Understanding power within project work: the neglected role of material and embodied registers

Abstract

In this paper, we seek to contribute to debates into new modalities of power within project-based organizations (PBOs), and specifically architectural practices. Using a targeted ethnography, we explore specific episodes within the workflow of an architectural practice. Here, we explore how imperatives for creativity and collaboration are reconciled alongside those for control and authority through specific relations of power. In contrast with other critical accounts of power in PBOs, we explicitly examine the influence of embodied and material registers of practice. This approach draws inspiration from studies across the social sciences, not least those of architectural practice, which have revealed how embodied and material practices shape organizational life. Our research reveals that despite an overt attempt to play down hierarchical modes of organization, management control and authority is still apparent, albeit it in a form that is highly embodied and intertwined with material relations. Thus, power is not manifest in social relations per se, but plays out across embodied and material registers, from the layout and use of office space to the actions and emotions of individuals within a meeting. The research importantly reveals that power in architectural practices, and other PBOs, is likely multiple: ‘hierarchy’ enables decisions to be made, responsibility to be apportioned and disputes to be settled, while ‘heterarchy’ encourages creativity, co-learning, motivation and communication. Thus, the paper argues that if we can understand power in PBO in more nuanced and positive terms, then we can better understand how work is done and through what techniques. This could lead to deeper theoretical insights into project-based forms of organizing, not least architectural practice.