ABSTRACT
In this chapter, four analysts provide joint analyses to illustrate distinct approaches to questions about seemingly immaterial forms of authority and power. In particular, we focus on God and love. In the first, Martine uses a constitutive view of communication to show how God and love materialize in this interaction as well as the relative authority they acquire as a result. In the second analysis, Peters draws upon the ethnography of communication to describe the way language is used by participants to speak on behalf of either God or love. In the third, Milburn uses tools from cultural discourse theory to argue that participants draw upon fundamentally agonistic cultural premises that are difficult to reconcile. In the fourth, Fauré argues that God and Love are the highest sources of authority materialized by each party during the interaction. Despite employing different methodologies and literatures, the analysts agree discourse can materialize the immaterial to bring about real changes of state. Finally, by focusing on the atypical beings materialized in one organizational scenario, scholars may begin to anticipate future scenarios whereby otherwise immaterial entities may be brought into being for quite different purposes.
