Diplomatic negotiation in an international organisation: an exploration of expert status and power
This paper will explore the status and characteristics of ‘expert’ membership within an international organisation and its influence on the development of ‘exosomatic resources’. Invoking the framework of the ‘Community of Practice’ (Wenger, 1998), it is argued that status and power are realised in the development and interpretation of policy and conventions within the organisation, through the ‘negotiation of meaning’ and through the ‘politics of participation and reification’. Negotiations and decisions may take place over a period of time but are also situated within plenary debates. As such it is argued that power and hierarchy are not fixed structures but are emergent and fluid discursively over time and space. The paper defines the characteristics of ‘expert’ membership encompassing a consideration of the command of participatory and interactional norms, as well as knowledge of the status and content of reified products. To illustrate these characteristics a critical analysis of the discourse of one delegate is provided. This exemplifies how expert knowledge is applied within a debate to influence and inform the development and interpretation of texts and subsequently to contribute to the (re)production of shared meaning and agreement on issues under debate. It is argued that in considering both the forms of asymmetry in organisations and the practice of decision-making, research should focus on: the type of knowledge that is required and valued in any context; how this knowledge is accessed, enacted and exploited; and which members are instrumental in its construction, representation and reproduction.
Introduction: Organizational Discourses and Practices
This article provides a brief introduction to the other articles in this Special Issue, and sets out some of the traditions in linguistics and discourse analysis which have engaged in organizational research. The article then addresses some of the issues that define organizationality, such as impersonalization, power, and (re)production. The latter of these three is focused on in greater detail and is linked to current concerns with what is now termed the `recontextualization' of professional and organizational phenomena (Bernstein, 1990; Iedema, 1997a; Linell and Sarangi, 1998). Here, recontextualization is proposed to be at the heart of organizationality itself; that is, organizationality is seen as constituted in (re)productive processes which apply discipline/scientific technologies to human/exosomatic resources, producing lasting effects. These effects include both specialized practices and alternative social and material realities. Relatedly, we argue that organizational meaning making practices are to be considered as `multimodal' chains of recontextualization, with alternative semiotics such as design and built construction forming equally important links as does language in the chains of organizational processes.
The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust
Introduction 1. Reading Post-Holocaust Theology from a Feminist Perspective 2. The Hiding of God's Face in Auschwitz 3. Feminist Intimations of the Holy in Auschwitz 4. Face to Face (with God) in Auschwitz 5. A Mother/God in Auschwitz 6. The Redemption of God in Auschwitz 7. The Princess and the City of Death: A Feminist Maaseh, after Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Notes. Select Glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish Terms