ABSTRACT
As scholars on organization, we have been confronting the challenges of a changing episteme. The arrival of a new coronavirus and its devastating pandemic compel us to ask what the virus means for organization studies. The essay contributes to this endeavour by attending to the implication of the virus in the (re)organization of meaning and by explicating the ways in which metaphor and metonymy enable one to trace challenges in this (re)organization. In doing so, it takes inspiration from, and contributes to, the theme of (in)visibility that is central to X & Organization Studies. The multifaceted approach is rendered through "spectrographies”, texts that craft haunting experiences of epistemic fragmentation into organizational knowledge. The essay unfolds through four sessions that engage with meaning across analogy, ontology, epistemology and relationality. Each session offers a double reading of its respective dynamics. The first reading outlines challenges in the (re)organization of meaning by (re)engaging with the virus metaphor and its relevance to organization studies. The second reading approaches the virus through metonymy, a trope that is often overlooked. It contributes to organization by tracing objects and subjects through metonymies of materialization and identification. It shows how humans wrestle not only with a pathogen, but also with the self and with other people. Together, the four sessions illustrate how metaphor and metonymy alert us to epistemic disruptions and instabilities associated with the virus. Altogether, the essay contributes to organization studies by turning the interest in meaning and organization to the organization of meaning. It also extends knowledge on tropes in organization by showing how the virus is rendered more powerful through metonymy than it ever was as metaphor. For organization studies to attend to the virus effectively, it must contend with its inherent undecidability. In closing, the essay frames an agenda for organizational scholarship. © The Author(s) 2023.
ABSTRACT
The world's dire experience with a new coronavirus has shown that the (re)organization embedded in managing a virus and knowledge on organization(s) and management are out of joint. This article entwines life story into reflections on the pandemic to illustrate how knowledge relations are afflicted by othering that constrains learning and facilitates the conditions of possibility for precarious pandemics. In doing so, the account scrutinizes both knowledge activities and domains of scholarship as it navigates tensions between the works of Latour and Foucault. The article is structured into four parts. Theoria focuses on the textual body and the politics of ‘willful blindness' that segregate the ‘theoretical other';Praxis addresses the human body, operational knowledge and the ‘everyday geopolitics of fear' that heroicize the ‘essential other';Regimen examines the social body, regulatory knowledge and the ‘political economy of truth' that contests the ‘prescribing other' and Poiesis addresses the global body, productive knowledge and the international geopolitics that distance the cultural and national other. Each activity poses relational tensions that confront organization which compel us to extend organizational scholarship in ways that facilitate its articulation with scholarship on the virus and invite us to approach knowledge on pandemic (re)organization as a joint cause. © The Author(s) 2023.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The COVID 19 pandemic has posed new challenges to transplant centers. The impact has been detrimental on wait-listed ESKD patients, reducing their access to life saving kidney transplant and prolonging time on the waiting list. Waitlist status is an independent predictor of hospitalization among COVID-19 infected kidney transplant candidates and is associated with increased mortality as high as 34% in one center. In this study, we aim to characterize the impact of COVID-19 on patients waitlisted for kidney and pancreas transplant at our center. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of adult candidates waitlisted for kidney transplant at our center who tested positive for COVID-19. We reviewed baseline patient demographics and co-morbidities, severity of COVID-19 illness, hospitalization rate, and mortality. Results: 38 patients waitlisted for kidney transplant, simultaneous kidney-pancreas, pancreas transplant alone tested positive for COVID-19 between March and November 2020. Of these, 22 (71%) were listed for 1st kidney transplant, 7 (13.4%) for SPK, 6 (15.8%) for 2nd kidney transplant, 3 (7.9%) for pancreas transplant alone. COVID-19 waitlisted candidates had median age-47 years (20-75), 20 (52.6 %) males. 52.6% white, 18.4% Hispanic, 15.7% Asian, and 13% Black. Significant racial disparities were noted especially among the Hispanic population who account for only 3.4% of our waitlist candidates but seem to have increased predilection for COVID 19 infection. The vast majority 30 (78.9%) of COVID 19 waitlist patients are hypertensive;and 17 (44.7%) diabetic. 25 (65.8%) of patients were treated as outpatient, 10 (26.3%) required hospitalization and 3 (7.9%) died. Critically, of the 38, only 3 (2 pancreas waitlist;1 kidney) have recovered sufficiently to be reactivated on the waitlist. Mean time has been 16.7 weeks (SE=2.7 weeks) (range 13-22 weeks). Conclusions: COVID19 infection has a significant impact on candidates waitlisted for kidney and pancreas transplantation. At our center, mortality has been 7.8%, hospitalization, 26.3%. But, to date, only 7.8% have been reactivated on the waitlist, predisposing them to increased morbidity and mortality. (Table Presented).