Activist boards, governance accountabilities & the logic of fantasy

Within the past decade, social justice organizations – like many public sector and non-governmental entities – have been paying increased attention to governance leadership (Brissett & Sher, 2020). Recent contributions have opened the field for purposeful study of board effectiveness, ethics, and accountability, including the use of consultant interventions.
The presentation explores the board of a feminist funding organization, with whom I have been working. The fund provides money to activist groups and human rights defenders. It is a registered not-for-profit (NFP) charitable entity which recruits board members attuned to and active in resisting social injustice and human rights violations, and high net-worth individuals and philanthropists. In order to take up fiduciary accountabilities, both must make use of a corporate discourse (albeit a NFP one) and related practices that some board members have refused and that others may have benefited from. Using Lacan’s notion of fantasy (Morel, 2020), I invite participants to explore with me my dilemmas in consulting to this and similar boards in which i) efforts to resist power re-instantiate it (Foucault, 1982), ii) contradictory meanings associated with the signifier ‘activism’ provoke unconscious dynamics (Cederstrom & Hoedemaekers, 2010), and iii) there is a fantasy that divergent social and racial identities can be navigated without considerable anxiety.

References
Bissett, L., Sher, M., Smith, T.L. (2020). Eds. Dynamics at Boardroom Level. New York: Routledge.
Cederstrom, C., Hoedemaekers, C. (2010). Eds. Lacan and Organization. London: MayFlyBooks declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/srhrdefenders/pages/declaration.aspx
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp.777-795. Available at http://www2.kobe-u.ac.jp/~alexroni/IPD2018%20readings/IPD1%202018%20No.8/Foucault%20Subject%20and%20Power.pdf
Morel, G, (2020). The Unsinkable Fantasy. Available at: https://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/the-unsinkable-fantasy/

Session schedule

10 MINS

Introduction by Dr Joy Humphreys

30 MINS

Paper presentation

15 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

15 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

15 MINS

Small group activity or discussion ‘What does this paper tell us about working into the future?’

15 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

20 MINS

Whole Symposium across the papers reflections on the sessions

Share this presentation!

Parallel Paper Presentations

The following are presenting at this time