First Annual Heather Hopfl CWOS Seminar on Gender Culture and Organisation

Event abstract

Taking the City of London as the focus for the empirical research, the study this presentation draws upon considers how the rhythms of place can shape the experience of those working within it. The methodological approach is based on Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis (2004) in order to develop an immersive, embodied sense of how the gendered and performative nature of the City is experienced. Exploring how rhythms contribute to how place is performed, findings emerge as to how organisational places compel feelings of belonging and/or not belonging, and the analysis draws on Lefebvre’s theorisation of the states of eurythmia and arrhythmia to explain this. By presenting the City as shaped by distinctive rhythms, the research foregrounds rhythmanalysis as a method of understanding the experience and affect of organizational place, and which can be used to analyse the patterns of gender inclusion and exclusion.

Speaker biography

Dr Louise Nash is a lecturer in Management and Marketing at Essex Business School. Her research interests are in interpretative, qualitative studies of the lived experience of work, particularly in the spatial and temporal rhythms of everyday working life, and in exploring and developing sensory and embodied methods of research.