Time and movement

Another aspect of writing differently that can be reflected on before, during and after the creation of an output, rather than in the content of research itself, is the dynamic between time and movement. Inextricably bound with emotions and embodiment, time and movement can be useful to reflect on when writing differently. Time in relation to publication is often thought of in terms of how long it takes to get a paper published from the time of submission, or within each round of reviews. However, we can open up the time considerations to delve deeper into our approach to writing. Jenny Helin (2020) insightfully encourages us to ‘write vertically’ and reflect on the time of our writing. Writing differently is linked to movement and temporality. The latter stems from the fact that ‘to write is to move and being moved in time’ (Helin, 2020, 2). This can be considered horizontally – linear storytelling, chronological order of events, a flow moving from past to present – but also in more fluid ways; for example, through memory, thought and recognition.

Time is also linked to growth and development in research, so I have been considering the reinterrogation of data used in previous studies and the questioning of my ‘old’ analysis – would the academic I am today interpret the data in a similar way, or would the knowledge and experience I have accumulated since that study allow me to generate new insights and shed new light onto previous studies? Based on today’s focus on producing ‘on-trend’ scholarship, collecting and analysing up to date data and the production of new research contributions, I am not sure if this practice would be widely accepted for publication in management and organization studies. And yet, when we review literature and cite studies in our writing, we tend to jump through time in non-linear ways – both in terms of years captured next to in-text citations, decades identified with certain research strands or developments, but also possibly in terms of stages of intellectual development of the authors. So it is useful to consider the cycles and juxtapositions of times within our research and publications, not only in terms of the currency of data or the research life cycle, but also the more hidden dynamics of time within those research practices.