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(De)centering and (Re)envisioning the Secular Hegemony of Organizational

Communication Theory and Research

Article  in  Communication Studies · March 2006

DOI: 10.1080/10510970500481797

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(De)centering and (Re)envisioning the

Secular Hegemony of Organizational
Communication Theory and Research
a
Patrice M. Buzzanell Ph.D. Patrice M. Buzzanell is a professor in
the Department of Communication at Purdue University where
she specializes in gendered workplace processes, particularly as
b
they relate to career and leadership. & Lynn M. Harter Lynn M.
Harter is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication
Studies at Ohio University. Her scholarship focuses on discourses
of health and healing and organizing processes.
a
Purdue University
b
Ohio University
Available online: 17 Aug 2006

To cite this article: Patrice M. Buzzanell Ph.D. Patrice M. Buzzanell is a professor in the
Department of Communication at Purdue University where she specializes in gendered workplace
processes, particularly as they relate to career and leadership. & Lynn M. Harter Lynn M. Harter is
an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Her scholarship
focuses on discourses of health and healing and organizing processes. (2006): (De)centering and
(Re)envisioning the Secular Hegemony of Organizational Communication Theory and Research,
Communication Studies, 57:1, 1-3

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 Communication Studies
Vol. 57, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 1–3

(De)centering and (Re)envisioning the

Secular Hegemony of Organizational
Communication Theory and Research
Patrice M. Buzzanell & Lynn M. Harter
Downloaded by [98.223.103.106] at 11:11 06 July 2011

In this special issue on spirituality and organizing, we provide five articles that address
ways of disrupting secular hegemony in the workplace as well as in other areas of our
organizational and personal lives. Each of these articles shares a commitment to explore
the marginalized or elusive aspects of higher education, career identities, alternative
(housechurch) organizing processes and practices, and faith-based organizations. Each
also provides specific practices that not only are feasible in many settings but that also
infuse hope for the inclusion of spirit, connectedness, and wholeness in all organizations.

Keywords: Secular Hegemony; Spirituality; Organizing Processes; Organizational

Communication; Quality of Life

This special issue provides a forum for organizational communication theory and
research that recognizes and seeks to disrupt ‘‘secular hegemony.’’ Secular hegemony,
or the subjugation of the spiritual, privileges particular worldviews that dominate
disciplinary discourses (Rodriguez, 2001). These worldviews privilege managerialist
and consumerist ideologies and foster identity constructions that elevate one side
of binary thinking to the exclusion of other ways of constructing our worlds and
our field (e.g., instrumentality, work, and individual benefits to the neglect of emo-
tionality, family or volunteer pursuits, and community).
Collectively, the authors in our special issue explore often unacknowledged spiri-
tual assumptions that can expand understandings of the creation and maintenance

Patrice M. Buzzanell (Ph.D., Purdue University) is a professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue
University where she specializes in gendered workplace processes, particularly as they relate to career and lead-
ership. Lynn M. Harter is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University.
Her scholarship focuses on discourses of health and healing and organizing processes. Correspondence to: L. M.
Harter, School of Communication Studies, Ohio University, Lasher Hall 12, Athens, OH 45701. E-mail: harter@
ohio.edu

ISSN 1051-0974 (print)/ISSN 1745-1035 (online) # 2006 Central States Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/10510970500481797
 2 P. M. Buzzanell & L. M. Harter
of communal life. As such, they reframe and enlarge constructs and processes that
reside at the heart of organizational communication. Originating, as it did, with a
roundtable discussion at the 2005 Central States Communication Association
annual convention, this special issue expanded to include other scholars through
an open call for manuscripts in Communication Studies and over CRTNET. We
received more than 20 submissions and gratefully acknowledge the 44 editorial
board members who participated in our review process. The five articles selected
for this special issue address the salience of spirituality for personal and organiza-
tional sense-making and the constructions of multiple, simultaneous, and, in some
cases, incompatible realities.
Authors foreground ways in which individuals and organizations enact spirituality
through narrative (see Goodier & Eisenberg), reveal how individuals craft meaningful
work (see Smith, Arendt, Bezek Lahman, Settle, & Duff), provide accounts of work-
ing in faith–based organizations (see Bonewits Feldner, Kirby, McBride, Shuler,
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Birkholt, Danielson, & Pawlowski), and highlight alternative ways of organizing

shared spirituality (see Leeman). Collectively, these authors (re)envision the secular
hegemony of communication theory by exploring the (a) symbolic and material con-
tours of spiritual and secular realities, and (b) tensions and contradictions that
emerge when spirituality collides with, permeates and is sometimes co-opted by
instrumental rationalities and secular interests.
Reading across articles, we were struck by the ways material contexts of partici-
pants’ lives shape discursive practices and patterns in critical ways. Bonewits Feldner
and Kirby et al. identify how the Jesuit value of cura personalis, caring for the whole
person, at times remains elusive due to market demands of higher education and
expectations that value some goals (e.g., research) over others (e.g., service). Bonewits
Feldner co-constructs a story with interview participants about how Catholic colleges
rely on rituals, such as mission-building conferences, to maintain faith-based mis-
sions amidst the corporatization of higher education. Likewise, Kirby et al., through
an auto-ethnographic and multivocal narrative, perceptively reveal the untenable
positions in which educators sometimes find themselves when asked to do and be
more with limited resources (e.g., time). Leeman’s ethnographic portrayal of a house-
church reveals the limits of resistance within mainstream settings. Leeman demon-
strates how ‘‘public’’ and ‘‘private’’ remain deeply contested social and material
spaces as housechurch members create a subaltern counterprivate organized around
relationships. Smith et al. interview individuals working in the persistently under-
funded nonprofit arts sector and offer a vision for framing work and career as mean-
ingful when traditional career models, guided in part by desires for material and
economic gain, are no longer viable. Finally, Goodier and Eisenberg portray how a
faith-based organization employed consultants to aid their creation of both material
and symbolic spaces for the cultivation and expression of members’ spirituality.
Ultimately, these articles reveal how spiritual and secular realities are embodied in
routines, reproduced in social interaction, and situated in material circumstances.
Moreover, the authors in our special issue carefully explore contours of identity
construction amidst competing institutional and societal discourses, and inevitably
 Secular Hegemony 3

stress the complexities and contradictions in lived moments of struggle. Tensions

arise as spiritual and secular planes of existence collide or coincide. In some cases,
participants reject or work to (over)turn instrumental rationalities (e.g., the privile-
ging of efficiency) that dominant communal life (see Leeman) or accept material
sacrifices in order to live in connection with others and follow their calling (see Smith
et al.). In other cases, participants simultaneously embrace and resist, proclaim and
silence, their spirituality as they live out personal or institutional callings (see Kirby
et al.). Organizational leaders, too, are called to connect spirituality with other
managerial interests including the bottom line (see Goodier & Eisenberg) and secular
missions (see Bonewits Feldner), and in doing so face the (ir)rationality, and in some
cases concertive control, embedded in organizing spirituality.
Finally, as you read these articles, you will encounter individuals working to cul-
tivate a life purpose larger than self. In myriad ways, these authors bear witness to
participants’ discovery of the sacred in mundane moments, the resiliency of the
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human spirit, the life-affirming ways of being in the world with others, and their
own and participants’ capacities to deal with contradictions as people live out their
spirituality. Inventiveness graces the pages of this journal as individuals try to locate
the form and forum in which to express their spirituality and sometimes experience
the vulnerability and risk that accompany owning one’s spirituality.
As with any special issue or publication, there are aspects that could not be
included for reasons of journal space or other issues. We regret that articles in our
special issue do not delve more into the dark side of organizational spirituality.
We mean both that organizational members’ identities and ways of being, knowing,
and valuing life aspects can be constrained by dominant spiritual ideologies (see
Nadesan, 1999) and that the nature of spiritual discourse as being unquestioningly
positive is missing. We also regret that our special issue does not represent spiritual
traditions not aligned with Christianity. However, we hope that this special issue will
spark even more interest among researchers and practitioners on the intersections of
organizational communication and spirituality.
In closing, we appreciate the generosity of our 44 editorial board members, the
good nature of our contributors who underwent a couple rounds of revision, and
the support of Jim Query, current Communication Studies editor. We have felt great
joy, connection, insight, and humor in our editorial collaboration. We invite our
readers to experience the same upon reading the articles in this issue.

References
Nadesan, M. H. (1999). The discourses of corporate spiritualism and evangelical capitalism.
Management Communication Quarterly, 13, 3–42.
Rodriguez, A. (2001). The nature of our contribution. In A. Rodriguez (Ed.), Essays on communi-
cation and spirituality: Contributions to a new discourse on communication (pp. ix–x). Lanham
and New York: University Press of America.

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