Hidden contexts and invisible power relations: A Foucauldian reading of diversity management. (original) (raw)
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Hidden contexts and invisible power relations: A Foucauldian reading of diversity research
Human Relations, 2014
This article joins recent critical diversity studies that point to an urgent need to revitalize the field, but goes further by showing the inherent contextual issues and power relations that frame existing contributions. Based on a theoretical reading inspired by Michel Foucault, diversity is presented as discourse that is not independent of the particular research exercise of which it is part but, rather, remains contingent on the prevailing forms of knowledge and choices made by researchers. By attending to more refined understandings of power and context within diversity discourse, this article makes visible and calls into question the categorization and normalization of diversity and its management. It contributes to existing research by suggesting that the knowledge produced by mainstream and critical diversity scholars alike is biopolitical and governmental. To do diversity research differently or 'otherwise' requires finding ways to develop theorizations and practices that turn this modality of power against itself.
Subjects of diversity : relations of power/knowledge in the constructions of diversity practitioners
2016
The concept of ‘diversity’ has become a common feature in UK organisations over the last twenty or so years. It offers arguments about what the world is like, who people are, how they relate to one another, and how the world should be. It has been used to bring about a host of different actors, objects and practices. Yet, we know relatively little about one of the central elements of this field – diversity practitioners. They play an important role in defining what diversity means in local contexts, they are the experts of the field. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of power/knowledge and the ‘subject’, along with the notion of bricolage, the research examines the different forms of knowledge that diversity practitioners use to construct themselves as expert subjects, and in turn how they seek to construct a particular subject of others, the ‘diversity trainee’, as the subject who is the outcome of diversity training. The findings show how the subjects of the diversity practitioner an...
SpringerBriefs in Psychology, 2014
Chapter 4 Diversity management involves a strong ethical component. Not infrequently, diversity policies are evaluated in conformity to the tangible benefits they incur, both to the organization and to various stakeholders. Such criteria, if adopted and properly operationalized may come to imply that, once DM is no longer perceived as beneficial to an organization, it may cease to exist as an autonomous and dis-tinct management practice. In this respect, established organizational processes tend to invariably repli-cate social differences codes, thus exacerbating, or perpetuating inequality within organizations. Far from developing pro-diversity beliefs that unconditionally af-firm and value otherness, this conception diminishes the importance of differenc-es; the latter appear as objectified or neutralized, by further reproducing and per-petuating structural inequalities. This process stems from and is effected through various societal discourses that appear to reflect dominant value-systems, as well as prevailing power relations. Accordingly, minority employees tend to either con-form to established organizational norms by experiencing assimilation, or retain their valuable uniqueness, at the expense of their effective integration in a work group.
Editorial Discourses of diversity (Introduction to special issue "Discourses of diversity")
What do discourses of diversity achieve and what do they stand for? 1 This has become a central question in critical scholarship examining the recent drive for diversity in areas such as education , corporate organizations, and marketing as well as in national and supranational governmental institutions (e.g. as in In addition to acknowledging the perseverance of normalizing and stigmatizing discourses of difference, scholars have been particularly intrigued by how calls for diversity are articulated within the state management of racial progress and social inclusion (e.g. Berrey, 2015; Blommaert and Verschueren, 1998; Flores, forthcoming). Studies have also raised questions on ways in which diversity discourses become entrenched with processes of economic development and dispossession (see e.g. Heller and McElhinny, forthcoming; Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes, 2013). This special issue on " Discourses of Diversity " 2 is anchored within and inspired by feminist, antiracist, and neo-Marxist scholarship on the (symbolic) politics of diversity. It should be read as a collection of empirical analyses problematizing how and why discourses of diversity are articulated within the management of social (dis)order, economic development, and the governance of (in)equality. While research on language and diversity has recently turned its focus to studying the effects of globalization on language and communication (articles in this issue are interested in the multiple and sometimes contradictory ways diversity gets roped into the state and economic apparatus. The particular questions include: What do corporate, political actors and institutions accomplish when advocating for diversity? And: What projects does diversity serve and what social effects do such projects have? The authors of the studies also explore how, why, and with which consequences discourses of diversity are sometimes endorsed, sometimes contested, and sometimes even resisted within the spaces and settings documented as well as by other audiences and publics addressed or affected by these discourses. In sum, the articles represent a critical questioning of both the larger sociohistorical conditions and the ideological formations (Bauman and Briggs, 2003; Gal and Woolard, 2001; Williams, 1977) in which diversity and its multiple meanings are anchored. The authors furthermore discuss the ways in which changing, contested, or conflicting meanings of diversity are articulated within processes of societal transformation and resistance as well as within larger dynamics of inequality and subalternity.
Diversity and Defining the Other: The Power of Naming and Claiming Control
2007
The curious absence of indigenous peoples in the diversity management literature rings as a strange silence in our professional work as Diversity Specialists. We set out to explore this absence and came to new insights not only into diversity scholarship and practice but also into the capitalist system.
In this paper we aim to explore the ways in which domination and resistance are (re)produced in the field of diversity management. Our understanding of field is informed by Bourdieu’s conception. It refers to the semi-autonomous, relational and multi-dimensional social spaces which are configurations of relations between positions occupied by individuals or institutions (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Thus, we define the field of diversity management as a social space occupied by different stakeholders including diversity professionals, employers, employees, trade unions, membership organisations, state, and statutory equality bodies. The relationships between these actors and their relative authority and influence are not neutral but are structured by competition for power and resources. Consequently, it is this very relational network of positions what shapes the diversity management agenda, thereby the tendencies in the field, which support status-quo or tackle inequality and discrimination. In this paper, we will discuss the role played by different actors in the field of diversity management in terms of reproducing domination and resistance by using a set of Bourdieuan concepts including field, orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Our discussion is based on an analysis of over one hundred semi-structured interviews that we have conducted with key stakeholders in the diversity management field in the UK. Particularly, we will scrutinise the assumptions of key stakeholders across four dimensions: individualism, solidarity, regulation and voluntarism. Then, we will explore how the positioning of actors across these dimensions may lead to acts of domination or resistance in the field of diversity management.
Interrogating the Histories and Futures of “Diversity”
Public Culture
On October 16 and 17, 2017, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, we brought together scholars from around the world to collectively investigate the concept, history, and administration of the global discourse and practice of "diversity." In particular, we were interested in how the US Supreme Court decisions in Regents of University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger had ultimately led public universities in the United States to shift away from the original intent of affirmative action, which worked to redress historical inequality, and toward the concept of "diversity." 1 We were struck by the ways that university-led diversity initiatives have shaped our everyday lives and by the extent to which we have been called to manage them. It is not, we argued, that diversity is new-it was already there, as a form of "integration," at least since the 1970s (see Dresch 1995)-but that affirmative action and other legal forms of broader social redress are in many places either no longer in effect or in rapid decline. We were interested in scrutinizing how, as a consequence of this shift, inclusion has come to be theorized through diversity as an approach that systematically denies access to minoritized populations (including indigenous people, in nation-states and in the world more generally), regardless of actual demographic status. While the number of minoritized populations in the United States is moving toward the status of becoming a demographic majority, the logic of diversity assumes that they will remain in the minority at key sites
Demystifying diversity management: a postcolonial approach
organizzazione.unina.it
debates in the media about immigration, integration and racism seemed to happen everywhere in the German public sphere. The German private sector, however, appeared to remain widely unaffected by these discussions and the resulting tensions. While newspapers were filled with articles about freedom of opinion and discussions about whether or not Sarrazin's statements were racist, management journals kept on praising diversity management as the right strategy to deal with immigrants, foreigners or re-settlers in Germany. According to Astrid Kersten and Mohammed Sidky it is of no surprise that the private sector remained silent. They consider such reactions or non-reactions as a private sector's strategy to designate itself as a "private corporate sphere" immune from public discourse and historical power relations.