With Latour in Our Hands: Discovering the Politics of Organizing and the Aesthetic Matter of Things

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to the work of Bruno Latour and its relevance for organization scholars particularly, by relentlessly going beyond the reified category of “organization.” We rely in particular on our own experiences of conducting fieldwork with Latour in our hands and expose our journeys, sometimes feeling naked, embarrassed and naive. By following traces of actions, paying attention to things and appreciating plurality, with Latour we have discovered the politics of organizing and the aesthetic matter of things.

Design/methodology/approach– We use our own methodological experience to describe how Latour’s workhashelpedusconcretely.Westructureourmethodologicalreasoningaroundthreeexcursionsinthefield, corresponding to our different fieldwork journeys. For each excursion, we rely on descriptions and reflect on how wehave traced actions, paid attention to things and appreciated plurality, as set out in the introduction.

Findings– Werender through excursions our Latour moments, that is, critical moments in fieldwork, where we get stuck and embarrassed and where Latour’s texts with simple questions help us move. Against the critique of ANT as being apolitical and unable to account for the body, we explain how we have precisely, through our ANT investigations, intersected between politics, aesthetics and organizing through three main ways of displacing us in the field: leaving a priori categories and questioning what we see; placing our view somewhere and moving it in an oligopticon-like way; and “thick thinging.”

Originality/value– The paper is a tribute to Latour’s work and wants to contribute to emphasizing his relevance for understanding not only organization in general but also the politics and aesthetics of organizing. Wereassembleourfieldworkjourneysand,despitetheirbeing personaltous, webelievethat ourlearningsare recognizable and recognized by other scholars. We conclude with a research suggestion relevant to organization scholars.