Resisting Resistance: ICT Adoption Within a Monastery on Mount Athos
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DOCTORAL THESIS Resisting resistance ICT adoption within a monastery on Mount Athos Russell, Christopher Award date: 2018 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Resisting Resistance: ICT Adoption within a Monastery on Mount Athos by Christopher Paul Russell BA, MA, MSc, PGCE A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Roehampton Business School University of Roehampton 2017 ii Abstract Micro-level resistance to meso-level information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives is relatively well-explored. Indeed, Lapointe and Rivard (2007) developed a framework for studying such resistance which revealed the importance of the level and longitudinal aspects of ICT adoption. Less well-explored is meso-level resistance to ICTs, and how such resistance may itself be resisted. In this thesis I construct a conceptual framework to explore just such resistance. I draw upon Parsons, Bourdieu and Elias – theorists first combined by Mouzelis (1995; 2008) – to discern power and resistance across levels in each of three dimensions of social practice: positional, dispositional and figurational. I test out this framework in an extreme, all-encompassing organisation: a monastery of the Monks’ Republic of Mount Athos in northern Greece that chose to resist ICTs. I employ longitudinal ethnography, from 2008 to 2015, so that I capture monks’ changing interpretations, in interviews, and their enactments, via participant observation. In the positional dimension of social practice, I find that the meso-level cedes little scope for resistance. However, it is subject to challenge by micro- and macro-level initiatives in the other dimensions of social practice. In the dispositional I find that, although religious and spiritual capital are significant, shaping the monks’ interpretations of ICTs, the social and cultural capital the monks bring from their prior habitus provokes their adoption of ICTs. In the figurational I find that a mobile phone network’s side-stepping of meso-level resistance enables such adoption. This alliance resulted, by 2015, in twenty smartphones within the monastery. Ultimately, despite meso-level resistance, the fortress-like walls and Byzantine-like borders of Mount Athos fail to keep out ICTs. This thesis, in coming to that conclusion, constitutes the first empirical application of Mouzelis’ work to ICTs and establishes the relevance and suitability of his three dimensions of social practice for studying resistance. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ..............................................................................................................................iii Table of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... xii Glossary of Terms ............................................................................................................................ xiv Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... xviii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The complexity of resistance to information and communication technologies .............. 1 1.2 Conceptualising resistance and ICTs.................................................................................. 5 1.3 Research questions ............................................................................................................ 8 1.4 Theoretical approach ....................................................................................................... 11 1.5 Fieldwork site and research practice ............................................................................... 14 1.6 Overview of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 17 Researching Resistance to ICTs at the Meso-level of an Organisation ........................... 24 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 24 2.2 Conceptualising resistance .............................................................................................. 25 2.3 Structure and functions of organisation .......................................................................... 31 2.4 Field of the organisation and habitus of individuals ....................................................... 37 Characteristics of those who engage ...................................................................................... 37 Characterisations of those who resist ..................................................................................... 43 2.5 Constellations of positions and dispositions ................................................................... 47 iv 2.6 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 50 Conceptualising Power and Resistance in Organisations ............................................... 54 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 54 3.2 Definitions and dimensions of power and resistance ..................................................... 55 3.3 Positional ......................................................................................................................... 59 Functions across levels ............................................................................................................ 60 Power, conflict and change ..................................................................................................... 65 Application ............................................................................................................................... 69 3.4 Dispositional .................................................................................................................... 70 Field ......................................................................................................................................... 71 Capital ...................................................................................................................................... 73 Habitus ..................................................................................................................................... 79 Doxa and symbolic violence .................................................................................................... 80 Power and reproduction ......................................................................................................... 81 Application ............................................................................................................................... 82 3.5 Figurational ...................................................................................................................... 84 Figurations ............................................................................................................................... 85 Established and outsider relations .......................................................................................... 86 Unintended consequences ...................................................................................................... 87 Individual habitus .................................................................................................................... 87 Power relations........................................................................................................................ 88 Application ............................................................................................................................... 89 3.6 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 90 Research Practice ............................................................................................................ 95 v 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 95 4.2 Choosing a monastery ..................................................................................................... 96 Monasteries ............................................................................................................................