What was the project? Thoughts on genre and the project form

The project form—the very model of ‘a project’ as a type of purposive and transformative action—animates social environments the world over. As a social form, projects constitute a versatile, organizational structure predicated on the management of time, tasks, and resources toward some pre-determined, non-routine goal. Projects combine logistical practical reasoning with visionary aspirational ends. They readily appear across fields of science, education, business, government, and the arts. This essay inquires into the conditions and consequences of the project form, asking: how have norms and practices of project making shaped historical formations, social environments, and our understanding of them? In answering this question, the essay contextualizes the project form within a history of the modern world system. It then develops a theory of the project form, illustrating how the logistical and visionary aspects of projects emerge as effects of genre-mediated processes of project making. Finally, the essay considers how social theories that are blind to the project form risk naturalizing its logics. Through these steps, the essay reflects on the limits and limitations of the project form. This essay is part of the special issue, 'Genre Work in the New Economy,' edited by Ilana Gershon and Michael Prentice.