Jacques Derrida - On Deconstruction -

 
David M. Boje, Ph.D. (updated September 3, 2001) - MAIN Site Fathers and Mother of Management webmaster dboje@nmsu.edu 

 Jacques Derrida (1930 - now). For me, deconstruction opens up avenues of analytic power and investigative clarity that have changed my theorizing and writing over the past decade. I would like to introduce you to some vocabulary, and respond to some of the confusion I seen in people who are trying to learning deconstruction analysis.

Deconstruction Vocabulary

Deconstruction is not a methodology.  Deconstruction, however can be a way of doing analysis of texts, and since everything can be some form of spoken, written, or enacted text, most everything can be deconstructed. Deconstructed, many say is undefinable. Deconstruction is both an analysis, and it is part of what is happening all around us.

Deconstruction is antenarrative in action. Every story excludes. Every story legitimates a centered point of view, a worldview, or an ideology amongst alternatives. No story is ideologically neutral; story floats in the chaotic soup of bits and pieces of story fragments. Story is never alone; it lives and breaths it’s meaning in a web of other stories.  And, every story since it is embedded in changing meaning contexts of multiple stories and collective story making, "self-deconstructs" with each telling. Deconstruction is both phenomenon and analysis.  It is phenomenon because "story deconstruction" is all the constructing and reconstructing processes happening all around us. It is analysis, as I have come to read it. I will speak of two levels: the level of action and the analytic level (Boje, 2001, Chapter 1).

What is deconstruction?  Defining deconstruction may be contrary to the spirit of Derrida's writing. Yet, deconstruction often does involve ways of reading that decenter, or otherwise unmask narratives that posit authoritative centers. “According to Derrida, all Western thought is based on the idea of a center – an origin, a Truth, and Ideal Form, a fixed Point, an Immovable Mover, an Essence, a God, a Presence, which is usually capitalized, and guarantees all meaning” (Powell, 1997: 21). That said, here is a definition: Deconstructionist points out the instability, complex movements, processes of change, and the play of differences and heterogeneity that make stability, unity, structure, function, and coherence one-sided readings. Please consult Interactive Deconstruction Study Guide http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/deconstruct.html

Resituation - I think many readers of Derrida, have missed a major point. That is, the point of deconstruction is not only to analyze dualities, explore the hierarchy of the terms, do reversals, and get between the lines, etc. --- it is also to resituate.  Once you understand the power in the text, then it is possible to resituate, and provide a way to move in some new direction. I explain it this way (Boje, 2001, chapter 1):

Resituate.  The point of doing the deconstruction analysis, is to find a new perspective, one that resituates the story beyond its dualisms, excluded voices, or singular viewpoint.  The idea is to reauthor the story so that the hierarchy is resituated and a new balance of views is attained. Restory to remove the dualities and margins. In a resituated story there are no more centers. Restory to script new actions.

If we deconstruct, without resituation, then we are rightfully open to challenge by the critics of deconstruction, who say it is just destruction (tearing apart). At, the same, time I think even without resituation, it must be pointed out, that deconstruction is going on in the text, and in our lives, both text and our lives are unraveling. Deconstruction, as an analysis, traces the lines and fissures, and transformations. Still, to resituate, is to include some new line of flight, which eventually, gets deconstructed. Boje and Dennehy (1993) call this writing a new plot or restorying beyond the dominant hierarchies.

Double Logic - Derrida’s (1985: 32) "double interpretation," ways that make the separation of subjective
story from objective empirical chronology impossible. The undecidabilities allow for the double interpretation of linearity and non-linearity logics in a system that has both deviation-amplifying and deviation-counteracting loops, to either forestall or accelerate chaos effects.

Is there an outside to text? Derrida is often critiqued for saying there is nothing outside of the text, a move which would deny that there are birds, trees, and the Holocaust. But, what did he say? “Il n’y a pas de-hors-texte” is Derrida’s most misinterpreted slogan, and according to Currie (1998: 45) “does not mean there is nothing outside the text as most commentators have taken it. It is closer to ‘There is no outside-text.’”  The confusion is that Derrida indicates that outside the text are other texts, but also material conditions of textual production, and text traced into material conditions (i.e. factories, schools, bombs, genocide, and war). Derrida (1999: 65) clarifies that "what I call the 'text' is not distinct from action or opposed to action."  A text is not the pages of a book, it is a much broader concept that includes the politics and ethics of action. "The distinction between truth and reality is absolutely elementary, as is the distinction between truth and veracity; that is, to say something true does not mean that you say something real" (p. 77) [for References, please see Boje, 2001).

Nike Example (Excerpts from Boje, 1999)- The Nike storytelling organization (Boje, 1995, 1999) constructs through storied sense making practices its very legitimacy to employ young, female Asian workers to accumulate billions in capital. But, activist entrepreneurs are also virtual storytelling organizations, using the Internet to assemble delegitimation stories to damage the integrity of Nike, crafting stories to purposely deconstruct the dominant ideology and institutional memory of Nike, who they frame as Wile Coyote. Activists also provoke print media coverage, letter writing campaigns, and annual worldwide boycotts of Nike products. Activists and Nike deconstruct each others' texts, and the consumer of this genre is left wondering who is Wile Coyote, and who is the Roadrunner (Boje, 1999)? Who is Wile and who is Roadrunner is an important, yet undecidable question. The characters are dualities, caught in narrative opposition, the action of each is a reaction to the action or inaction of the other.

In terms of story construction, both Nike and activists are caught up in linear and non-linear stories and accuse the other of deception, and both use web technology to trip the other into the abyss. Nike to the activist, is the dark side of the postmodern organization, actively non-linear, preferring to invoke PR spectacles and counter spin stories, but also linear, not changing overseas labor and environment practices, and painting itself as the innocent victim of the Wile activists, while engaging in child and adult labor practices reminiscent of the darkest side of Victorian capitalism.

Activist and Nike storytelling is possessed by a "double logic," presenting its plot as a linear sequence of events which is prior to and independent of the other non-linear perspective on the events, and, at the same time, asserting they have captured the other in a devious plot structure. In "double logic," for every report of Nike exploitation, there is the distinct possibility that the story of the event is an exaggeration or even a fictitious tale by an activist. Conversely, for every charge that Nike is being victimized, there is the possibility that exploitation is being caused by Nike. Nike stories itself as the Roadrunner hero, walking a straight line that does not deviate from its core mission. Each time Nike appears to be trapped by the activist, like Wile purchasing technology from Acme (i.e. the Web-based technology), a simple story gets spun by Nike, a celebrity endorsement happens, or a media spectacle (e.g. P.L.A.Y. or Knight’s sweeping changes) transforms Nike from villain to hero. The activists want to prove Nike is Wile E. Coyote, who is just wagging the tail to wag the dog. Yet, at each juncture, Nike sides step each Wile characterization and morphs into the Roadrunner.

As an analysis, deconstruction allows us to trace the ways that Nike claims deconstruct themselves. For example, Nike issues press releases claiming that the former-Ambassador Andrew Young photo-op tours of 12 factories, clears Nike of all challenges by the activists. Over the next two months, there are so many biting and penetrating critiques of the Andrew Young study, Nike strategies have to lay out a completely new approach.  When the Amos Tuck Business school study was used to make the claim that Nike pays more than a living wage in both Indonesia and Vietnam, I was one who used deconstruction and along with ethnostatistics (Gephart, 1988) to trace the ways in which statistics was used to tell some pretty tale tales (Boje, 1998). When quite a number of critics pointed out the methodological flaws, and stretches of the imagination in the Tuck study (like not interviewing workers, but interviewing townspeople instead or claiming that sweatshops pay so much workers buy motorcycles) --- Nike and Dartmouth (Tuck Business School) pulled the study from its web site for almost two years. But, then it happened that Nike was being challenged by Tim Connor, and myself (in separate efforts) to put into action, Phil Knight's 1999 promise made to the D.C. Press Club (and public everywhere), that academic researchers from universities would be allowed to study sweatshop conditions. Nike won't respond to a study I organized with 50 scholars.  You see in these examples, a series of moves and counter-moves, of texts constructed to counter other texts, then these deconstructed. Every month Nike is deconstructing its challengers (new ones each month). Trace the changes in the Nike Biz site and you see that Nike is also deconstructing itself at the same time. Nike's latest strategy is to invest in the monitoring industry, in the Fair Labor Association (FLA), and in the Global Alliance (GA) consulting firm. Nike also hires PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to monitor its factories. Activists are deconstructing the FLA, GA, and PWC, left and right, pointing out ways they are complicit (e.g. Nike has board members and executives on GA, invests millions in FLA and GA, and what accounting or consulting firm is going to turn in a bad report to Nike? -- one that does not want to be hired again).  PWC has been the subject of several major deconstructive studies, showing that auditors and monitors from PWC are helping factory managers avoid being caught red handed (For more on this See Monitoring).

When it comes to Nike, deconstruction has gone global, since for the anti-sweatshop movement and the anti-globalization movement, Nike is the poster character of choice (see Globe Project).  There are now over 100 academic studies, papers, and books that have, in one way, or another, deconstructed Nike (See annotated listing). But this matters very little to the buying public. Why? Because, by spending $750,000 a year on junk science consulting reports and pseudo-science purchased from apologist academics, and the endorsements to Tiger Woods, the payments to GA, FLA, and PWC for their work, Nike is able to make it seem that 100 academic studies are each and every one wrong. 

Resituate - If we resituate the deconstructive analysis of Nike and the Activist challenges, we see something quite interesting. Nike is slowly and begrudgingly becoming that which it is actively resisting, a corporation that enforces its own code of conduct, a company who is turning its espoused theory into a theory of action. It is not happening everywhere. Right now, from what I can find out, just in the model factories (the ones that are transparent). Take a Nike virtual tour of a factory in Vietnam, then read the activist reporting coming out of Vietnam, and you will conclude that Nike is making some progress, but only a little. But a little is better than nothing, and sooner or later Nike will believe its own rhetoric, and we might see full factory disclosure, women workers with the right to organize, a living page, and a post-sweatshop factory.

PS - I also deconstruct the narrative claims of Adidas, Reebok and New Balance. http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/

 

 

References

Boje, D. M. 1995. "Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of Disney as 'Tamara-land.'"
Academy of Management Journal. 38(4): 997-1035. http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/DisneyTamaraland.html

Boje, D. M. (1998). Amos Tuck's Post-Sweat Nike Spin Pp618-623. In Business Research Yearbook: Global Business
Perspectives, Vol. V. Biberman, J. & Alkafarji, A (Eds.). http://business.nmsu.edu/mgt/handout/boje/bnike/index.html

Boje, D. M. (1999). Is Nike Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote? A Postmodern Organization Analysis of Double Logic, Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship. Special Issue (March, Vol. II) 77-109.  http://business.nmsu.edu/mgt/jpub/boje/nikerrcoyote/index.html

Boje, D. M. (2001) Narrative Methods for Organization and Communication Research. London: Sage. New Book that contains several analyses on (Deconstruction) and introduces concept of "antenarrative." http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/what_is_antenarrative.htm  (on line book intro chapter)
Sage   for U.S. pricing. See BOOK REVIEWS and paperback at Amazon.com or Euro order (Sage London).

Boje & Dennehy Managing in Postmodern World - Chapter on Follett, Fayol, Weber, and Taylor. http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/mpw.html See Chap 2 in particular for more on Follett.

Derrida, Jacques (1985). The Ear of the Other: Otobirgraphy, Transference, Translation. Christie McDonald (Ed.), trans. Peggy Kamuf. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

WRITINGS OF DERRIDA ON THE WEB:

Derrida Links 

 

 

 

Recommended Sites for Managing Scholars See TAMARA: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science http://www.zianet.com/boje/tamara/

 


 

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