Organizing Genocide: Looking at the Holocaust through the Lens of Postmodern Organization Theory

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar VI

Abstract

We see the Holocaust in monolithic terms, using the "container" metaphor that views organizations as entities whose communications pursue shared goals. How else could the Nazis murder six million Jews? This presentation contends the Final Solution is best understood through postmodern theory that sees organizations as fragmented, knowledge ambiguous, and power contested via multiple discourses. An ethnography of the SS gas van organization illustrates application of postmodern theory, bringing us closer to the historical Holocaust.

Author

• Mark Ward Sr., Clemson University