud and vocal; she kept quiet. Of course, their way always won in the end. ‘They would have had their way anyway, it wasn’t important’. There is a Polish proverb: ‘the wise gives place to the stupid and the stupid is happy’. There is no need to argue with the dumb and aggressive, let them enjoy themselves, let them have the power; the wise can do without it, but they cannot do without dignity. Many years later, a highly disruptive person, full of contempt and aggression, comes to a meeting that I lead. He is full of macho self-content and derision towards some of the people present, he has come to show me ‘my place’, to prove that he has a powerful charisma and that he can do whatever he likes with my meetings and with my colleagues. I am not at home even at home. An exile. I keep silent. So do some of the others present. He is clearly happy: he has silenced us. He has not understood the meaning of our silence. He never was supposed to. Let him talk, talk, talk, let him fill the space with words. He may demolish the talk, but he cannot destroy the silence. But I wasn’t happy. As I said before, silence can be the passage into the empty space. The empty space is a sphere of reality which is unclassified and unclaimed, the margin where

Figure 14.3

Monika, 2001.

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change can be initiated (Kostera forthcoming). Neither a cleared away space, nor a spot wiped clean of all things, it is an absence of expectations, a readiness to embrace an ambivalent interpretation of reality. Chaos, on which rests a fragile socially constructed science (Bauman 1991/1995) can be encountered, and from it creation may take origin. It is not a place, not a form of reality, but a state of mind. Together with my co-author, I have explored such emptiness, when we purposefully walked around in unused and forgotten parts of various official buildings, such as universities, public administration buildings, houses where we ourselves lived (Kociatkiewicz and Kostera 1999). We adopted an anthropological frame of mind (Czarniawska-Joerges 1992) and we observed reality from an unusual perspective, enjoying the feeling of freedom and undefined presence. We gave up any preconceived pictures we might have had, resigned from interpreting what we saw, we observed. At the same time we did not feel that we were trespassing on someone else’s territory, like we often otherwise do while engaging in observation. We were in no man’s land, free and lonely, and yet not lonely at all, abandoning the illusion of order usually imposed on perceived realities. However, we did not regret the loss, as it offered the possibility not only of altering perception, but also of perceiving the chaos underpinning reality that allows freedom to create, and freedom to wonder. Silence can also be the space for important feelings and awareness to evolve within us. This aspect of silence is strongly related to empty spaces, and also to the wisdom of listening and looking. Falling in love, and refraining from giving it a name for some time, can bring the experience of the sacred. Silence can enable feelings to develop, unnamed and undefined, until the person becomes one with them, and then using the word, ‘love’, makes the person aware of the metaphorical, rather than shaping and causal, character of the name. Feelings that are both fragile and powerful transcend the thin lines of what is worn, what is carried, what is utilised. They can remind the person of the divine that is neither outside nor beyond; it is within us. Like there are people who, when they are creating something: a painting, a poem, refuse to talk about it. Talking during the creation may take some of the fun away. Music sometimes, and poetry quite often are forms of expression consciously using blanks, emptiness, silence. It is the combination of words, tones, silences, and blanks that enables a poem or a musical piece to invoke feelings and states of mind. It does not necessarily do so through description, recollection or through narratives of somebody’s consciousness, no explanation is given in the accounting mode of communication. It goes beyond the explanative and rationalization, instead as if offering the reader insights, impressions, and feelings. Poetics is not to be confused with poetry: while poetry can be seen as a form of poetical expression, the poetic is a linguistic domain, and a genre of experience. According to Julia Kristeva (1978), the poetical signifiè at the same time has and does not have its significant in the extra-linguistic reality. Poetic language seems to refer to exisiting things, but, for instance, the addition of certain epithets creates expressions that invoke realities beyond the ‘normal’ one. Following Ferdinand de Saussure, Kristeva looks upon the poetical signifiè as the crossroads of many linguistic codes. It is, then, an intentionally ambiguous combination of

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meanings. Furthemore, the logic of non-poetical language does not apply to poetry (neither does conventional grammatics). Poetic language is non-linear – good to have around, considering that LINEARITY KILLS (Burrell 1997a: 8). Heather Höpfl (1995a) reflects on the disruptive power of the poetic, the potential of ambivalence to restore the voice to the powerless, and to subvert rhetorical authority. Poetics is based on ambivalence which is concealed by the mask of words and regulated by the text. Rhetoric is the open sketch of the text, it attempts to control the ambivalence and delimit it. Rhetoric is persuasion, argumentation, construction of rational logic to dispose of ambivalence. Poetics lends voice to ambivalence. In the struggle over meaning in organisations the dominant voice is given to rhetoric. Poetics symbolises the marginalised, subversive, rebellious, which is beyond management. It brings out the blanks from the margins into the heart. The obsessive filling in of the blanks, the blotting out of white pages witnesses the lack of tolerance to ambivalence, of the greed to order impressions and reality. It thins out experience; it is a very common mode of organising, enraptured by the hideous purity of order (Law 1994). Total institutions do away with the poetic altogether, or they attempt desperately at doing so (Goffman 1961/1991). Filling in the blanks is their dominant raison d’être, their main obsession and rationale. In the organizations Goffman describes, no free space is allowed, everything in the inmates’ life is regulated and controlled by the management, time and activity are outlined as tightly and clearly as possible. In some of them, like the mental hospital he primarily concentrates on, even the feelings, gestures and reactions are subject to such frantic ordering. Yet people tend to find ways of avoiding some of the ordering pressures, they find spaces, periods of time, they engage in a rich ‘underlife’ which Goffman describes as a way of surviving in the totalitarian reality. Some of them choose silence as their escape from the outside reality, they cut communication, they give up the possibility of verbal self-determination or even selfdefense, and are consequently classified as ‘seriously ill’. Nonetheless, it is a way of getting out of the organised world, a refuge, even though a costly one, its costs being social and perhaps also existential. The silence of some of the patients is possibly a radical version of the internal emigration tactics that I have described earlier. But it also points to an illicit character of silence. Silence is in this example the symptom of an unsound, if not outright illegal, activity. It is punished by the total organisation with the label of ‘very ill’, with drastic treatment and no great hopes for physical liberation. Why is that? Organisations sometimes aspire to omnipotence, to control of what is perceived as disorder, and can embrace things and people, the way they interact, they way they are. I do not believe in real things called ‘organisations’, they are but processes in which people engage (cf. Weick 1969/1979; Czarniawska 1996). The process can mean beauty and togetherness, fun, sharing, but also it can be performed in a totalising way, limiting and dry. The beauty and repulsiveness of the human creation called organisation can be studied with interest, as the beauty and repulsiveness of other human creations, such as theatre or music. However, in organisations, for some reason, the feeling of freedom is often, in my experience, banned from the creation. The lack of freedom is the ugliness

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and repulsiveness of organisation. Frantic avoidance of silence, obsessive filling in blanks seems to be rather common. The most extreme example is the total institution, but there are indeed quite a few similarities between totalitarian organisations and apparently liberal ones, such as enterprises (see Kostera 1997). Yet, as Pierre Guillet de Monthoux (1978) writes in his book about anarchism, existentialism and organisation, there are other and much more interesting ideas of organising than the mainstream bureaucratic project. We can use anarchoexistentialist ideas a lot more than we currently do. Why do we read about total manipulative projects in most of the management textbooks? Why so rarely about anarchy? Maybe management is a rhetorical project, archetypically male, ordering and avoidance of the blanks (Höpfl 1995a). It does not need to happen that way, but in practice it all too often does. Recently I was reminded by a friend that it is wonderful to sit and keep quiet together with a friend. Much like Bulat Okudzava sang, ‘there is so much kindness in silence’. Indeed, silence can be seen as communication. It does not mean that we have to be quiet all the time, but the allowance of it to happen can be a blessing. Thus it can be incorporated into processes of organising, silence can be made legitimate and desirable, it can be a beautiful expression of friendship. This is how the co-editor of this book and I met: we sat among people talking often with aggression and conceit. I noticed another person keeping silent, just silent, nothing else. This was to me not only an experience of friendship, but also of liberation. Because in my silence there was not only rebellion, but also a lack of words. I was told by an interviewee during a study of radio stations that I currently conduct that he has always been terrified of silence. He has been dreaming of doing a radio program on air, talking into the microphone, and suddenly being knocked out by silence. The time runs, the program is on air, the microphone is in front of his mouth and he is unable to speak. This is a nightmare that has never materialised in his professional life, but it is recurrent and he does not know what he would do if it ever happened. Would he die? Would the building explode? Certainly, it would be something of that magnitude, there is no easy way out of such an experience. Heather Höpfl (1995b) describes a similar experience labelled ‘corpsing’ by actors. It is what happens to an actor during a theatrical performance if he or she loses his or her place in the script. The actor ‘dies’ on stage, the performance is seriously disrupted and the illusion is shattered. The pause (and then perhaps, hysterical laughter of the failed actor) exposes the make-believe, the mask worn on stage that is, during successful performances, unnoticed and accepted as symbols of the (staged) reality. During one of the recordings for a radio program that I was involved in some time ago, I had an experience of being unable to speak. Even though I knew this was not live and that the merciful interlocutor would edit it before broadcasting it, I felt a stress comparable to many others. I thought it lasted for ages, that the universe suddenly impressed its endless weight upon my humble person. Then, I said one word, and then another, I started to speak again. I was in control again. But I will not forget the moment it lasted, or rather the eternity it lasted. When I later on accompanied the editor who prepared the tape for transmission, I noticed that

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the void lasted only a few seconds, just a short pause to be cut away. So I can easily understand my interviewee who dreamed about not being able to speak. When I was little, I fantasised about hell, I pictured it as a place where a person cannot speak, or hear anything, or see, a place of absolute silence. Thinking about it made me so scared sometimes, that I felt a mighty desire to scream at all the force of my lungs. But I did not. It is uncivilised to shout. Silence is more well behaved. Indeed, some people will not talk with a person with whom they are angry. Instead of shouting or complaining, or arguing, or trying to talk about the controversy, they shut up. Their silence can be cold and aggressive, it may feel like the ultimate attack on one’s feelings. It is a lack of communication, brutal and violent; it can be just as fierce a principle of organising as the rhetorical obsession of avoiding blanks. During one of my field studies I have encountered a story of a boss who would not speak to people when he was angry with them. He was feared and revered, people attributed God-like qualities to him, like the ability to read the employees’ minds. His silence was omnipresent and threatening to the others, they could not shut their doors to it. It was pervasive. Silence can also be conformist. In our contemporary world power operates often through the void that is left by people who evade, run away, emigrate internally, by the ‘wise who give place to the stupid’, by disengagement. People may escape into silence for many different reasons, among them as means of rebellion, but the silence is used to effectively rule the world they do not entirely vacate, as long as their bodies and communication remain in it. To praise silence is, no matter how contrary one’s intentions may be, to submit and to speak for the enabling of submission. There is no easy choice, there is no way which enables a person to stay pure. Absolute purity would mean absolute non-participation. We are born to this world to be able to communicate, and thus participate. Nothing would change, if all rebels stayed silent. Nothing would change, if all of us talked all the time. The space of communication is both. Now my narrative has come full circle, from ambivalence, through claiming that silence was poetical and sacred, to depicting it as oppressive and menacing, and now I again would like to emphasise the ambivalence. The following poem is an attempt to express some of my feelings about silence: the other silence the unspeakable the violent one it loops around and back until I know nothing I close my eyes but the darkness is not dark enough

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The poem does not sum up my narrative, but it does not explain it either. It is just another entry into ambivalence. I have no conclusion to offer, and no summary. Silence is all this and more, it can be a medium for communicating what is beyond current institutions and materiality, and it enables us to feel the words in a less obvious and more meditative way. It can be kept silent about and it can be talked about. Just as the sounds. I just did not want to get away from it too far, therefore I have tried, in this text, to refrain as much as possible from a highly intellectual narrative, to be as modest as possible. Just as the space of the temple requires silence, so the space of silence requests a pause: silence is a twin space to the more obvious one filled in and formulated; it enables us to see all of it, for bad and for good, to the awe and horror of the observer. And beyond that is the birth of presence, the awakening. In the last subsection of his paper ‘Linearity, text and death’, entitled ‘In praise of silence’, Gibson Burrell (1997b: 10) says that to speak is to make oneself vulnerable. To engage in discourse is to leave something of oneself behind. To end this text, I will use his words: ‘let me stay silent – till the next time’ (Burrell 1997b: 10). What more can I say? And thus, the advice of my Mother still presents me with a problem.

Notes 1 I would like to thank Zygmunt Bauman, Ulla Johansson, Jerzy Kociatkiewicz, Antoni Oz˙yn˙ski, and Richard Weiskopf for their inspiring comments and reflections on this text which they shared with me – in words and in silence. 2 The students were also baffled at what the Western company that took over the stateowned enterprise they used to work for demanded of them in terms of loyalty and displays of extrovert ambition and motivation. They said that they were terrified, offended, that they didn’t know what to do. Was their old strategy was not useful anymore? I’ve been told a few years ago that many of them were either fired (‘downsized’) or left of their own accord.

References Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell. —— (1991/1995) Wieloznacznos´c´ nowoczesna – nowoczesnos´c´ wieloznaczna [Modernity and ambivalence], Warszawa: PWN. —— (1999) Thinking of Exile; Thinking in Exile, unpublished manuscript. Burrell, G. (1997a) Pandemonium: Towards a Retro-Organization Theory, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE. Burrell, G. (1997b) ‘Linearity, text and death’, paper presented at the conference ‘Organizing in a multi-voiced world’, Leuven. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1992) Exploring Complex Organizations: A Cultural Perspective, London: Sage. —— (1996) ‘The process of organizing’, International Encyclopaedia of Business and Management, London: Routledge, pp. 3966–81. de Mello, A. (1992/1998) Minuta Nonsensu [One minute nonsense], Kraków: WAM Goffman, E. (1961/1991) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, London: Penguin.

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Guillet de Monthoux, P. (1978) Handling och existens: Anarkoexistentiell analys av projekt, företag och organisation [Action and existens: Anarchoexistenialist analysis of project, enterprise, and organization], Stockholm: Liber. Höpfl, H. (1995a) ‘Organizational rhetoric and the threat of ambivalence’, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 1/2: 175–87. —— (1995b) ‘Performance and Customer Service: The Cultivation of Contempt’, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 1(1): 47–62. Kociatkiewicz, J. and Kostera, M. (1999) ‘The Anthropology of the Empty Spaces’, Qualitative Sociology 22(1): 37–50. Kostera, M. (1997) ‘The Kitsch-Organization’, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 3: 163–77. —— (forthcoming) ‘A Letter From the Empty Stage’, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, special issue ‘The Empty Space – Organizing Visible’. Kristeva, J. (1978) Recherches pour une sèmanalyse, Paris: Editions du Seuil. Law, J. (1994) Organizing Modernity, Oxford: Blackwell. Silverman, D. (1999) ‘Wspól⁄ praca dzieci w milcza˛cym odbiorze: Rozwaz˙ania w duchu Harvey’a Sacks’a’ [Children’s Collaboration in Silent Recipiency: Thinking with Harvey Sacks], Master of Business Administration 37(1): 22–4. Weick, K. (1969/1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing, Reading: Addison Wesley/ Longman.

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Endpiece

Lindsay McCulloch with her mum, sister and niece, 2001.

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Authors name

Index

abject concept of 66 managing 73–5 abortion 189 Abramovic, Marina 201 actor–network theory 61 aletheic gaze 55 Alien 3 178 amniocentesis 177, 187–8, 190 animus/anima, theory of 22, 25 anorganic body 52 Aphrodite archetype 17, 21–2, 24 archetype(s) concept of 30 of femaleness 36 goddesses as 17–18, 18–22 of mothering 31 Artemis archetype 18, 24 articulation 51 assertoric gaze 55 Athena archetype 18, 24 Bach, Elvira 201 Barthes, Roland 8 Bataille, Georges 141 Baudrillard 9–10, 171, 172 Bazin, Germain 149 Beauvoir, Simone de: Second Sex, The 118 Bentham, Jeremy 145 Bernard of Clairvaux 9 Beuys 200–1 ‘bitching’ 21 Blanchett, Cate 124 Blue 178 body/bodies concept of 31 maternal 6, 9 meanings of 50–1

organisations as 27–31 role of, in Victorian novel 116–18 body-in-contact 53, 56–9 Body of the Law 71 Bollhagen, Hedwig 201 Boltanski 207 Boss, Hugo 211 Brecht, Bertholt 76 Caucasian Chalk Circle 63–4 Brehmen, Renate von 201 Breton, André 197 Brither, Ursula 201 Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre 114, 115, 117 Bunuel, Luis 197 Bunyan, John: Pilgrim’s Progress, The 79 bureaucracy, Weberian concept of 13, 68 burn out phenomenon 43 Cahn, Miriam 214 care, duty of 114 charismatic 37, 38 caring script 74 Castelli, Leo 205, 211 Cézanne, Paul 158 charismatic leadership/followership 37, 38 Chaucer, Geoffrey: Canterbury Tales 79 childbirth, painless 187 Chronos 219–20 collective imagination, maternal in 15–17 conflicts, mediator in 39 constructed feminine 10 consumption 53 contact 53, 54 craftsman 53 customer care programmes 68–9 cybernetics 54–5

Index Dada 200, 208 Dali, Salvador 197 Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders 86–7, 88–9 Degas, Edgar 156 Deleuze, Gilles 220, 221 delonging 141 Demeter archetype 17, 18, 19–20, 24, 36, 43 Derrida, Jacques 172, 214 logic of supplementarity 49–50 Descartes 159 Destiny’s Child 137, 149, 152 Dickens, Charles Bleak House 114, 115, 117 David Copperfield 114, 117, 118 Great Expectations 113, 114–15, 117 Oliver Twist 116 dismemberment 57 Disraeli, Benjamin 109 divine mother 17 Down’s Syndrome 189–91 downsizing 37 Dreier, Katherine 197 Duchamp, Marcel 197, 202, 205, 208 Durkheim, Emile 162 duty of care 114 Einstein, Albert 200 Eliot, T.S. 101 Elizabeth (film) 121–35 emotionality 37–8 empathetic role in personnel management 40, 43 Ernst, Max 202 Eventum 219, 221 exile 227, 228 exodus 84–6 false movement 220 fear of the feminine 4–5 Feltrinelli, Inge 214 foetal rights 180 fetishism 161 Feyerabend, Paul 214 Fluxus movement 200 Freud, Sigmund 16, 141, 162 friendship, concept of 148 Gaskell, Mrs: Mary Barton 113, 114, 115–16

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gaze, the 55, 182 gender stereotyping 106–7 gene-manipulation of reproduction 184–5 Giacometti, Alberto 197 goddess-mothers 17–18 goddesses as archetypes 17–18 Gone with the Wind (film) 35–6 Gorilla Girls 214 Graham 207 Grant, Hugh 178 Greer, Germaine: Whole Woman, The 130, 133, 134 Griffith, Melanie 118 guardian of justice, role of 40 Guggenheim, Peggy 197, 211 Haecceity 221 hands 57–9 Heidegger 147, 217 Hera archetype 17, 18–19, 24 heroism 32 Hestia 18 Hietamies, Laila: Abandoned Houses 35 home, institution of 88–9 homo economicus 164 homo sacer 162–3, 164, 165, 175 humanism 162 Hunza people 47–50 hybridisation–domination 59–61 hypermodernity 156–7, 164–5 hysteria 116–17 imago 16 individualisation 182 instantie 56 instrumental role in crisis situations 41 Ishkamanis 49 James, Henry: Daisy Miller 87 Javacheff, Christo 204, 207 Johns 205 Jung, Carl Gustave 4, 16, 17, 30, 32 theory of animus/anima 22 Kalevala epic 32, 33–6 Kali 17 Kandinsky, Wassili 143, 149, 159 Kirkegaard 141 Klee, Paul 159 Kristeva, Julia 2, 3, 7–9, 10–11, 141

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Index

labour, pain of 1, 3, 4, 12 Lacan, Jacques 141 : ‘Signification of the Phallus, The’ 131 ‘lady’, ideal of, in Victorian novel 113 law of the generations 114–18 law, learning 69–70 leadership 30 charismatic 37, 38 learning law 69–70 as poetic experience 70–3 Leonardo da Vinci 145 Letiche, Maria, drawings of pregnancy 166–73 line manager 42 Lorca, Federigo 197 Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe 58 Lyotard 159, 171, 172

Morrison, Toni: Paradise 93–6, 97, 98, 100 mother-earth 17 Motherhood of Hexis 220, 221 Motherhood of Organisation 220 multiple pregnancy 180 myths meanings of 31–2 and organisations 29–31

Madonna (pop singer) 149 Madonna (Virgin Mary), images of 9, 10, 137–54 Magritte, René 60, 202 Jours Gigantesques, Les 47, 61 Red Model, The 52 manufacturers 53 masquerade, mother and 121–36 maternal complex 16 maternal omnipotence 22–4 maternity leave, return from 14–15 materotopia 98–100, 101 materotopology 98–100, 101 Matisse, Henri 158, 159 ‘After the Dance’ 202 Matres Matutae 17 matrix, concept of 3, 5–6, 84 Mauss 162 Melville, Hermann 221 mentalism 159 Merleau-Ponty 159 metaphor theory in organisations 65–7 metramorphosis, concept of 84 Michelangelo: Pietà 145 Milton, John: Paradise Lost 80, 82 Miró, Joán 159, 197 mnemotope 99 modernism 156–8, 161–2, 165–6, 168–9 Monet, Claude 143, 149

pain of labour 1, 3, 4, 12 Pantheon 139 pastoral care 73 Performance Metrics Charter 164 Persephone 17, 18 persona 25 personnel department 40 personnel management 37, 39–41 empathetic role of 43 photography 182–3 phrenology 117 Picasso, Pablo 56, 158, 159, 197 Plato 144, 148 Timaeus 139 poetic language 229–30 Pop art 159 postmodernism 157–60 power corrupting effect of 116 inequality of 107–8 Prada 211 pregnancy drawings of 166–73 multiple 180 prenatal testing 177, 185 psychoprophylaxis 187 Pythagoras 144

Näher, Christa 201 Nietsche, Frederik 141, 148, 217 Nine Months (film) 178 orexis 141 organisational hostility to mothers 13–15 organisational mother, role of 42–4 organisations as bodies 27–31 outsourcing role 41

Raphael 145 Ray, Man 202

Index Renaissance epoch 145 responsive adaptability 166 restraint, necessity for 112–14 Reynard the Fox 59 Rhea archetype 18, 20–1, 24 rhetoric 230–1 Rist, Pippi Lotti 214 Riviere, Joan: ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’ 121, 123–4, 131 Robinson, Marilynne: Housekeeping 89–93, 98, 99, 100 Rondelet, Guillaume: Fishes 60 Roth, Dieter 200 Saachi 209 St Phalle, Nikki de 201 saudade 141 Schopenhauer 148 self-control, necessity for 112–14 semiotics 8 Serres 159 Sherman, Cindy 160, 166, 170–2, 173–5 Sibelius, Jean 33 silence 224–33 socialisation 108 Stein, Gertrud 203, 214 stereotypes, female, in the workplace 118–19 still-life 60 strangeness/estrangement 8 Stürmer, Betty 201 suffering 75 symbiosis 53 technology 60 technoromanticism 165 Thackeray, William M.: Vanity Fair 113, 114, 115, 116, 117 Theoria 217 Thomkins, Nathalie 201 Törhönen, Lauri 35

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touching 53–4 travel 83–4 twins (multiple pregnancy) 180 ‘two persons, one career’, concept of 19 Tynchanon 219, 220, 221–2 ultrasound screening 177–94 uniting mother between privacy and work-life 41–2 image of 35–6, 37 in times of crisis at the workplace 38–42 universities as mother 68–9 as providers of care 67–8 unselfishness, necessity for 112–14 van Gogh, Vincent 159, 197, 202 Victorian female prototypes 110–12 Victorian novel controlled and uncontrolled female power in 110–12 law of the generations in 114–18 role in formation of female images 109–10 Virgin Mother see Madonna Virilio, Paul 213 vulgar morale 148–9 Warhol, Andy 205 Weaver, Sigourney 118 Weberian concept of bureaucracy 13, 68 Wilson, Robert 211 women managers 104–6 Woolf, Virginia 80 Working Girl (film) 118 workmen 53 Wundt, Wilhelm Max 162 Xenophon 148 ZMP 226