Mindful co-optations? Exploring the responses of mindfulness teachers to the risk of co-optation

This paper explores the responses of mindfulness teachers to the risk of co-optation as identified by recent critical research on mindfulness meditation in organizations. As such, this risk is not revelatory to the mindfulness teachers, but rather understood as a basic condition of their work. Through ethnographic observations and interviews with mindfulness teachers, the paper consequently identifies three responses to the dominant conception of the co-optation of mindfulness meditation. Some teachers accordingly view it as (1) a question of intention, in which mindfulness meditation can be framed in a variety of different ways, which may enhance or curb its transformative potential. Others contend that the transformative potential of the practice is, to a degree, independent of discursive and institutional framings, and that cooptation is not necessarily something to be feared. To the contrary, mindfulness meditation can in this view potentially work as (2) a Trojan horse; discursively co-opted for the purpose of productivity, while subtly changing the organization from within through non-discursive layers of being. Finally, some teachers perceive the question of (non)co-optation as misguided, as it exaggerates the transformative potential of the practice to the point of an (3) overblown promise. These findings prompt a subsequent a conceptual discussion, in which a typology including the notions of (1) intellectual co-optation, (2) inverse co-optation and (3) empty co-optation are suggested as means for theoretically explaining the responses of the mindfulness teachers and as nuancing supplements to the prevailing conception of the structural co-optation of mindfulness in organization.

Automated summary

This paper explores the responses of mindfulness teachers to the risk of co-optation as identified by recent critical research, and identifies three different viewpoints: one sees co-optation as an issue of intention, another suggests that co-optation can be a positive force for transformation, and the third views the discussion of co-optation as misguided. The paper also proposes three concepts of co-optation and provides nuanced supplements to the prevailing conception of structural co-optation of mindfulness in organizations.