ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces an approach to the concept of temporality in organisation studies, based on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. We suggest that this approach provides an alternative to dominant understandings of temporality within organisational theory, that is, process-philosophical view. The empirical data consists of a longitudinal, qualitative study of changes in the electricity sector in Norway during the period 1999–2018. These changes were a result of a radical market reform approved by the Parliament in 1990. Our empirical findings indicate that the past plays a rather direct role on how present changes are met by agents, as habitus seek to reinstall elements of the past. Based on this, we introduce a Bourdieusian-inspired conceptualisation of the past, labelled ‘reactivation of the past’. This stresses the past as more stable and persistent, and hence, not so dynamic, and changeable as within the process view in organisation studies. We conclude that a Bourdieusian habitus-based approach to the past contributes to a more critical and nuanced view on temporality in organisation studies. This approach questions the degree to which managers in organisations can alter or even manipulate organisational members’ conceptions of the past.
