IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03534172.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governing Death: Organizing End-of-life Situations

Author

Listed:
  • Marie-Astrid Le Theule

    (LIRSA - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche en sciences de l'action - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM])

  • Caroline Lambert

    (HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal)

  • Jérémy Morales

    (RHUL - Royal Holloway [University of London], King‘s College London)

Abstract

This paper examines the organization of death. Through an ethnographic study, we examine how a geriatrics department guides the end of life. Drawing on Agamben, we show that organizations that are dedicated to life, but regularly confronted with death, develop dispositifs (mechanisms, technologies, practices and relationships) to turn biopolitics (power over life) into thanatopolitics (a regime of death). We also show how the inherently political meaning of life disrupts such government of death. The inclusion of political life in a regime of death disrupts organizational practices that find themselves facing fundamental questions of what makes a life worth living, who can decide not to prolong life, and based on which criteria.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie-Astrid Le Theule & Caroline Lambert & Jérémy Morales, 2020. "Governing Death: Organizing End-of-life Situations," Post-Print hal-03534172, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03534172
    DOI: 10.1177/0170840618800107
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://cnam.hal.science/hal-03534172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cnam.hal.science/hal-03534172/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0170840618800107?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ignasi Marti & Pablo Fernandez, 2013. "The Institutional Work of Oppression and Resistance : Learning from the Holocaust," Post-Print hal-02313026, HAL.
    2. Seymour, Jane Elizabeth, 2000. "Negotiating natural death in intensive care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1241-1252, October.
    3. Jane Davison, 2007. "Photographs and accountability: cracking the codes of an NGO," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(1), pages 133-158, March.
    4. Chwastiak, Michele, 2001. "Taming the untamable: planning, programming and budgeting and the normalization of war," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 501-519, August.
    5. Annisette, Marcia & Prasad, Ajnesh, 2017. "Critical accounting research in hyper-racial times," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 5-19.
    6. Chwastiak, Michele, 2013. "Profiting from destruction: The Iraq reconstruction, auditing and the management of fraud," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 32-43.
    7. Iedema, Rick & Sorensen, Roslyn & Braithwaite, Jeffrey & Flabouris, Arthas & Turnbull, Liz, 2005. "The teleo-affective limits of end-of-life care in the intensive care unit," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 845-857, February.
    8. Bell, Emma & Taylor, Scott, 2011. "Beyond letting go and moving on: New perspectives on organizational death, loss and grief," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-10, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu, Ai, 2021. "Accountability as mourning: Accounting for death in the time of COVID-19," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Le Theule, Marie-Astrid & Lambert, Caroline & Morales, Jérémy, 2023. "Accounting to the end of life. Scarcity, performance and death," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Plante, Maude & Free, Clinton & Andon, Paul, 2021. "Making artworks valuable: Categorisation and modes of valuation work," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Theule, Marie-Astrid & Lambert, Caroline & Morales, Jérémy, 2023. "Accounting to the end of life. Scarcity, performance and death," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Lehman, Cheryl R., 2019. "Reflecting on now more than ever: Feminism in accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. McBride, Karen, 2021. "A French connection; paths to a ‘new system’ of accounting for the Royal Navy in 1832," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    4. Jensen, Mads Langballe & Agyemang, Gloria & Lehman, Cheryl R., 2021. "Accountabilities, invisibilities and silences in a Danish slave trading company on the Gold Coast in the early 18th century," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Gilbert, Christine & Everett, Jeff & de Castro Casa Nova, Silvia Pereira, 2024. "Patriarchy, capitalism, and accounting: A herstory," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    6. Marie-Astrid Le Theule & Caroline Lambert & Jérémy Morales, 2017. "Accompanying death, organising the end of life [Accompagner la mort, organiser la fin de vie]," Post-Print hal-03654015, HAL.
    7. Lehman, Cheryl R. & Hammond, Theresa & Agyemang, Gloria, 2018. "Accounting for crime in the US: Race, class and the spectacle of fear," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 63-75.
    8. Bernard H.J. Verstegen, 2011. "A socio‐economic view on management control," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 114-127, January.
    9. Vuontisjärvi, Taru, 2013. "Argumentation and socially questionable business practices: The case of employee downsizing in corporate annual reports," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 292-313.
    10. Power, Michael & Tuck, Penelope, 2024. "The firm that would not die: post-death organizing, alumni events, and organization ghosts," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119973, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Lang, Alexander & Frankus, Elisabeth & Heimerl, Katharina, 2022. "The perspective of professional caregivers working in generalist palliative care on ‘good dying’: An integrative review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    12. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    13. Malcolm Anderson, 2002. "Accounting History publications 2001," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 505-512.
    14. Neto, Alcir Santos, 2020. "Limits and Possibilities of the United States Military in Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Stabilization," Thesis Commons 6syw3, Center for Open Science.
    15. Cuckston, Thomas, 2022. "Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    16. Margaret O'Connor, 2006. "Commentary on Trovo de Araujo M and Paes da Silva MJ (2004) Communication with dying patients: perception of intensive care units nurses in Brazil. Journal of Clinical Nursing 13, 143–149," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(1), pages 114-116, January.
    17. Jane Davison, 2009. "Icon, iconography, iconology," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(6), pages 883-906, July.
    18. Carmel, Simon, 2006. "Health care practices, professions and perspectives: A case study in intensive care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 2079-2090, April.
    19. Agyemang, Gloria & Lehman, Cheryl R., 2013. "Adding critical accounting voices to migration studies," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 261-272.
    20. Alessandra Allini & Luca Ferri & Marco Maffei & Annamaria Zampella, 2017. "The Effect of Perceived Corruption on Entrepreneurial Intention: Evidence from Italy," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(6), pages 75-86, June.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03534172. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.