A DEFENSE OF THE EROGENOUS BODY IN ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article aims to contribute to the study of corporeality in the field of organizational studies from the perspective of the psychoanalytical notion of the erogenous body. Investigations into corporeality and the psychoanalytical framework exist in organizational studies, but there is also a lack of psychoanalytical contributions with specific regard to the body in this field. We demonstrate that this gap exists by revisiting the question of corporeality in organizational studies, starting from the rationalist origins of the kinship between anatomopathological medicine and the theory of organizations. We then present the psychoanalytical conceptualization of the erogenous body starting with its rupture from anatomopathological medicine. In conclusion, we present an extensive ethnographic study of the body in investment banks and discuss how the notion of the erogenous body can throw light on the impasses found in it.