Sociomateriality as flesh

ABSTRACT

An important contribution to the field of communication is François Cooren's critique of the assumption that the social and the material are entangled because this assumption reproduces the divide it claims to reject. Rather, Cooren proposes that the social and the material are properties, or (im-)properties, of one another because their relational differences bring organizations into existence. Cooren's three conclusions on this matter argue that the sociomateriality of an organization is a relational ontology. In this article, I problematize those three conclusions and suggest Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh as an alternative to overcome the problematics of each conclusion. Conclusion 1 lacks a conceptual groundwork explaining where social and material matter comes from, and I suggest flesh as the element to categorize matter. Conclusion 2 denigrates human existence to a matter of degree. I reframe this through the notion of alterity. Conclusion 3 suggests that relations and relata are the same yet theoretical support for that proposition is missing. As such, I offer the missing theoretical support through Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh. Taken together, Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh provides one coherent system and better affirms each of Cooren's conclusions of what a relational/communicative ontology of organization consists of.

KEYWORDS:

• flesh
• alterity
• relational ontology
• otherness
• organization
• Merleau-Ponty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” Organization Theory 1, no. 3 (2020): 15, https://doi.org/10.1177/2631787720954444

2 Cooren, 15.

3 Ibid., 1–24.

4 Ibid., 2–3.

5 Ibid., 15.

6 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Sensible World and the World of Expression: Course Notes from the Collège de France, 1953, trans. Bryan Smyth (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011/2020), xii.

7 Theodore R. Schatzki, “Early Heidegger on Being, the Clearing, and Realism,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 43, no. 168 (1989): 80–102, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23946693

8 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, trans. Carol Macomber (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1947/2007).

9 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Sensible World and the World of Expression: Course Notes from the Collège de France, 1953, xv.

10 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964/1969), 139.

11 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility.” In Ontology and Alterity in Merleau-Ponty, eds. Galen A. Johnson and Michael B. Smith (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990), xxi.

12 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xxi.

13 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 2.

14 Ibid.,16.

15 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis, 9.

16 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xxi.

17 Ibid., xxi–xxii.

18 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies”

19 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xxi.

20 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 16.

21 Ibid.,16.

22 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xxi.

23 Luce Irigaray, “To Paint the Visible,” Continental Philosophy Review 37 (2004): 393, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-005-5755-9

24 Ibid.,399.

25 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 16.

26 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xviii.

27 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes (London: Routledge 1945/2012): 483.

28 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xx–xxi.

29 Ibid., xx–xxi.

30 Ibid.,xxi.

31 Galen A. Johnson, “Introduction: Alterity as a Reversibility,” xxi.

32 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 16.

33 Jack Reynolds, “Merleau-Ponty, Levinas and the Alterity of the Other,” Symposium 6, no. 1 (2002): 69.

34 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs, trans. Richard C. McCleary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1960/1964), 169.

35 Jack Reynolds, “Merleau-Ponty, Levinas and the Alterity of the Other,” 65–6.

36 Ibid.,67.

37 Ibid., 67–8.

38 Ibid.,68.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis, 123.

44 Ibid., 123.

45 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 15.

46 Briankle Chang, “Deconstructing Communication: Representation, Subject, and Economies of Exchange,” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 38.

47 François Cooren. “Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies,” 15.

48 Ibid.,16.

49 Ibid.