Fragments and Links: Organizational Actor‐World of the Harry Potter Phenomenon

Abstract

The article seeks to develop an Actor‐Network Theory perspective on the relationship between organization and literature by focusing on the Harry Potter phenomenon. The latter is seen as an example of how contemporary popular literature does not stop at itself, but rather supersedes itself by spinning its own truly impressive organizational actor‐network. This industrious industrial entanglement challenges what may be called the ‘disembodied’ conceptualization of literature—the conceptualization that is centred on the contents of works of fiction alone. When the contents of the literary texts are decentred in that they are taken as but one (however important) actor of the actor‐world that comes to be known by their name, other actors become more visible that help to conceptualize Harry Potter as an organizational, as much as a literary, phenomenon.

Key words:

• Organization
• Literature
• Fiction
• Actor‐Network Theory
• Heterogeneity
• Complexity

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Norman Crump, Brian Bloomfield and Theo Vurdubakis (all at Lancaster University) for their comments on various versions on this paper, and the two anonymous reviewers at Culture & Organization for their thoughtful suggestions. I retain full responsibility for the faults of this article.

Notes

1. See ⟨http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/entertainment/2002/harry_potter/default.stm⟩ (accessed 22 October 2007)

2. As Callon writes, ‘the terms actor‐world and actor‐network draw attention to two aspects of the same phenomenon’ and can be used interchangeably (Callon, 1986: 33). Throughout this article, I am using ‘actor‐world’ to emphasize the spread and extend of the phenomenon built around Harry Potter, and ‘actor‐network’ to emphasise that its configuration is complex and ‘susceptible to change’ (ibid.).

3. There are over 40,000 pagans in today’s Britain, with an estimated 15 covens in Glasgow and 20 in Edinburgh, and, according to a story in the London Sunday Mail, those who aspire to a diploma in Wicca can now apply for government grants (Elvin, 2001).