Agency and Organ ization : Toward a

Cyborg-Consciousness

Martin Wood1,2

The presumption that age ncy is primarily the function or personification of a

naturalized human actant can be trace d through a Western intellectual tradition

which draws upon a dualistic conception of the self as a unified, productive,

sove re ign subject, and an independent, external, physical other. In this paper, I

problematize the prevalen ce of such Cartesian differentiation. I re view an

alternative, postfoundational actant ontology, then trace the resemblances in the

work on situated knowledges. These orientations challenge the hierarchical

division between the internal self and the external other and instead emphasize

the re lational, material, and performative nature of human being. Drawing on

the notion of proximal thinking, I sugge st that formal organizations can

productively be described as re lational spaces, containing multiple and complex

frontiers, frame s and interfaces, with(in) which ostensibly differentiated and

individualistic attitudes toward agency give way to the variety and possibility of

the self-in-between; a cyborg-consciousness able to withstand the tension of

partial identities and contradictory voice s.

KEY WORDS: actant ontology; cyborg epistemology; postfoundationalism;proximal organizing; situated knowledges.

The individual mind is immanent but not only in the body. It is immanent also

in the pathways and me ssage s outside the body; and there is a larger Mind ofwhich the individual mind is only a sub-system.

—Gregory Bateson: Steps to an ecology of m ind

INTRODUCTION

The fact that age ncy—the functions, actions, or forces through which

effects, events, or results are achieved—ubiquitously occurs in social sys-

tems, human socie ties, and work organizations is not disputed here. How-

Hum an Relations, Vol. 51, No. 10, 1998

1209

0018-7267/98/1000-1209 $15.00/1 Ó 1998 The Tavistock Institute

1Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, England.2Requests for reprints should be addresse d to Martin Wood, Warwick Business School, Uni-

versity of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, England; e-mail: martin.wood@warwick.ac.uk

ever, recent deve lopme nts in postfoundationa l theorizing have be gun to

challenge notions of agency as the property impute d to and unilate rally

brokered by privile ged human subjects. The prevale nce of this reductionist

person ification (lite rally the attribution of human form) toward age ncy in

Western discourse s can be traced to the Cartesian inte lle ctual tradition

which privile ges the fragmentary and dualistic nature of reality. For Bohm

(1980) , what began as the pragmatic attempt to distill agency into an ar-

rogate d form has re sulte d in the artificial division of the world into

bounde d entities: psychological and social, thought and action, theory and

practice , which have become more than convenient compartme nts for or-

dering, be ing taken instead as representative of how the world really is:

constituted of separate “things,” each with the ir own seemingly autonomous

existence.

It has been sugge sted that age ncy is a consequence of the situation

in which it occurs (Bate son, 1972; Blackle r, 1993; Brown, Collins , &

Duguid, 1989; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Star, 1992) .

By emphasizing its constructe d and distribute d temper, this pape r posits

the idea that the inte ractions be tween networks of social, material, and

technical actants, performing in accordance with a multiplicity of situated

knowledge s, are integral to our understanding of agency in organizations.

It challe nges the Cartesian distinction that age ncy exists as what Lave and

Wenger term an “abstract representation,” arguing instead that its form

and utility is negotiable ; a practical and reversible matter of heteroge neous

performance.

The idea of performativity is closely tied to that of actor¯network theory

and its relation to weak (Vattimo, 1992) or proximal thinking (Coope r &

Law, 1995) and the associate d materialist thinking establishe d in science

and technology (Callon, Law, & Rip, 1986; Latour, 1987; Law, 1992) . These

actant ontologie s describe systems of heteroge neous “actors”—humans,

technology, information, environme nts—which embody a performance as

an inseparable whole , as if parts of a “seamless web” (Hughes, 1986) . The

implication of this approach for unde rstanding agency is the importance it

place s upon acting with the world. By resisting the temptation to reify

agency sole ly as the embodie d faculty of the human age nt, actant ontologie s

emphasize its distribute d nature : whereby agency is continually performed

by all—human and nonhuman—actants in an integrate d circuit.

What follows is an attempt to draw upon and weave toge ther the com-

plementary threads of situate d knowledge s, actant ontologie s, and proximal

thinking into an integrated approach, wherein all agency/structure distinc-

tions (mind and nature , social and technical, inside and outside ) are treated

as achievements, as privile ged effects or results and not as a priori resources.

1210 Wood

DECONSTRUCTING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

The development of Europe an art since the Renaissance period pre-

sents us with a useful metaphor for tracing the historical roots of the frag-

me ntary We stern inte lle ctual tradition. The te chnique of pe rspective ,

unique to European Renaissance art, centers a representation of the world

upon the eye of the beholder. This representation is the process of visible

appe arance s conve rging on the eye of the beholder and subsequently be ing

calle d reality. In this way, the reality portraye d by Renaissance art is con-

structed for the single eye of the beholder, such that the beholder would

see themselve s as central to, yet outside and inde pendent of, that reality:

The inherent contradiction in perspective was that it structured all images of reality

to address a single spectator who . . . could only be in one place at a time. (Berger,

1972, p. 16)

It is the creation of the post-Renaissance nude, however, which best

illustrate s this point. According to Berger, the nude was almost always “ad-

dressed” to a spectator: “the principal protagonist” in such a way as to

resist description as a self-containe d “thing.” The image depende d upon

the owner/spectator for its meaning, which came as a result of the inter-

action between the two actors—the obje ct (the woman—for the original

owners were predominantly male), on the one hand, and the subject (the

owner/spectator) on the othe r—in an interdepende nt relationship. In Venus

and Cupid, Time and Love, an erotic 16th century allegory by Bronzino,

give n by the Grand Duke of Florence to the King of France , Berger ob-

serves how: “Her body is arrange d in the way it is, to display it to the man

looking at the picture ” (1972, p. 55) . The point here is that while perspec-

tive seeks to arrange a reality external to the beholder, the distinction be-

tween internal and external is artificially constructed. One cannot exist

without the other. The reality of the image only emerges through an in-

teraction between the obse rver and the obse rved; the spectator is part of

the meaning and cannot simply regard himself as outside of and separate

to it.

If we attend to how this distribution of meaning is produced, the dis-

tinction between the inside (self) and the outside (other) begins to appe ar

unsound. In rejecting such a dualism, both extremes are collapse d; there

no longe r be ing a privile ged position from which to judge the other de-

pendent. An exemplar of such postfoundational or postdualist (Parker, in

Knights, 1997) analysis can be found in the deconstructive work of Jacques

Derrida. According to Derrida (1978) , the search to secure a solid and

enduring reality, a praxis of locatable presence or unilate ral source, is a

result of what he calls an ontology of logocentrism . From the Greek Logos:

to give order and form to the world, logocentrism acts to position a domi-

Agency and Organ ization 1211

nant source of being—the human agent—at the center of the metaphysical

world. As Derrida points out, this idea presuppose s that the rational mind

can be individually posse ssed so that it “serves to control and direct the

extra-human world and thus provide the feeling of [human] mastery over

[it]” (Cooper, 1989, p. 482) .

Derrida asserts that the root of the division between inside /outside ;

self/othe r binarie s is the mistaken assumption of an existent source/supple -

ment hierarchy. He propose s that such oppositions can be analyze d in two

ways: by emphasizing the opposite s themselve s, or by placing the emphasis

upon the process by which those opposite s oppose and are yet combined.

It is the latter approach for which Derrida invents the term differance .

Differance is the embodiment of the two verbs: to differ, or disagre e in

space; and defer, or adjourn in time. The term represents a synthe sis of

constant referral, in which, for example , neither age ncy nor structure enjoys

a presence in and of itse lf, but is rathe r always already an effect, a trace

of an interweaving with the other.

Differance is inte nde d to conve y the idea that meaning cannot be

grasped through any dualist formulae , with its attendant ambitions of hi-

erarchical stability and material purity (e.g., manage r vs. worker, thought

vs. action, social vs. technical) , but is always mediate d between two differing

pole s, one of which must continually be deferred, awaiting the opportunity

to flow back into the medium from which it was marginalize d. Differance

argue s for a way of thinking and acting which collapse s duality and is ca-

pable of coping with the ambiguity of hybridization through which the self

and the othe r are able to flow into each othe r and merge , without sharp

separations or bre aks. That is to say that neither self nor othe r can be

je ttisoned; one cannot simply be chosen over the other, as is the case in

traditional dualistic thought. No, the relationship represents continuous

contact and motion, for one can only be known via an awareness of the

other. It is this approach which enable s us to see that:

Division is not just an act of separation but is also an undifferentiated state in

which its terms are actually joined toge ther . . . Paradoxically it is the act of

separation which cre ates the perception of something that is also whole. (Cooper,

1989, p. 488)

This theme is also followed by Bateson (1972) when he too argue s for

the deconstruction of the dualism between an internal self and an external

other. Taking the Mind as example , he illustrate s how logocentric language

seeks to separate the external “physical world” from the internal “mental

world.” If the Mind is treated as be ing separate from the external world

then it is logical that individuals will see themselves as being outside the

things around them and yet at the same time central to, and in control of

them—for the individual “is” the Mind. Bateson submits that this reduc-

1212 Wood

tionist distinction between the human age nt on the one hand and the physi-

cal world on the othe r is unsatisfactory. He argues instead that the Mind

be seen as immane nt in a wider total system of differences in which the

individual human mind is but one equal, and thereby decentered, part.

Central to this argument against the reductionist embodiment of Mind

is the principle of symmetry (Law, 1994). All social processes—including

human age ncy, as to exclude it is to fall into the trap of assuming that

agency is reducible to whate ver take s place outside the body—deserve ex-

planation, and that those explanations should be approache d in the same

way for all actants. This is the principle of symmetry. By positing the notion

that human actants cannot be separated from the ir environme nts, Derrida,

Bateson, and Law adopt a symmetrical view, away from dualisms like men-

tal/physical and inside /outside .

FROM DUALISMS TO THE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

This is the focus of Callon (1986) , Latour (1987) , and Law’s (1992)

concept of the actor¯network. At its center lies the attempt to build a sym-

metrical account of the mutually constituting networks of social and tech-

nological resources and the ir colle ctive role in age ncy. Actors—human,

technical, and material—are seen as nothing othe r than orde red effects of

a network of heteroge neous interactions, where no a priori distinction exists

(Law, 1992) . For Callon, Latour, and Law, there is no given order of things;

agency doe s not exist in and of itself. By rejecting the dualist notion of its

embodime nt solely inside the human agent, they imply that, rathe r than

taking place in isolation, agency is distribute d in an integrate d circuit of

heterogeneous, social, technical, and material re lations. Its disembodied

and independent appe arance is an orde red effect; an achie ved structure ,

dependent upon the production and reproduction of networks of these re-

lations. This is as much as to say that there may indeed be privile ged place s,

hierarchies, and asymmetrical dualitie s, but that they are a result of inter-

relation not its cause.

But how are stable sets of relations produce d? And, how do they

achieve the privile ged structure of human agency? One answe r to these

que stions is to look at how a multiplicity of uncertain human, textual, and

material resources are able to come together for long enough to resemble

a meaningful and predictable structure . In Law’s (1994) ethnography of a

scientific laboratory in northwe stern England, he note s how the archite c-

ture , the machine s, and the social relations of the laboratory all go toge ther

with no possibility of separating them. He talks about the director of the

laboratory, though not simply—dualistically —in terms of a set of personal

characte ristics. Instead “director” is a privile ged effect, inscribed in and

Agency and Organ ization 1213

performed by a network of social, and material and technical relations: em-

bodied attribute s, preferences and skills, but also doors, a well-appointe d

office , secretary, phone , streams of paperwork, which when all arrange d in

a certain way all perform the effect of “director.” Similarly, Parker (1997)

following Law asserts that we could not do “manager,” “worker,” or “aca-

demic” without the props and accessorie s that support such performances.

So what is going on when we distinguish between the inside and the

outside , the process and the performance ? And why is it that we presuppose

that agency is personal and results solely from people s’ actions? In order to

formulate a satisfactory answer to these questions we have to rende r visible

that circuit of interrelations which is often left invisible ; of listening to rathe r

than screening out those heterogeneous agents, whose strategic integrations

perform the appearance of structured and inde pende nt homologie s.

Law (1986) illustrate s the importance of unde rstanding the integration

of stabilize d resources for bringing about desired effects in his popular expo-

sition of the Portugue se East Indies Company expansion, during the late fif-

teenth century. In order to be able to capitalize on, and gain control over the

trade in spice s between the Arab empires and the East Indie s, the Portuguese

realize d that new, heavily fortified and armored vessels had to be deve loped,

new sail patte rns, better able to harne ss the power of the trade winds, nee ded

to be designed, and improvements in navigation, using scaled representations

of the world in the form of models, maps, and charts, had to be made. All

of these innovations would eventually help the Portuguese secure safe pas-

sage to, and control ove r, the spice markets of the East.

In his account, Law invite s us to look at how these outcomes—better

vessels; new sail patterns; improve d navigational technique s; secure pas-

sage—were achieved. We see how heterogeneous actors—ships, sails, crews,

technologie s of navigation, and ocean currents—come (or are forced) to

relate their diffe rent skills, concerns, and uses in a certain way so as to

achieve a desired effect, a particular performance, or representable struc-

ture—safe passage and control over the spice marke ts. The (re)presentation

of this structure from one culture , system, language , or reality, into anothe r,

while still attesting to the expe rienced fact of each, is continge nt upon the

translation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987) of an equivale nce be tween that

structure and all the variant skills, concerns, and uses of a network of ac-

tors, whose self-interested relations hold that structure in place . Translation

can be define d as a contextual and practical mode of organizing, where

local positioning and resonance , not universality, are the condition and cur-

rency (Haraway, 1988) . That is to say that actors act in a manne r which

appe ars to meet the situated demands of the ir local environme nts: sails

will catch a wind; a navigator will read a chart and plot a course; seamen will

raise and lower sails; yet simultane ously remains faithful to the rubric of the

1214 Wood

propose d (re)presentation: sails catching the desired wind; the navigator

plotting the appropriate course; the crew trimming the right sails, in order

to achie ve safe passage .

What this type of theorizing demonstrates is how by attending to the

performativity and materiality of age ncy, the hard boundary separating

seemingly autonomous “things”: “organization, ” “director,” “sail patte rns,”“safe passage ,” etc., becomes blurre d and problematic, even unhe lpful, if

we try to utilize it in orde r to explain how future end products are achie ved.

Hence we expend much time and energy describing how “finishe d” things

affect or are connected to one anothe r (e.g., thought and action; manager

and worker) without ever questioning the process by which such effects

were produced or became disconne cted in the first place . Why should this

be so? Why do we favor fixedness, certainty, and purity ahe ad of relations,

movement, and emergence? Let us look more closely at process and effect,

or perhaps—at the risk of drawing on a common metaphor—journey and

destination.

HAPPENINGS AND ASSEMBLAGE

I have argued that an increasingly important dimension of agency is

a focus on the collective and performative practices of knowing and doing.

The work of Callon, Latour, and Law attempts to extend agency from an

idealized, individual commodity, whose utility is in the panoptical determi-

nation of what is seeable and sayable (Foucault, 1979) , toward a view of

agency as the concre tization or truncation of complex “circuits of continu-

ous contact and motion” (Coope r, 1992, p. 373) . This is not to say that

there is no such “thing” as age ncy. What is be ing advocate d here is a more

egalitarian manne r of talking about age ncy as a happenin g; an occurrence

or event, whose unity is depende nt upon the combining of appare ntly dis-

parate and unrelated elements into a sustainable assemblage.

Assemblage represents a colle cting instinct, a form of table au and

hotchpotch; a bit of this and a bit of that. It has a long history in the art

world, for example , Hans Hobe in the Younge r’s 16th century painting of

The Ambassadors, found in the National Gallery in London, wherein two

affluent looking gentlemen are depicted surrounde d by many obje cts that

have perhaps been colle cted by themselves, or might have been gifts, or

else tokens, symbolizing the worldly nature of the ir role . In either event,

these appare ntly disparate and unre lated artifacts have been assembled so

as to convey an impression of the subje ct. The Victorians too were dedi-

cated colle ctors and assemblers, with Darwinism being the exemplar. In

Samue l Butle r’s Mr. Hatherley’s Holiday from London’s Tate Galle ry, a Vic-

torian scientist is depicted assembling a human ske leton amid the bricolage

Agency and Organ ization 1215

of his laboratory. Modern art also exemplifie s assemblage : Picasso’s Bull’sHead made from bicycle handle bars and seat as well as his “papie r collés”;

Salvedor Dali’s Lobster Telephone ; Jasper Johns’ Target assembled using a

mixture of encaustic on newspaper on canvas. As too does writing, as a

glance at the bibliography (derived from the Greek biblia meaning books

and particularly the Bible —itse lf an assembled colle ction—and graph ia

meaning writing: a group or seque nce [assemblage ] of le tters) attached to

the end of this pape r will confirm.

In a similar sense , a postfoundational ontology argue s that social

happe nings: “director”; “acade mic”; “organization” are always alre ady ef-

fects of a previous process of assemblage . To negle ct the analysis of as-

se m blage is to ove rloo k the re lation al and proce ssual de tail of a

happe ning. In Coope r and Law’s (1995) analysis, for example , “organi-

zation” enjoys two, diffe re nt, yet comple mentary, syntactical refere nts.

For the m the take n-for-granted definite ness of a happe ning such as or-

ganization (noun) illustrates a predisposition toward glossing ove r the

provisiona l and uncertain assemblage of organizat ion (verb). The first

repre sents a legislative metanarrative of modernity which implie s a world

of inde pende nt “things”; a sure ty of finishe d eve nts and definite ness of

being. The se cond articulate s the need to look at relations, movement,

and emergence ; a becom ing ontology whe re in primacy is give n to the het-

eroge neous processes involve d in forging orde r out of disorde r (Coope r,

& Law, 1995) .

While the aim of a be ing ontology is to produce knowledge inde-

pendent of the processes of its production, a becoming ontology accepts

knowing as continge nt; a more or less partial and incomple te accomplish-

ment. As a be ing ontology treats the inde pende nt appe arance of a hap-

pening as unproble matic, in a becoming ontology we find a concern with

the assemblage through which that appe arance is created. The first term

is distal, the second proximal (Polanyi, 1966; Coope r & Law, 1995) . Ac-

cording to Polanyi we know the proximal only by relying on our awareness

of it for attending to the distal. We are aware of the proximal only in the

appe arance of the distal. The proximal has no meaning in and of itself.

When we use a tool or exercise a skill, we are only aware of their impact

or particular movement: their meaning, in relation to their effect on the

aim to which our attention is directed. We can only recognize the proximal

retrospectively from the distal. This theme has been explore d elsewhere in

a characte rization of biomedical evide nce as a provisional, negotiate d out-

come of heteroge neous occupational and agency interaction and not an

univocal nor transpare nt source (Wood et al., 1997) .

Reports of biome dical research point to the centrality of method in

producing formal, value -neutral accounts of knowle dge. Such accounts con-

1216 Wood

tinue to be dominate d by longstanding, epistemological assumptions of a

duality between research evide nce and clinical practice , in which knowle dge

is seen as a commodity whose better, quicke r, easier to access, usually elec-

tronic, increasingly portable transfer from the research pole to that of prac-

tice will lead to more effective clinical manage ment of patients (e.g., Smith,

1996) . While the appe al of this dualist mode l is its maintenance of stable

and secure boundarie s and identities (e .g., evide nce vs. practice , social vs.

scientific, researcher vs. clinician) such thinking has made possible a hier-

archical distinction between, for example , the analytical and disembodied

“facts” of research evidence and the “mere knowle dge” of clinical practice

(Haine s & Jones, 1994; Lomas et al., 1993) . Here an analytic and disem-

bodied (scientific) organization of knowledge can be seen to be privile ged

ove r more tacit and situated expe riences; a body of evidence, separated

from its social context, that can be unilate rally transmitted from a research

setting—where it is known—to the world of practice —where it is not.

Following Callon, Haraway, and Latour the representivity of research

is rarely, if ever, self-evident to the practitione r but varies according to the

context within which it is received. Hence, in promoting research evide nce

we are not dealing with the uncomplicate d dissemination of findings to a

large ly passive and receptive audie nce ; a simple “communications proble m”

in the hackne yed sense of the phrase , but with a problem of accessing lo-

cally validate d and collectively unde rstood conditions for knowing. Clini-

cians do not simply apply disembodie d facts to the situations around them

(Williamson, 1992) . While they may not necessarily deny the researched

phe nomena, they se ek to unde rstand the validity and usefulne ss of its

(re)presentation in accordance with the demands of their localize d, routine

practice s. In other words, people do not rely simply on unlocatable , global

theory; they are not foole d by “god tricks: promising vision from every-

where and nowhere” (Haraway, 1988, p. 584) but want to see the connec-

tions between what is advocate d and their own locally-situate d knowledges-

in-action; they look for a locatable position; a view from some where

(Haraway) . That is to say that no matte r how analogous to experience ,

knowledge—research findings—cannot be understood as a full and trans-

pare nt source explaining an existent clinical world and its motivating mecha-

nisms, but as an uncertain and negotiate d outcom e of interagency struggle s

and negotiations taking place in a specific situation, or place , and at a cer-

tain time. Its unifie d and entitative appearance (Hosking et al., 1995) is

not the result of any transce ndence of pre-existing divisions by researchers

acting unilate rally, but rathe r of the latte rs’ animation with( in) a loose

weave of situate d knowledges; as cyborgs existing in an assemblage of dif-

ferent voices.

Agency and Organ ization 1217

CYBORG: THE COATLICUE STATE

This is my home this thin edge of barbwire.

—Gloria Anzaldúa: Borderlands/La frontera

How can it not know what it is?

—Rick De ckard: Blade Runner

According to Donna Haraway (1991) “a cyborg is a hybrid creature ,

composed of organism and machine .” The cyborg image is one of a lived

high tension zone (Star, 1992) between inside /outside and human/nonhu-

man dualisms. It represents multivocal inclusivity and constant cross refer-

ral between (our)self and (an)other; a simultane ous concern with edge s or

frontiers, as the fulcrum where ways of seeing collide , but also the interface ,

the intersection, the synthe sis for a rejoining of partial and sometimes con-

tradictory voices (Anzaldúa, 1987) . This uncertainty produce s mixed up,

multiple or split selve s, who come to assimilate the situated knowledges

and perpetual ambiguitie s of at least two constitue nt fields:

[ T] he y are irre voca bly the product of se ve ral inte rlocking historie s and

cultures . . . . They must learn to inhabit at least two identities, to speak twocultural languages, to translate and negotiate between them. (Hall, 1992, p. 310)

The cyborg image is probably most familiar as a genre in science-fic-

tion films. Movie s such as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982, 1991) , Cyborg

(1989) , Metropolis (1926) , Predator (1987) , Robocop (1987) , The Termina-

tor/Terminator 2 (1984/1991) —the filmography is too numerous to be listed

here—are populate d with synthe tics, androids, simulants, replicants, living

machine s: “techno-gole ms manufacture d through the grafting of metal and

flesh” (Parke r, 1997, p. 8). The human/machine combination/mut ation plot

in these exemplars is easy enough to follow yet offers only a relative ly sim-

plistic, rathe r moralizing over-determination of the cyborg metaphor: as

programmed and obedient subhuman worker; or alte rnative ly, often viole nt

supe rhuman rebe l fighting socie ty/evil. While this might enable new mileage

to be contrived out of the old “what it take s to be human in an increasingly

te chnologically mediate d—that is to say virtual (Brigham & Corbe tt,

1997)—world” theme, it is this very search for and preservation of an es-

sential human spirit, come what may, which ultimate ly rende rs the majority

of celluloid cyborg images unsatisfactory for exploring the tensions and pos-

sibilitie s of the split self.

There are exceptions of course and one of the most celebrate d and

probably most written about is the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner (1991) .

The film describes a futuristic rebe l band of Nexus-6 replicants: superior,

human-like android workers utilize d on the off-world colonie s of Mars, who

have escaped to the streets of Los Ange les in search of the ir creator and

answers to que stions about their existence. Deckard is a blade runner: a

1218 Wood

specialist in identifying and destroying (retiring) replicants. He, rathe r

grudgingly, has to retire the itine rant androids. Deckard’s task is compli-

cated however when he falls in love with a replicant named Rachel who

believes she is human. Here Blade Runner distinguishe s itself from many

other films of the genre. Instead of seeking to fix humanity and firmly de-

fine human from nonhuman, the film continually juxtapose s the two, seek-

ing—or at any rate achieving in the eyes of this viewer—to collapse any a

priori foundation from which to distinguish one from the othe r.

Deckard, for example , is portraye d as a disconsolate and solitary fig-

ure, his family ties are represented merely by an unreliable jumble of pho-

tos. But the point is made that replicants also rely desperate ly on photos

to reinforce the ir “memories.” The self-in-be tween is exemplifie d here as

Rache l struggle s with the confusion of love and fear; with the alterity of

finding that her memories are not real memories, only implants. In her

words: “I’m not in the busine ss, I am the business.” The fragility of this

memory-mediated human/nonhuma n dualism is brought full circle in almost

the final scene of the film when Roy, the replicant leade r, recalls:

I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe : attack ships on fire off the shoulder

of Orion; I watched seabeams glitter in the darkness at Ten Howser Gate. All

those moments will be lost like tears in the rain. Time to die. (Roy Batty; Blade

Runner: The Director’s Cut, 1991)

In this moment, Deckard loses both his own analogue as human and

his one sure foundation for defining human from nonhuman. For Roy’smemorie s are not virtual nor artificial, but real and experienced. But the

cyborg is a creature of fact as well as fiction; it exists in live d experience .

In her extraordinary, semi-autobiographical book Borderlands/L a Fron-

tera Gloria Anzaldúa similarly argue s for the transgression of rigid concep-

tual de finitions. She e xplore s the possibility of a se lf-in-be twe e n, a

theoretical space characte rized by ambivale nce , perplexity, internal strife,

insecurity, inde cisive ness; a state of perpetual transition and of resistance .

For Anzaldúa, the self—herself—is and always has been multiple ; split be-

tween the alienating and arrogating oppression of both traditional Mexican

and Anglophone societies, yet at the same time resistant to the ir oppressive

predications for fixe dness and purity. It is the latte r she describes as the

self-in-be tween, the resistant self; the border-dwelling self, living between

culture s in a space she calls the Coatlicu e state. Coatlicue is one of the

deities of Coatalopeuh , the Mesoamerican creator godde ss and mother of

the celestial de ities. She had two aspe cts: the dark, Coatlicue ; and the light,

Tonantsi. But she was split by the male dominate d Azteca-Mexica culture

of the Nahuas and her dark aspe ct drive n underground and substitute d for

by male de itie s, while Tonantsi, split from her dark guises, became the good

mother. Later Spanish conque stors and the ir Roman Catholic church con-

Agency and Organ ization 1219

tinued this split when Tonantsi, de-sexed, became G uadalupe the chaste

virgin mother, while Coatalope uh/Coatlicue became la puta. And so the

consciousne ss of duality between light and dark, beauty and beast, se lf and

other, inside and outside , was complete and simultane ously forgotte n; the

uppe r world enjoying the privile ge of original unity, the dark, lower world

becoming shadow, taboo.

Anzaldúa rejects this mind/body split. She recognize s that the possi-

bility of resistance depends on the recreation of una raza cosmica, of re-

awake ning the recognition of the identity in-between, the identity in the

borders that emerges from the coatlicue state ; the cyborg-consciousne ss.

But while she argues for a movement away from a dualistic consciousne ss

which splits off parts of the self, represses the shadow, she too makes it

clear that remaining in the borders where rupture and hybridization take

place is and has always been a vulnerable and high-te nsive life .

So while the cyborg unde rmines the Cartesian predilection for agency

as a pure ly human preserve, it offers no simple nor comfortable alte rnative ,

only the realization of living day to day with multivocality. Cartesianism

privile ges structure s, categorie s and “hard” distinctions. It presuppose s that

agency is a human activity and gives the libe ral illusion of human control

ove r the metaphysical world (Blackle r, 1993) . The cyborg, however, sweeps

away notions of fixed identities, categorie s, distinctions, and purity. It rec-

ognize s the impossibility of holding habitual concepts, dominant points of

view or oppre ssive value systems in rigid boundarie s. Its image represents

the rupture of unitary paradigms. Instead the cyborg learns tolerance for

contradiction and ambiguity. It has a plural personality; it operates in a

pluralistic mode, as a zero point between dichotomie s (Star, 1991). The

cyborg is representative of an age-old borde r situation between a self and

its other(s); the social and the technical or mechanistic, in which one of

the territorie s at stake is the human subject as the site of agency. Ironically

it is here that we omnipre sent human agents, parsimoniously distinguishe d

from a heteroglossia of others, who actually recognize ourselves as the as-

sembled with( in) the oppositional voices we attempt to referee; that we

are , and always have been cyborg.

DO CYBORG MANAGERS DREAM OF UNITY?

In time I lost my sense of contradiction, just as I gradually abandoned any attempt

to distinguish the different race s in that land of age -old, unbridled hybridisation.

—Umberto Eco: Foucau lts pendulum

In the world without foundations, everyone is equal and the imposition of any

system of meaning on others is violence and oppression.

—Gianni Vattimo: The transparen t society

1220 Wood

The reified and complete appe arance or positioning of organizational

agency with the manage rial agent can be seen as an example of a successful

standardization of arrange ments; the connection and stabilization of mul-

tiply heterogeneous worlds, age nts and voices into a convergent form which

can be acted upon, classifie d, predicted, in short, represented. But how

doe s the manage rial agent join and aggregate ? Here manage rial agents are

confronte d with a dile mma: how to live with sociotechnical multivocality

and yet be legitimated as the representative of those multiple voices. On

the one hand there is a need to access the assemblage of historie s, culture s,

and knowledges. At the same time these hithe rto indexical practices must

be deferred in favor of a conne cted, predictable , and generalizable order

(cf. Garfinke l, 1984) . One answer is to look for ever stronge r bastions of

knowledge ; to find the transcendent and unde rlying nature of a phenome-

non. This is the distinctive character of diale ctic thought; from here it is

only a practical difficulty that prevents the obje ctive substitution of inde xi-

cal expression (Garfinke l). But there is a second possibility.

I wish to suggest that while formal organizations are traditionally theo-

rized as being dependent upon the de limitation of set boundarie s—strategy,

R&D, personne l, marketing, operations—leading to the achie vement of pre-

conceived goals, they may be more productive ly recognized as interactive and

unstable cyborg assemblages; as site s or meeting places where fiction and fact

no longer enjoy any a priori distinction. Manage rs can refuse to discard any

of their hybrid, cyborg selves; to eschew purity and instead to see themselve s

as executive s presenting many faces (Star, 1991). This implie s making visible

that which is often le ft invisible ; of listening to, rather than screening out,

the multivoice d—proximal—assemblage s, which constantly perform the uni-

fied—distal—appearance of organize d outcomes; of refusing the distinction

between the tire less, embodie d practice s backstage and the heroic accom-

plishments presented frontstage (Goffman, 1971; Law, 1994). According to

Star (1991) and Law (1994) this entails the heuristic flattening, though not

ignoring of differences; of breaking down reified boundarie s, acknowle dging

the primacy of dwelling in multiple worlds and weaving inside the “exciting

spaces” that are created between them.

Selander (1996) , following Giddens, recognize s this shift. He describes

a move away from discursive closure in which certain discourse s become

dominant by being regarded as natural and neutral; conside red supe rior

and more legitimate than others. In contrast he points to discursive openin g

as representative of a contextual domain in which use is made of a plurality

of actors, interests, and concerns; a domain in which no one discourse can

guarante e supre macy through its purity, but must combine with diffe rent

discourse s in order to gain legitimacy. This position may be instructive for

a contemporary exegesis of manage rial agency; to become ope n to the va-

Agency and Organ ization 1221

rie ty and possibility of uncertainty by drawing upon diffe rent traditions,

diffe rent identitie s, at the same time. This raises the question of connection.

No objects, spaces, or bodies are sacred in themse lves; any compone nt can beinterlace d with any other if the prope r standard, the proper code , can be

constructed for processing signals in a common language. (Haraway, 1991, p. 163)

Thus in seeking to unde rstand the situation of age ncy in organizations,

we might expect to concentrate on edge s and interfaces; on flows across

boundarie s and not the integrity of natural objects. Two concepts might

usefully serve to extend our understanding of the processes of interdepend-

ence , inte rpenetration, and hybridization, in which differences become thor-

oughly blurre d. Star and Griesemer (1989) demonstrate how multiple

voices can achie ve a possible unity through the production and structuring

of boundary objects. Boundary objects represent node s of intersection be-

tween and within situate d practices; they can be objects, actions, and ar-

te facts: facilitat ion, teaching, meetings, personal contacts, rewards and

guide lines, whose form is robust enough to be common across several bor-

ders, but whose coding and resonance emerges through local inte ractions

and mutual conve rsations. While boundary objects are omnipre sent, the ir

representation—their meaning—can remain indexical and contested.

Joan Fujimura (1992) deve lops this concept furthe r when she describes

how, by linking an obje ct to other heteroge neous objects, package s of ob-

jects, theorie s, technique s, measure ments, instruments, and social relations

can be come routinized—black-boxe d—across boundarie s. Standardized

packages simultane ously account for the production and structuring of col-

lective social relations: by helping to reconcile conflicting view points and

enabling agre ement over definitions, and fact stabilization; by tying the

work of several actors toge ther in what appe ars to be a solid whole , capable

of allaying skepticism and dissent from the outside world (Mol and Berg,

1994) . Standardize d package s therefore act as an interface between situated

knowledge s, facilitating the representation of boundary obje cts both locally,

in specific sites; and globally, through theories, which because they are con-

structed using recognized technologie s and materials of representation, can

more easily be translate d across contexts; from multiple , local practice s to

produce a standardize d form.

But standardize d for whom? Whose voice shall be heard? Gibson Bur-

rell (1997) argue s that historically as well as contemporarily, notions of civi-

lization have rested upon acts of extreme viole nce. The multivoice d, those

who transgress Euclidean inspired boundarie s have always been punishe d,

executed, silenced by dominant perspectives that have been “drive n like a

straight highway through the past” (1997, p. 2). Similarly, modern managers

are commonly asked to ascribe themselves certain ascendant characteristics:

I am a visionary; I communicate well; I encourage participation; I build

1222 Wood

teams; I am clear what needs to be achieved; etc. It is the dominance of

the prefix “I” in these statements which epitomize s the world of the post-

renaissance nude, the Portugue se East Indie s Company, or the contempo-

rary work organization: an emphasis on the reality of the single viewer, a

perspectival world, a unitary world. History tells us not of sails, winds,

course s, or crews who “must be silent and keep no record of the ir own”(Burrell, 1997, p. 3). No. As Burrell note s, the multivoice d seldom speak

but are spoken for, represented, reinterpreted. In this way, multiplicity is

collapse d into monopoly, heteroglossia into homology, labyrinth into line ar-

ity, and the cyborg manage r becomes a unifie d being.

Great divide s between inside and outside , oppre ssor and oppressed

are continuously being assembled. According to Brown and Duguid (1991) ,

the existence and function of the multivoice d goe s large ly unnotice d in for-

mal organizations, who often try to supplant formal work groups, whose

boundarie s tend to be both full and explicit, onto informal conne ctions,

whose identity remains partial and continge nt and may include peripheral

voice s from outside the organization, serving to furthe r blur its formal

boundary. The imposition of formal groups, departments, teams, cells, cir-

cles, etc., may be seen as the search for permanence , predictability, es-

sences, nouns; as an attempt to fix an identity. But it can also be read as

a bid to mark human bodie s by attributing membership to one discrete

group or anothe r, this team or that. Such domination is built into an or-

ganization’s coherence around an identity, for only the marked are repre-

sented, only unifie d selve s are seen. The multivocal self, the assembled self,

the self-in-be tween remains in shadow, unseen, marginalize d.

But for the cyborg manager being is problematic and continge nt. S(he)

subve rts the unifie d be ing of organization for s(he) is never finished, never

whole , but always constructe d, stitched together. S(he) is able to see and

conne ct with anothe r, yet never in all or any position wholly. This hybrid

proge ny no longe r stands on one bank of the river or the other, for rigidity

means death (Anzaldúa, 1987) . Her/his identity and affiliations lie at the

cusp and on the margins; s(he) learns to balance an identity that is both

multiple and marginal; her/his age ncy is situated at the zero point between

positions (Star, 1991) . The figure of the cyborg, the hybrid, requires a weak-

ening (Vattimo, 1992) of dualist rigiditie s for thinking about agency in or-

ganizations; a dissolution of conve rgent and analytical reasoning, which

tends to use rationality to move toward a single (privile ged) goal, in favor

of an egalitarian modesty, characte rized by a rejection of oppressive pat-

terns and set goals. Within such a weak dimension of dissolution (Vattimo)

there is a recognition of the need to look at relations, movement, and emer-

gence in which age ncy cannot easily be fixe d, instead having to be continu-

ally and continge ntly located, positione d, and situated.

Agency and Organ ization 1223

This is the suggestion for acting in an assembled world, to embark

upon that uncertain journey, to leave the opposite bank in search of new

and possibly foreign ways of seeing and thinking. To move away from the

narrow determinism and set patterns of monovocality and unification, to-

ward the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct, to accept contradictions

and tole rate ambiguity, partiality, and contradiction. This is the challenge

for cyborg manage rs, to remain open to the varie ty and possibility of be ing

cyborg while acknowle dging the tension of maintaining such a dislocate d

identity. To find ways of recognizing their materially assembled selves; of

recovering the ir cyborg-consciousne ss rather than assuming a priori the om-

nipotence of godde sses (Haraway, 1985) .

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, I have sought to explore some current and related ap-

proache s to thought and action, suggesting that they can be take n as an in-

dication of a need to change our thinking about agency in organizations.

Privile ging managers as be ing in posse ssion of the organizational Mind has

led to the notion of managers as somehow separate from and yet unilate rally

in control of a necessarily external, physical organization. Law (l994) argued

that this misconce ption arose from the need to define precisely what some-

thing was or was not. In this way, the mental and the physical (and everything

within them) gave the illusion of being reducible to a simple locatable place

with a single and unambiguous meaning. By resisting the idea that the or-

ganizational Mind can be sole ly locate d within the managerial body, actant

ontologie s treat agency as an effect of participation in heterogeneous net-

works, wherein agency is situated, and distribute d among all of its heteroge-

neous parts. Avoiding a focus upon finished events through which the world

can easily be thought of as a distal construction of separate , coded things, is

to avoid glossing over an invisible , rathe r disorde rly, proximal reality. In con-

clusion, as Star (1991) notes, while we cannot work without splitting, dividing,

and substituting, our images of splitting and technologie s of division are too

impoverished. Manage rs need to move away from a consciousne ss of duality,

with its attendant ambitions of hierarchical stability and material purity and

instead to become open to the varie ty and possibility of their cyborg-con-

sciousness; not fixed nor entitative but hybrid, poised in transition between

positions; as the product of mélange ; as cyborg selve s simultane ously situate d

in and between local experiences.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

MARTIN WOOD is Rese arch Fe llow in the Centre for Corporate Strategy and Change at

Warwick Business School. After undergraduate studies in Bradford, he completed postgraduatework at Lancaster Unive rsity in 1994. His research interests currently include studying the

heterogeneous processes, strategies and materials of organizing change within the U.K. Na-tional Health Service; particularly the translation of knowledge in relation to new organiza-

tional forms and practices.

1226 Wood