Unequal Matters

This doctoral dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and four articles. The articles are grounded in a relational onto-epistemological stance and are developed with an embodied and material sensitivity as well as a feminist ethos. While the articles are positioned within different fields of management and organization studies, they all focus on how difference is 'done' in organizational practices and through material-discursive entanglements and how this relates to the materialization of (in)equalities and ethics. More specifically, the articles explore the organizational (im)possibilities of difference alongside the tensions that often emerge in attempts to organize for equality, diversity, and inclusion, for example, the ongoing perpetuation of otherness and commodification of sameness. Together, the articles bridge various streams of relational, philosophical thought with management and organization studies and respond to the recent scholarly interest in the materialization of (in)equalities as well as the noted need to further theorize the relational nature of inclusion/exclusion with an emphasis on difference

Girls gone bad: An essay on “Existence” in Chytilová's Daisies

https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12732Abstract This essay re-examines the subversive potential of Vera Chytilová's film Daisies and elaborates on its possibilities for exploring (feminine) existence as difference in relation to work, (re)production, and consumption. Drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray and critical fem(me)ninity studies, it theorizes fem(me)nine existence as multiple and ambiguous, and explores its possible materialization through a poetic ?re-representation? of the film. Through the ambiguous becoming of the film's protagonists, the Maries, the tension between the ?undoing? patriarchal of orders of exchange and their tenacity is discussed in relation to the emergence of non-patriarchal forms of organizing. The essay contributes to organizational research on difference by introducing a critical fem(me)nine lens and by directing attention towards the struggle between existing only for and through an Other ? and not existing at all. This allows for an examination of the disruptive potential of difference while further accounting for possible tensions with regards to its materialization. It is argued that fem(me) theorizations of film can be useful for exploring such matters differently as they open up ways to playfully and creative accentuate ambiguity and multiplicity rather than reducing ?it? to sameness.Peer reviewe

Constructing a Different Strength : A Feminist Exploration of Vulnerability, Ethical Agency and Care

This article explores how ethical agency, as other-oriented caring, emerged from feelings of being different in a cultural organization by drawing on feminist ethics of care. By analyzing interview material from an ethnographic study, we centralize the relationship between feelings of being different, vulnerability and the development of sensibilities, practices and imaginaries of care. We elaborate on how vulnerability serves as a ground for caring with rather than for others, and illustrate how it allowed individuals to challenge both organizational, normative diversity discourses and essentialization of differences. We contribute to the literature on critical diversity management by furthering problematizations of instrumental diversity management from the perspective of care, and to the organizational literature on feminist care ethics by empirically exploring how ethical agency emerges from tensions related to feeling different. While previous studies have shown how marginalized individuals use their sense of otherness to negotiate, conform to and resist organizational norms, practices and discourses, we provide further insights on how it also can drive concern and care for others, and thus serve as possible ground for ethical change initiatives within organizations.Funding Agencies|Flexit Project of the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond [RMP18-1034:1,2,3]</p

The power and burden of representing diversity in a performing arts organization : A recognition-based approach

Funding Information: This study is funded by the Flexit Project of the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: RMP18‐1034:3. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Gender, Work & Organization published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.This paper explores tensions related to using representation to signal diversity and inclusion on and behind the stage in a performing arts organization in Sweden. Drawing on a recognition-based approach to inclusion, we analyze how minority and majority organisational members negotiate tensions related to representing, and being made to represent, diversity. Our ethnographic study illustrates how increased representation gives rise to conflicting experiences when collective or individual heterogeneity is negated and directs attention to the interpersonal and organisational relations that condition these experiences. We contribute to the critical literature on diversity and inclusion, and to research on recognition-based inclusion, by elucidating the interplay between recognition and misrecognition that shapes how representation is negotiated. We critically examine the complexities of using representation to promote diversity and inclusion and discuss its implications for creating more equal conditions of participation in culture and arts.Peer reviewe

Writing resistance together

This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open‐ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some ‘dirtiness’ that is essential to writing, the paper has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.peerReviewe