Advancing racio-ethnic and diversity theorising through 'intersectional identity work'

Atewologun, D. and Sealy, R. H. V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1279-9185 (2011) Advancing racio-ethnic and diversity theorising through 'intersectional identity work'. In: Academy of Management Annual Meeting Best Paper Conference Proceedings, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. doi: doi10.5464/AMBPP.2011.12.a

Abstract/Summary

Racio-ethnic literature is criticised for essentialising and insufficiently accounting for context. Intersectionality, whilst acknowledging multiple identities, remains theoretically under-developed and narrow in focus. Drawing on process perspectives on identity, we offer a framework of ‘intersectional identity work’, in which individuals make sense of multiple identity dimensions that often simultaneously confer both disadvantage and privilege. We propose a symbiotic relationship between identity and diversity theorising which entails investigating the sensemaking and sensebreaking of ‘oppositional identities’. Taking a post-structural feminist approach, we offer theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions of this framework for investigating racio-ethnicity in organisations.