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This paper focuses on the figure of the flâneur and sets out to explore how the practice of flânerie might offer social researchers a different way of engaging with digital worlds. It is articulated around two main interests: the relationship of the flâneur to digital worlds and the theoretical and methodological implications of envisioning the practice of flânerie as a way of engaging with digital worlds. This paper contends that flânerie could inform and creatively enrich our practices as social researchers in two ways: enabling us to approach differently the exploration of digital worlds and leading us to investigate phenomena that might have remained concealed through more conventional methodologies. Flânerie, we argue, offers the possibility of a more open and explorative approach to digital research. Our paper outlines implications of positioning flânerie as a methodological practice and reflects on potential of flânerie in the exploration of digital worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cultural implications of the increasing speed and acceleration of technological operation and development. It takes its cue from the notion originally proposed by Ernst Jünger and later taken up by Maurice Blanchot and, more recently, Bernard Stiegler, that we are 'breaking the time barrier'. For Stiegler this is happening because 'technics is evolving faster than culture'. This paper examines the beginnings of this idea in the work of Jünger, Blanchot and others and traces its development in the work of Derrida and Stiegler, particularly in relation to the increasing power and ubiquity of digital networks. Finally it proposes that one response to this situation is to be found in the artistic avant-garde and in the concept of 'delay' originally proposed by Marcel Duchamp and taken up by Jean François Lyotard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce Bergson's philosophy of "action, process and movement" and its relevance for social science and the study of organizational culture. Bergson's philosophy of change argues against the spatialisation of thought in which phenomena are broken down into discrete components to be numbered, sequenced and manipulated: rather he argues for a view of time as qualitative; intuition as situated within experience rather than about it; the importance of the body in social experience and the importance of morality and religion in social life - in short and embodied conception of culture. Bergson's culture is socialised time actualised in experienced duration or durée - culture is always in motion, and does not need culture clash to drive change, but cultural expression and formulations are not, which runs counter to functionalist and psychoanalytic views of culture. Creativity, or the élan vital , is the human impulse to organise, but to improvise rather than to locate, divide and control. Culture grounded in experienced time and driven by the élan vital is in ceaseless motion - it is duration because its is en-dured as a multiplicity rather than as a unity. Where heroic leaders in treatments of organizational culture invite us the change our place in the world, in Bergson's thought they invite us to change out time - our qualitative experience of duration. We examine these arguments through a review of Bergson's work, concluding that Bergson's resonates with postmodern approaches to culture which shift our attention from signification to implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can we learn from a better understanding of the process of daydreaming in an organizational context? That is the main question underpinning this study. Based on a field study with a rural entrepreneur that uses daydreaming as her main strategic tool in the development of her farm, and a reading of Bachelard's work on the phenomenology of 'reverie,' we come to understand daydreaming as an embodied act that emerges at the intersection between relational materiality, vertical temporality and aesthetic space. This conceptualization of daydreaming reminds us that rather than focusing on how to make dreams come true, which is the traditional way of relating to dreams in organizational life, there is a need to enable people to dream anew, because that is when new beginnings can be born, and the particular will to act, through daydreaming, can be released. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines some basic characteristics of modern myths that fundamentally differ from the traditional myths on which most myth research is based, namely: their relation to time, and their relation to themselves. The article also takes a closer look at the implications these differences have for our present state of Being. The aim is not to offer yet another variation on the academic discussion of myths, but rather to provide a starting point for further discussion about the peculiarities and impacts pertaining to modern myths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]