Managing the Postcolony: an ethnography at the Bank Technology Centre A degree submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2019 Felicity R. C. Heathcote-Márcz Alliance Manchester Business School People, Management and Organizations Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Figures .......................................................................................................................... 5 Declaration ................................................................................................................................. 7 Copyright Statement .................................................................................................................. 8 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 9 The Author ............................................................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 11 Introduction: Crashing into the field……………………………………………………………………………………12 Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................. 17 Postcolony: an ethnography against the grain ......................................................... 17 The silence of Empire in organization .................................................................................. 17 Current debates: breaking the silence ................................................................................. 19 Postcolony: time against the grain ....................................................................................... 23 Attempting a critical, postcolonial ethnography ................................................................. 26 The embodied postcolony .................................................................................................... 29 Tripartite contribution ......................................................................................................... 31 Practicalities: what did you do? ........................................................................................... 33 Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................. 43 Colonising brands: The bank vanishes ......................................................................... 43 Competition for hearts and minds ....................................................................................... 44 Cyborgs and white men........................................................................................................ 47 App to the future .................................................................................................................. 52 Branded Entrepreneur ......................................................................................................... 54 Mini-app to the future ......................................................................................................... 59 2 Clouds and colonies .............................................................................................................. 66 Final Thoughts ...................................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................................. 82 Agile and postcolony: welcome to the CoLab ........................................................... 82 Agile goes mainstream ......................................................................................................... 83 Welcome to the CoLab ......................................................................................................... 86 Addy’s Agile .......................................................................................................................... 86 CIP world .............................................................................................................................. 90 Agile precarity ...................................................................................................................... 95 Agile Goodbyes ..................................................................................................................... 98 Lighten up ethnographer ................................................................................................... 100 Every(Agile)body ................................................................................................................ 102 Darrell’s Agile ..................................................................................................................... 107 Agile postcolony ................................................................................................................. 110 Final thoughts ..................................................................................................................... 112 Chapter 4: ............................................................................................................................... 120 In conversation with Mbembe ...................................................................................... 120 Mbembe’s Postcolony ........................................................................................................ 120 Phenomenol postcolony .................................................................................................... 124 Phallic postcolony ............................................................................................................... 128 Temporal and embodied Postcolony ................................................................................. 131 Postcolony in space ............................................................................................................ 134 Failure to materialise ......................................................................................................... 138 Final thoughts ..................................................................................................................... 141 Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................ 143 War at The Tower ............................................................................................................. 143 3 War in organization studies ............................................................................................... 144 The Tower is born ............................................................................................................... 147 Middleware - war is peace ................................................................................................. 148 Collateral damage .............................................................................................................. 154 Big dads and the Motherland ............................................................................................. 161 A cry for help ...................................................................................................................... 164 Mainframe Men ................................................................................................................. 166 Old wars and new possibilities ........................................................................................... 171 Final thoughts ..................................................................................................................... 173 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 183 Tripartite postcolony .......................................................................................................... 183 Postcolony and brand ........................................................................................................ 185 Postcolony and Agile .......................................................................................................... 188 Postcolony and war ............................................................................................................ 189 Postcolony for the Manager………….………………………………………………………………………………191 Postcolony: a future? ......................................................................................................... 193 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 197 Word count: 69,084 4 Table of Figures Figure 1: Green Card ................................................................................................................ 16 Figure 2: Maps of the Colonial Bank ........................................................................................ 72 Figure 3: The headless spread eagle ........................................................................................ 72 Figure 4: Cloud of the future...................................................................................................