Informing the Ontologies of Organizational Histories : The Critical Conceptualization of Events and Actualization in Organizing

Critical Organizational History (COH) lacks a reflexive discussion about its ontological possibilities. This article fills this gap through a comparative analysis of Foucault's and Deleuze's late philosophies of history. It offers a reflexive analysis about the ontological possibilities for COH by translating Foucault's and Deleuze's views of actualization and events in ways that inform COH. First, the ‘new metaphysics of history' developed by Foucault stresses the importance of the continuous reopening of the present through events, which then defines specific attitudes, subjectivation, and care as ethics as the focus of historical work. Second, a ‘post-historical metaphysics,' as elaborated by Deleuze, reflects a more asubjective stance, in which the post-historical move remains metaphysical. Images, aberrant movements, machines and agencements mediate the fluid becoming of experience, which is primary locus of history and critique. Both routes emphasize the role of critique as actualization and eventalization, thus continuously opening and bordering the present. An example of worker surveillance illustrates Foucault's and Deleuze's views on actualization, eventalization, and their approach of history. This article uncovers an interesting confluence of these approaches for organization scholars, namely, through the combination of events with non-events stressing the importance of absences and silences in critical descriptions.