Toward Negative Ontologies of Time? The Inclusion of Non-events in Organizational Historiography

François-Xavier Vaujany ()
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François-Xavier Vaujany: Paris Dauphine University

Chapter Chapter 3 in Historicity in Organization Studies, 2025, pp 59-76 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract For most scholars, history is about what happened. It is that subtle and distant sound of the past. It involves soldiers, heroes, kings, monks, people doing and fulfilling things. History is then about making visible this presence, this fullness, this materiality of the past. This chapter defends a very different perspective on history and historical processes. Reconstructing the past and exploring the future, is also a question of non-event(s). What did not happen, what is not happening, and what will not happen is as important as what did happen, what is happening, and what will happen. They all share the same becoming. Absences, lacks, frustrations, interruptions, bifurcations, failures, non-events are just as important as the apparent fullness and completeness of historical events. And historicity lies precisely in this paradoxical temporality. Following Ricoeur (1985) and Whitehead (1929, 1938), I propose a philosophy of events and non-events that does not result to their ontological separability. In contrast, it is suggested that historical events involve non-events in their becoming, and that the silences, voids, and suspensions of the past and the future matter. The case of the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II is used to illustrate this negative ontology.

Keywords: History; Organization studies; Non-events; Temporality; Interruptions; Silences; Absences; Historiography; Non-History; Ricoeur; Whitehead (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-88938-7_3

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