Organizing rocks: Actor–network theory and space. (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jensen, Tommy; Sandström, Johan
• Is Part Of: Organization. Volume 27:Number 5(2020:Sep.)
• Page Start: 701
• Page End: 716
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Actor–network theory -- ethics -- mining -- organizing -- politics -- power -- space; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/1350508419842715
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1350-5084

Abstract

In an ethnography of the organizing of an underground mine, this article critically engages with actor–network theory's theorizing of space, particularly the risk of drifting into spatial pluralism. Inspired by Annemarie Mol's The Body Multiple, a space multiple approach is enrolled in which seemingly disparate enactments of the mining operations are understood in terms of coexistence and difference, inclusion and exclusion. Such an account attempts to cast aside a kind of neatness that jeopardizes the empirical openness that makes actor–network theory so fruitful to work with in organization studies dealing with spatial complexity.