TY - JOUR

T1 - Affective atmospheres of sensemaking and learning

T2 - Workplace meetings as aesthetic and anaesthetic

AU - Vitry, Chloe

AU - Sage, Daniel J.

AU - Dainty, Andrew R. J.

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Management Learning, 51(3), 2020, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2020 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Management Learning page: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mlq on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

PY - 2020/7/1

Y1 - 2020/7/1

N2 - The aim of this article is to explore sensemaking and learning processes with and through affective atmospheres. We engage with recent research within the ‘affective turn’ across the social sciences and humanities to conceptualize the significance of quasi-autonomous affective atmospheres that emanate from, and also condition, collectives of humans and non-humans. Drawing on this atmospheric scholarship, we propose and elaborate an atmospheric analysis of sensemaking and learning processes to examine how such atmospheres aesthetically transform, and anaesthetically constrain, the potential of bodies, including our own as researchers, to affect and be affected to sense and learn. Through empirical engagement with workplace meetings in a UK housebuilding firm, our analysis contributes by explaining how such atmospheres condition sensemaking that both registers the disorganizing novelty of events and reduces such ambiguity and equivocality to enable purposeful action. While extant research has suggested how the interplay of these two dimensions of sensemaking enables learning, our analysis contributes by drawing attention to how the production, maintenance and transformation of specific atmospheres in workplace meetings imbues affects that condition these two dimensions of sensemaking. Such atmospheres thus constitute vital, yet seldom discussed, phenomena in conditioning learning within organizational life.

AB - The aim of this article is to explore sensemaking and learning processes with and through affective atmospheres. We engage with recent research within the ‘affective turn’ across the social sciences and humanities to conceptualize the significance of quasi-autonomous affective atmospheres that emanate from, and also condition, collectives of humans and non-humans. Drawing on this atmospheric scholarship, we propose and elaborate an atmospheric analysis of sensemaking and learning processes to examine how such atmospheres aesthetically transform, and anaesthetically constrain, the potential of bodies, including our own as researchers, to affect and be affected to sense and learn. Through empirical engagement with workplace meetings in a UK housebuilding firm, our analysis contributes by explaining how such atmospheres condition sensemaking that both registers the disorganizing novelty of events and reduces such ambiguity and equivocality to enable purposeful action. While extant research has suggested how the interplay of these two dimensions of sensemaking enables learning, our analysis contributes by drawing attention to how the production, maintenance and transformation of specific atmospheres in workplace meetings imbues affects that condition these two dimensions of sensemaking. Such atmospheres thus constitute vital, yet seldom discussed, phenomena in conditioning learning within organizational life.

KW - Sensemaking

KW - Ethnography

KW - Learning

KW - Affective Atmospheres

U2 - 10.1177/1350507619893930

DO - 10.1177/1350507619893930

M3 - Journal article

VL - 51

SP - 274

EP - 292

JO - Management Learning

JF - Management Learning

SN - 1350-5076

IS - 3

ER -