ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the body at work, with particular reference to the office – a workspace frequently undertheorised in conventional investigations of organisation. Whilst it takes as its focus an atypical work event (the office party, and the sexual, alcoholic and violent behaviour that forms the actuality and mythology of this occasion), we believe that such an event can offer crucial insights into the everyday genderings and sexings of office cultures. This is especially so in the context of the body. Working bodies are embroiled in particular ‘formal’ organisational discourses of desexualisation and disembodiment, where the worker is idealised as a rational, mechanical element in an organisational machine. Uniforms or dark suits, for example, are designed to invisibilise the bodies of both men and women and become compulsory attire, formally or informally, for this very reason. However, discourses of bodily invisibility are frequently interrupted. When, for example, a woman applies for a job which requires physical strength, or when a case of sexual harassment is brought, or when concealed sexualities are disclosed at work, workers are rapidly reembodied, and also individualised, becoming through their embodiment separate from the ‘organisation’ and a challenge to its formal discourses. We want to suggest that the office party can be seen as a time when these issues become most apparent.
