Article in Management Learning about Practising Gender in Organizations

Practising Gender in Organizations: The Critical Gap Between Practical and Discursive Consciousness

Chris Mathieu

Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, cjm.ioa@cbs.dk

Practice oriented approaches to gender in studying organization and management have hitherto stressed practice's performative dimension. This article opens up an underexplored and underexploited critical dimension nascent in practice theory. Via theoretical development and empirical illustration it is argued that a powerful critical opportunity is opened up to practice theory by exploring the various ways in which gaps between practical and discursive consciousness manifest themselves and how these various manifestations impact what is and can be known in social situations. By invoking and refining Giddens' (1979) distinction between practical and discursive consciousness we explore different situations involving the ways gendered practices are enacted and practically and discursively met. We also highlight how the authority of practices and the social institutions they are embedded in can inhibit discursive penetration, that is, knowledge and exploration of the processes and implications of practical conduct and the social institutions upon which they rest. It is concluded that we have much to gain by widening the practice lens and looking at the presence, absence and interplay of both practical and deliberative consciousness in our analyses.

Management Learning, Vol. 40, No. 2, 177-193 (2009)