The intertwined dimensions of time and space in crisis situations The case of rapid tactical evacuation during the Bataclan terrorist attack

How do actors collectively experience disruptive situations, make sense, coordinate and act? We suggest that the ongoing production of an integrated and coherent time-space frame is an essential dimension of organizing and sensemaking processes, particularly in disruptive situations. We develop a pragmatist-inspired framework on organizing processes as narrative inquiry with a relational, intertwined and open-ended view on the inseparability of space and time (Lefebvre, 1991; Massey, 1993, 1999; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2005). We draw on Bakhtin's concept of chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981; Holquist, 2010; Lorino & Tricard, 2012), which refers to the intrinsic connectedness of time and space. The chronotope of the organizing process is the fused and meaningful time-space frame of the collective action in progress. Based on this frame, we investigate an exemplifying case, the evacuation of wounded during the Bataclan terror attack on November 13th, 2015 in Paris. With a unique and rare set of data, we focus on the special French police unit RAID, which intervenes in crisis situations. We show that RAID officers do not think and act about time and space separately and sequentially (time then space or vice versa, and then the time-space relationship) but in a fully integrated and relational way, in a time-space frame: they think of space in terms of time, and time in terms of space. We show that during their interventions, they mobilize and reconstruct coherent chronotopes in situ, to respond effectively to the situation. To this end, they make use of generic combinations of coordinated and embodied acts, which are neither cognitive representations of action nor automatic responses to stimuli, but dispositions, habits available as resources for situated meaning-making.