Bøger om Paradox

This thesis is an autoethnographic inquiry into the identity work of leaders working in the public sector in Denmark. The research is about how degrees of freedom can be experienced when it is acknowledged that leaders are paradoxically both enabled and constrained through interdependencies with others. The main puzzle is about what is involved in the processes of leaders negotiating identity when thinking about the mutual constitution of individuality and sociality.This research argues that identity work within leadership is based on contradictions and ambiguities as well as how leaders simultaneously form and are formed by social rules and norms. The inquiry illustrates the temporality of leadership identity. It emphasizes how the human capacity to adapt to different power relations comes with either the risk of indeterminacy and a weak sense of self or with the risk of determinacy and a weak sense of the other. Losing the paradoxical understanding of these interdependencies might result in either dogmatism or relativism. This research provides critical insight into both positions.

I et desperat forsøg på at finde retning i sit liv, møder vi fortvivlede Madeleine på 20 år, der er på vej hjem fra et sted sydpå, hvor hun har været i et år. Her har hun fået nogle livsbekræftende oplevelser og dannet særlige venskaber, men har i trist tilstand forladt det hele for at få styr på sit liv igen. Da hun er hjemme, opdager hun, at hun stadig heller ikke hører til der, så denne gang vil hun rejse igen permanent. Hun navigerer i en surrealistisk tilværelse, der kører i ring med smertefulde og forvirrende oplevelser samt tilfælde, der paradoksalt nok virker for planlagte til ikke at være en del af en større plan. Mens hun forsøger at finde en rød tråd i kaosset, får vi gradvist indblik i, at der stikker noget dybere under hendes rejser og søgen efter planen for sit liv.