TY - JOUR
T1 - The promise and peril of agency as motion
T2 - A feminist new materialist approach to sexual violence and sexual harassment
AU - Harris, Kate Lockwood
AU - McFarlane, Megan
AU - Wieskamp, Valerie
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - Organizational scholars have established that sexual harassment, the most studied kind of sexual violence, is an organizational problem. Extending this work, we analyze two critical events regarding sexual violence in the United States—one in the military and another at a university—in which discourse detracts from understanding the problem in this way. We draw upon feminist new materialism and its primary method—diffraction—to track ‘cuts’, the practices that simplify and pause agency’s complex, perpetual motions. Our analysis shows that agency moves in discussions about the aftermath of violence. That momentum highlights the organization’s capacity to respond to rape. Even so, during discussions about enacting violence, the perpetual motion of agency congeals around discrete humans, thereby maintaining assault as an individual act. These cuts, whereby agency pauses on individual perpetrators, obscure how organizational dynamics make sexual violence more or less likely to occur. We suggest that a focus on agency’s kinetic qualities can help feminist scholars continue to highlight how the systemic aspects of harassment and other forms of violence become hard to notice.
AB - Organizational scholars have established that sexual harassment, the most studied kind of sexual violence, is an organizational problem. Extending this work, we analyze two critical events regarding sexual violence in the United States—one in the military and another at a university—in which discourse detracts from understanding the problem in this way. We draw upon feminist new materialism and its primary method—diffraction—to track ‘cuts’, the practices that simplify and pause agency’s complex, perpetual motions. Our analysis shows that agency moves in discussions about the aftermath of violence. That momentum highlights the organization’s capacity to respond to rape. Even so, during discussions about enacting violence, the perpetual motion of agency congeals around discrete humans, thereby maintaining assault as an individual act. These cuts, whereby agency pauses on individual perpetrators, obscure how organizational dynamics make sexual violence more or less likely to occur. We suggest that a focus on agency’s kinetic qualities can help feminist scholars continue to highlight how the systemic aspects of harassment and other forms of violence become hard to notice.
KW - Agency
KW - boundary-making practices
KW - cuts
KW - feminist new materialism
KW - sexual harassment
KW - sexual violence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064815495&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85064815495&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1350508419838697
DO - 10.1177/1350508419838697
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064815495
SN - 1350-5084
JO - Organization
JF - Organization
ER -