Organizational mythopoeia and the spectacle in postfascist (dis)organization

Citation

Richards B & Mollan S (2022) Organizational mythopoeia and the spectacle in postfascist (dis)organization. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 22 (1), pp. 57-78. http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/organizational-mythopoeia-and-spectacle-postfascist-disorganization

Abstract
This article examines the process of organizational mythopoeia ('myth-making') undertaken as part of the repertoire of techniques used by the postfascist far-right to propagate and disseminate their ideology. The article examines the purchase of a car formerly owned by the now deceased right-wing British politician Enoch Powell, by a far-right group. What followed were a short series of events surrounding the purchase that saw attempts to transform the car's cultural, political and historical significance for their own benefit by attempting to project it ideologically into public consciousness, something that ultimately failed to occur. This is explored with reference to organizational mythopoeia and the spectacle. The central argument presented is that the postfascist far-right attempt to create their own reality through mythopoeia that is rooted in nostalgic visions of the past. This is undertaken to achieve cultural attrition, factual distortion, and a fundamental disordering of norms that opens the space for the communication of postfascism. Despite the seeming ephemerality of the events discussed here, we show how the inconsequential and often ignored can offer valuable insights into wider postfascist order/organization and disorder/disorganization.

Keywords
organisational mythopoeia; the spectacle; postfascism

Journal
Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization: Volume 22, Issue 1

People

Dr Benjamin Richards

Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Management, Work and Organisation