Introduction

Summary

The inspiration for this book was born out of my engagement with texts, approaches, collaborations and practices connected with ‘writing differently’ – a phrase which has become increasingly common and has accrued a plethora of meanings. The starting ground for the reflections provided in this manuscript are today’s neoliberal academic context, and feminist perspectives on researching and being an academic.

In the spirit of embracing difference and opening up possibilities of researching and writing that go against rigid preconceptions of what academic research and publishing must look like, this book is written to blur traditional boundaries of academic volumes. As such, this book is both an academic monograph and a volume on methods; it engages with theory while being firmly rooted in a practical approach. It is not intended to provide a review of the writing differently literature, but it offers several contemporary and ante litteram exemplars to help the reader engage with the relevant conversations. Borrowing from Heather Höpfl (2007, 619) these are the intention, the spirit and the execution of this book:

And so this piece of writing attempts to undermine the extravagance of masculine forms of writing; of writing to produce the codpiece, writing as conceit; writing which is antagonistic to fragmented experience. It will not satisfy some, it will irritate others. The article is unbalanced, unresolved: like life itself. It is about stories, illustrations, asides, observations. It is also, with all its attempts to sub-vert (with all its attempts to make it ‘dirty’), a piece of male writing.

The aims of this volume are: to discuss why researching and writing differently are important in today’s academic context; to frame researching and writing differently as a political and feminist project; to offer an exploration of the meanings of ‘writing differently’, together with some examples; to provide reflections on various academic processes that can be done differently in line with feminist approaches; to investigate some of the qualitative methods and approaches that are often used in researching and writing differently; and finally to discuss some practical aspects linked with researching and publishing differently.

Rooted in the social sciences, this book is heavily influenced by approaches in the humanities and interdisciplinary perspectives. As such, although it pivots around conversations in management and organization studies, this approach to researching and writing differently is relevant to other fields of inquiry.