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Article published In: Multimodality, Politics and Ideology
Edited by David Machin and Theo van Leeuwen
[Journal of Language and Politics 15:3] 2016
► pp. 274–287

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The politics of office design

Translating neoliberalism into furnishing

 | Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Published online: 4 August 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.3.03rod
Abstract
Recent changes in open plan office design are intended to facilitate flexible and collaborative work practices. Though promoted in terms of aesthetics and functionality, these changes in layout and furnishing communicate a great deal about how work and the workers that perform them are understood. Drawing upon the semiotics of framing and the chronotope, the open plan office is analyzed as a multimodal realization of neoliberal discourses on the flexibilization and deregulation of work. As such, the collaborative open plan office does more than represent or give expression to neoliberal ideologies, it normalizes and makes durable the work processes, identities and temporalities of neoliberalized labour.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Multimodality and the translation of neoliberal discourse
  • 3.Framing the neoliberal workspace
    • 3.1Segregation
    • 3.2Permeability
    • 3.3Separation
    • 3.4Permanence
    • 3.5Rhyme
  • 4.The chronotopography of the neoliberal workplace
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (23)
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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