Storytelling, space and power: An Arendtian account of subjectivity in organizations

Abstract

Drawing on Arendt’s work, this article develops a storytelling account of subjectivity and politics in organizations. Storytelling is understood as the process through which actors reconstruct their experiences and appear in a collective space. Storytelling is thus enacted within and from spaces and is a means for political action. Three theoretical consequences are drawn. First, storytelling implies the ever-present possibility of a ‘space of appearance’ in which the subject is an originator of action. Second, the notion of storytelling as a spatial practice implies focusing on how stories are shaped through interactions and collective engagements, or ‘emplacement’. Third, a material and embodied reconfiguration of Arendt’s notion of action shows how material relations offer important affordances to change organizations. Because storytelling is both a process of engaging with ourselves and the power relations that we are part of, Arendt’s notion of storytelling is helpful for understanding how and in what circumstances we can act politically in organizations. In particular, the article argues that Arendt’s account is useful for framing an interventionist third stream of critical management studies, or ‘critical performativity’.