The emergence of a surrealist movement and its vital 'estrangement-effect'in organization studies

Beginning as a subversive and anti-establishment movement in France in the 1920s, surrealism was primarily a movement whose 'voice' came through the w ritten word. Later the movement extended into the visual arts, with which i t is more generally associated. Surrealism was always in-tended as a way of thinking, a way of feeling and, indeed, a philosophy of life. This way of thinking now appears to have permeated the discourse of organization theory in both the orientation and 'techniques' that are advocated by a group of writers who claim, or invoke, the insights of postmodernists (/poststructur alists). Drawing on recently published work by the critical theorists Adorn o, Benjamin and Marcuse, we argue that the field needs to consider carefull y 'its' response to all 'surrealist movements'. We argue that the surrealis t movement is an essential part of a healthy ongoing dialectic for the fiel d and needs to be recognized in exactly that context.