ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of the influence of Julia Kristeva’s theorization on management and organization studies, which has been considerably under-utilized and is probably among her least important contributions. It focuses on the role of the body and language in constituting subjectivity. Kristeva’s semiological investigation into human subjectivity thus shifts from a functional, homogenic and homological account of the symbolic order to the unstable yet indissoluble relationship between the heterogeneous domains of the symbolic and the semiotic. Her ideas on the body and the abjection of the maternal have had a profound influence on developing feminist thought. Kristeva evocatively describes the chora as a sort of ‘dancing body’ in perpetual motion. The chapter also focuses on Kristeva’s theorization on the symbolic and textual representation of woman as abject to explain the difficult position of women in academia as speaking subjects.
