Luhmann and Butler: observing the construction of gender in organizations

BRANCALHÃO, HELLEN MIRANDA; VIDAL, JOSEP PONT

doi:10.1590/1679-395120250033

person HELLEN MIRANDA BRANCALHÃO *

Conceptualizati on (Equal) · Writi ng - original draft (Lead) · Writi ng - review & editi ng (Equal Ph.D. student in Sustainable Development in the Graduate Program in Sustainable Development of the Humid Tropics at the Federal University of Pará (PPGDSTU/NAEA/UFPA); Master in Public Management from the Center for Advanced Amazonian Studies at the Federal University of Pará (PPGGP/NAEA/UFPA)

schoolUniversidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos (NAEA), Programa de Pós-Graduação em Desenvolvimento Sustentável do Trópico Úmido (PPGDSTU), Belém, PA, Brazil

0000-0001-6769-9870

person JOSEP PONT VIDAL

Conceptualizati on (Equal) · Writi ng - original draft (Support) · Writi ng - review & editi ng (Equal) Ph.D. in Politi cal Sociology from the University of Barcelona; Master in Politi cal Sociology from the Bielefeld University; Associate Professor at the Center for Advanced Amazonian Studies (NAEA), Federal University of Pará; Professor of Public Administrati on and Organizati onal Theory

schoolUniversidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos (NAEA), Belém, PA, Brazil

0000-0002-6214-6895

E-mail:
hellen.geysa@gmail.com

E-mail:
josevidal@ufpa.br

person* Autora Correspondente

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9580-7859

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Fabricio Stocker, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6340-9127

Process	Single Paradigm: Traditional inductive activity	Multi-paradigm: Variation of inductive activity
Phase I: Fundamentals	Specify research question	Define phenomenon of interest
	Review relevant literature	Focus on paradigmatic lenses, group paradigms, and find transition zones
	Choose data source	Collect metatheoretical sample (data interpretable from multiple lenses)
Phase II: Data analysis	Design the analysis process	Plan the itinerary of paradigms (ordered use of lenses)
	Systematically code data	Conduct multi-paradigmatic coding
	Tabulate and/or present analysis	Write paradigmatic reports
Phase III Idea building	Develop and test propositions	Explore metaconjunctures
	Build theory	Obtain meta-paradigmatic perspective
	Evaluate resulting theory	Articulate critical self-reflection

POINTS OF ANALYSIS	THEORETICAL PREMISES AND KEY IDEAS AND CONCEPTS
POINTS OF ANALYSIS	Social systems theory (Niklas Luhmann)	Gender performativity (Judith Butler)
Paradigmatic approaches of the referenced works	Functional-structuralism Post-structuralism	Post-structuralism
Field of knowledge	Sociology and Law	Philosophy
Selected emphasis	Systemic - organizational	Feminist - gender
Interdisciplinary dialogues	Phenomenology, Sociocybernetics, Psychoanalysis, Gestalt Theory, Semiotics, among others	Phenomenology, Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, Semiotics, among others
Modes of representation of reality	Systemic constructivism Symbolic communications	Discursive performativity Discursive communications

POINTS OF ANALYSIS	MULTI-PARADIGMATIC CODING		EXPLORING METACONJUNCTURES Systemic & Post-structuralist Feminist Organizational Studies
POINTS OF ANALYSIS	Social systems theory (Niklas Luhmann)	Gender performativity (Judith Butler)
Human representation	The person is an autopoietic and self-referential system represented by the psychic system. Essentialisms are rejected, and individuality as contingent is emphasized.	The subject is constituted by regulatory practices. Both the idea of a subject defined within a pre-existing ontology and the notion of universalities are rejected.	Human beings cannot be observed through universalities or essentialisms; their representation is always contingent upon organizational norms that (re)produce gender in organizations.
Gender	No specific theoretical formulation. Critical of gender binarism; proposes an interdisciplinary approach to include diverse ways of living gender beyond the binary of man/woman.	Produced and reified by the subject in everyday life through the repetition of acts, bodily gestures, movements, and enactments that allow for the gendered stylization of the self according to socio-culturally situated norms.	The suggestion is to conceptualize gender as a type of communication: a process through which gender-relevant information is selected and demarcated by specific codifications that establish normative/cognitive expectations and understanding at different levels (understanding, non-understanding, and misunderstanding).
Body	Linked to the formation of expectations in communications and the interpenetration between the personal and social systems through double contingency.	An active medium of gender performativity, forged by stylized bodily acts recursively repeated to perform the gender the subject is invested in, conforming to dominant social norms.	Affects organizational communications, potentially enhancing or hindering communicative understanding. Bodily acts must be observed within the matrix of a given organization’s gender norms.
Organization	An autopoietic and self-referential system with the capacity for self-organization through decision-making.	No specific theoretical formulation; the concept is correlated with gender regulations (laws, rules, and policies) that regulate gender in empirical instances.	Organizational systems operate through communications and are structured by decisions, which may or may not restrict genders within their operations.
Regulation / norms	Types of self-referential communication that provide feedback and sustain the system’s functioning through cognitive and behavioral expectations.	Regulatory, prescriptive, and punitive norms forge an organized set of constraints that normalize gender. Norms do not represent subjectivity; they produce it within subjects.	Proposes the notion of gender regulations as communications intended to stabilize the system through generalizing normative expectations, reducing identity complexity while paradoxically restricting the exercise of individuality.
Coding	Modes of communication unique to each system that oscillate between a positive and negative value (legal/illegal, right/wrong), enabling systemic differentiation and complexity reduction.	Without a specific theoretical formulation - a concept correlated with the matrix of gender norms (sex-gender-desire) that shapes the legitimizing/significant practices of identities and classifies genders as intelligible/coherent or unintelligible/incoherent, in a given social, cultural, and temporally situated space.	The proposal involves adopting a binary gender code, intelligible/unintelligible, with the former representing the hegemonic gender pattern defined within the organization, increasing sensitivity and enhancing communication between systems, while the latter escapes communicative treatment, generating only noise in organizational communications.
Power	A specialized type of communication that coordinates actions, communications, and decisions by restricting the possible selections available to the system.	Acts restrictively in the production of subjectivities and, through norms, reifies and crystallizes socially admitted genders within a predefined matrix.	The definition of gender within the organizational system is permeated by power, inherent to all communication, which restricts possible selections and produces the matrix regulating bodies and subjectivities.
Subject-organization relationship	Possible through interpenetration, which generates the co-evolution of the organizational system and the personal system.	Mediated by norms that determine the conditions of intelligibility and social belonging, which may secure or deny rights to subjects.	Impacts the (re)production of gender in both personal systems (through subjection) and organizational systems, allowing for co-evolution via non-restrictive gendered norms.

[TFN5] Source: Elaborated by the authors based on Lewis and Grimes (2007).