Reminiscences of Los Alamos: Narrative, critical theory, and the organizational subject

Abstract

Recent works of critical theory have examined both organizations and nuclear weapons as “sites” of symbolic activity structuring human experience and social action. This essay integrates those projects by examining autobiographical narratives of three scientists from the wartime Los Alamos Laboratory. These narratives suggest an organizational structure manifest in ideological discourses for nuclear practice and sensemaking. This structure would have enabled Los Alamos members to rationalize their working identities and the objects of their labor. I conclude by considering implications of these narratives for the critical study of organizational discourse.