Organising with care - with Emmanouela Mandalaki

What would it mean for organisations to take account of shared embodied vulnerability? In what ways do experiences of bodily fragility remind us of our need for care? And how can working collaboratively address the absence of care in higher education?

These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Emmanouela Mandalaki. Emmanouela is Professor of Organisations at NEOMA Business School in Paris, France. In her research, Emmanouela engages with critical feminist theories, methodologies, writing patterns and epistemologies to explore alternative ways of exploring questions of embodiment, ethics, gender diversity, inclusion, social inequalities and affect in organisations. In this process, care ethics foregrounds much of her work. Emmanouela is a prolific writer whose work has appeared in many leading journals and edited collections. During her pre-academic and academic career, Emmanouela has worked in both for profit and not for profit international organisations in many countries, in the process acquiring a diverse range of social experiences that have fed into her academic research.

We discuss the following topics in this episode:

How Emmanouela's early experiences led to the work she is doing now (02:50)

The aim and focus of Emmanouela's academic research (08:15)

The theorists who have influenced Emmanouela's work (09:45)

Emmanouela's introduction to feminist writing on organisations and care (11:50)

Researching grassroots solidarity organising in the wake of the refugee crisis in Greece (14:10)

Reflecting on a personal experience of bodily fragility and vulnerability (23:38)

Critiquing an absence of care in higher education (28:12)

On collaborative working and writing (32:12)

Reading and writing together as a relational healing process (33:30)

Poetry as a form of academic writing and a practice of care (38:47)

Emmanouela's current work and plans for further research and writing (44:18)