A postcolonial deconstruction of diversity management and multiculturalism

Abstract Because issues of workplace diversity are strongly affected by historical power relations, this chapter adopts a postcolonial perspective to critically review the notion of multiculturalism that underlies the current paradigm of diversity. To search for alternative grounds for the theoretical development of diversity management, multiculturalism is investigated as an instrument of control deeply connected to broader institutionalized power structures. Drawing on key insights from postcolonialism, it is argued that embracing multiculturalism has resulted in diversity research that is inappropriate for addressing the complex realities of cultural encounters in which identities and otherness are constructed in contemporary organizations. The chapter demonstrates that by relying on multiculturalism, diversity becomes presented through simplistic and fixed categorizations of identity and culture that reinforce inequalities. Stressing the importance of considering culture from a new perspective, and an alternative approach for theorizing cultural diversity through the concept of the third space is introduced

Close encounters:creating embodied spaces of resistance to marginalization and disempowering representation of difference in organization

Abstract In this paper I approach questions of representation from a viewpoint that adopts postcolonial feminism as a starting point for theorizing new orientations for the study of corporeal ethics and difference in organizations. Specifically, I draw on the works of Sara Ahmed and Gayatri Spivak to open up a notion of a close encounter to reflect how we could encounter others in a generous way as a basis for ethical engagement with difference in organizations. Embracing an understanding of self–other relations as embodied practices that materialize in concrete worlds but transcend times, places, and spaces, close encounters provide an alternative epistemological position to imagine ethical subjectivities in organizations through which withdrawal from the essentialist representations that guide our understanding of difference is possible and resistance to the dominant gendered and racialized identities can take place. This perspective offers important implications for rethinking the basis of feminist alliances, participative epistemologies and difference in postcoloniality

Thinking through encounters:postcolonial essays on difference and otherness in organization studies

Abstract Questions of otherness and difference have resurged in contemporary society. In this dissertation, I explore representations of difference and processes of othering in the field of management and organization studies. I aim to gain a better understanding of how to work towards more ethical and responsible engagement with difference to confront inequality between different groups of people and individuals in organizations and practices of research. With a deconstructive emphasis, the study builds on a range of postcolonial and postcolonial feminist writers to expand and challenge the prevailing theorizations of difference and (re)production of otherness in the specific discussions of diversity and corporeal ethics in organizations, and entrepreneurship in the context of international development. The dissertation consists of four research papers in which I focus on outlining ways of action and thought that can counter the dominant patterns of othering that fix difference to some bodies and therefore uphold dualistic and hierarchical self–other relations and barriers for social belonging in organizations. I do this by interrogating encounters as sites of responsibility and ethics from which new articulations of difference may rise. More specifically, I theorize difference as a dynamic relation of in-between – generated and constantly renegotiated in embodied, affective and dialogical encounters with others. Conceptualizing encounters as domains in which difference is created disrupts the essentializing logic of othering and furthers our understanding of non-exploitative difference. In this way, the study extends the critical organizational research on difference, diversity and inequality. Theorizing difference as a dynamic relation of in-between allows me to reflect on three other important points. The first is methodological: it considers the possibilities to explore this relation through creative deconstructive thought. The second one is political: if difference is rethought as a dynamic relation, it carries significance not only for confronting inequality and processes of othering in organizations and practices of research but for the organization of collective action and transnational feminist alliances in academia. Third one is pedagogical: thinking through encounters points to a pathway from engaged research to engaged pedagogy.Tiivistelmä Erilaisuuden ja toiseuden kysymykset ovat viime vuosien aikana nousseet yhteiskunnallisen keskustelun ytimeen. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkin erilaisuuden representaatioita ja toiseuttamisen prosesseja johtamis- ja organisaatiotutkimuksessa. Tutkimuksen tarkoitus on lisätä ymmärrystä siitä, kuinka voimme kohdata erilaisuutta vastuullisemmin ja eettisemmin, jotta voimme purkaa eri ihmisryhmien ja yksilöiden välistä eriarvoisuutta organisaatioissa ja tutkimuksen käytännöissä. Tutkimukseni hyödyntää dekonstruktiivista otetta ja pohjaa postkoloniaaliseen ja postkoloniaaliseen feministiseen teoriaan haastaessaan vallitsevia käsityksiä erilaisuudesta. Tutkimukseni koostuu neljästä osajulkaisusta, jotka sitoutuvat keskusteluihin moninaisuudesta ja kehollisesta etiikasta organisaatioissa sekä yrittäjyydestä kehitysyhteistyön johtamisen kontekstissa. Koska toiseuttaminen kiinnittää erilaisuuden tiettyjen kehojen ominaisuudeksi ylläpitäen dualistista ajattelua ja luoden esteitä osallisuuden ja kuulumisen tunteille organisaatioissa, osajulkaisuissa keskityn hahmottelemaan ajattelutapoja ja käytännön keinoja tämän torjumiseen. Teen tämän tarkastelemalla kohtaamisia vastuullisuuden ja eettisyyden tapahtumapaikkoina, joista erilaisuuden uudelleenartikulointi voi tapahtua. Tarkemmin sanottuna määrittelen erilaisuuden dynaamisena välitilallisena suhteena, jota jatkuvasti uudelleen luodaan ja neuvotellaan kehollisissa, affektiivisissa ja dialogisissa kohtaamisissa toisten kanssa. Kohtaamisten käsitteellistäminen tapahtumapaikaksi, joissa erilaisuus muodostuu purkaa toiseuttamisen essentialistisen logiikan ja avaa ymmärryksen erilaisuudesta, jota ei voi hyväksikäyttää. Tällä tavoin tutkimus edistää kriittistä organisaatiotutkimusta erilaisuudesta, moninaisuudesta ja eriarvoisuudesta. Erilaisuuden määrittely dynaamisena välitilallisena suhteena mahdollistaa myös kolmen muun tärkeän huomion tekemisen. Ensimmäinen on metodologinen, se käsittelee niitä mahdollisuuksia, joita tämän suhteen tarkastelu luovan dekonstruktiivisen ajattelun kautta luo. Toinen on poliittinen, jos erilaisuus nähdään dynaamisena suhteena, se ei vain vaikuta eriarvoisuuden ja toiseuttamisen prosessien purkamiseen, vaan myös kollektiivisen toiminnan ja transnationaalisten feminististen liittoutumien järjestäytymiseen. Kolmas on pedagoginen, kohtaamisten kautta ajattelu luo polun sitoutuneesta ja välittävästä tutkimuksesta sitoutuneeseen ja välittävään pedagogiikkaan

Writing multi‐vocal intersectionality in times of crisis

Abstract This article is a multi‐vocal account, a form of writing differently, which captures our changing lives and livelihoods under the present global health crisis. Through the process of writing, we create a safe space to understand how the COVID‐19 pandemic exposes our gendered, intersectional lives. Our writing gives voice to suppressed thoughts and embodied affects as they surface in relation to entrenched structural inequalities where we witness the marginalization of intersectional difference, in our case women, the feminine, and race in academia and neoliberal society. By rendering visible the structural inequalities that have become amplified during the pandemic, and the ways in which these inequalities have affected our everyday lives, we are able to give witness to intersectional differences. Our multi‐vocal embodied text is offered as an emancipatory, affective mobilization of our lives, encompassing feelings of grief, loss, fear, anger, frustration, and vulnerability. This collective piece of writing gives rise to solidarity in a crisis‐stricken world where we choose to live with hope