Queering Robert Cooper: Gender, a kitsch and anthropomorphic organization.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- de Souza, Eloisio Moulin
- Source
- Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization. Nov2023, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p225-249. 25p.
- Subject
- *ECONOMIC entity
*QUEER theory
*LGBTQ+ organizations
*GENDER
*SIGNS & symbols
- Language
- ISSN
- 2052-1499
This article applies the concepts of anthropomorphism and kitsch developed by Robert Cooper (1986/2023a) to queering the ontology of organization. Cooper suggests a non-essentialist ontology of organization that allows us to think 'organization' beyond a concrete economic entity and to expand the field of Organization Studies beyond studies of organizations. I use Cooper's concepts to demonstrate that gender norms are anthropomorphic and kitsch forms of organization themselves. Cooper's work is not about gender, but for Cooper organizations operate to produce not only goods but also signs and symbols that organize society, including gender. He argues that 'organization' is not an entity but a constant process of micro-ordering our lives and world-making. In this sense, identities are forms of organizing, disrupting the essentialist and realist assumptions that organizations are entities and hence redefining the limits and objects of analysis of Organization Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]