Ruin and organization studies

In this paper we offer a preliminary study of the various ways in which 'ruin' has significance for organization studies. One important motif associated with both modern and romantic treatments of the ruin is the revelatory impressions ruins make. In this respect the traditions of ruin writing will talk of their ?beauty?, their ?strangeness? or their capacity to ?intimidate?. In order to attend to this elusive phenomenon we must necessarily breach some of the self-imposed boundaries of our ?discipline?. Central to our strategy is the use of ?contiguity? as both method and textual structuring device that allows us to drift across iconic ruin images, ruin theories, and our own ruinous research experiences. This helps us learn how to ?dwell? in ruins without any impatient reaching after fact or explaining away ruins in the terms of any established tradition of theorizing in organization. In this way we hope to be able to open up new analytic spaces and associations for organizational researchers. These concern specifically a) a distinctive approach to time, history and memory; b) an increased awareness of the multiplicity of forces impinging on organization, but from which we so easily retreat behind the cordon sanitaire of organization-studies-as-usual; and c) a cognizance of how the very way we write is a mode of doing organization that is crucial for our ability and willingness to look into 'all corners of reality' so that we might better grasp organizational phenomena.