Work

Challenging and destabilizing official discourses: irony as a resistance resource in institutional talk

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: The article examines Swedish police students’ and officers’ situational use of irony as a resource for engaging in workplace resistance. Through irony, managerial discourses and policies are destabilized, giving voice to an alternative reality. The resistance towards the police’s official discourses reinforces a gap between the management and officers in the ranks, strengthening in-group autonomy and norms among the rank and file, but also disrupting organizational control. Irony was restricted to, but also opened up for, ‘safe spaces’, suggesting that counter-hegemonic discourses among police employees are constrained by contextual factors such as their socio-political environment and organizational culture. Irony also helped to promote social harmony and sustain ‘conflict- free venues and encounters’, and the double nature of irony should be seen as a powerful resource for expressing criticism while avoiding sanctions. The article suggests that ironically expressed resistance towards institutional conditions is enabled and created by the very same conditions.

Source: Culture and Organization

DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2019.1699093

Author: Malin Wieslander

Institutions: Linköping University, University of Gothenburg

Language: English

Topic: Management and Organizational Studies

Subfield: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd