Little consensus exists regarding conducting intersectional studies. We introduce 'intersectional identity work' as an approach for examining individuals' experiences at the nexus of multiple identities. Incorporating identity work as a theoretical and analytical framework, we use journals and interviews to examine identity-heightening episodes that trigger meaning-making of intersecting senior, gender and ethnic identities among British Asian and black women and men. Our analysis reveals how intersecting identities are leveraged in encounters with subordinates, superiors and clients. Intersectional locations provide resources and cues for claiming or restricting privileged and disadvantaged status in asymmetric power positions. Intersectional identity work expands and restricts identification at juxtaposed locations. It offers a prospect for elucidating intersectional dynamics present in a range of identity configurations and addresses critiques that individual-level intersectional analyses at intersections are mere narrative. We encourage further research that examines other socially salient identities using our approach to develop theory on how multiple identities play out in everyday experience.Keywords: intersectionality, identity work, methodology, ethnicity, gender Introduction C onducting intersectional studies is a primary focus of debate in feminist scholarship across legal, political, sociological and psychological disciplines. Yet there is minimal consensus regarding exactly how one conducts such research. Explicit methodological guidelines are elusive (Nash, 2008), conducting it challenging (Browne and Misra, 2003), complicated and 'fraught with dangers ' (Healy et al., 2010, p. 4). We contribute to the conversation regarding developing a new approach befitting this influential framework conceptualizing the complexity of simultaneous identity and subject positions. We propose incorporating identity work as a theoretical lens and analytical framework into intersectionality research, due to its focus on explicating everyday experiences of self-identification. Adopting an individual constructivist perspective, we utilize identity work -the effort engaged in personal meaning-making -as an orienting device for analysing/making sense of intersecting identities. We conduct intersectional analyses of identity-heightening experiences of senior black and Asian male and female professionals in Britain. Using an identity work lens, we contribute to the debate on elucidating intersectional dynamics by revealing how intersecting identities are engaged as cues and resources, expanding and restricting power positions in asymmetrical interactions with clients, subordinates and superiors.We provide an overview of approaches to conducting intersectional research, including critiques regarding descriptive approaches of individual-level treatments of intersectionality. We
In management studies, assumptions surround the fixed, categorical and binary nature of male, ethnic and other privileges. Compared to white, middle-class men, 'Others' are typically assumed not to experience privilege. We counter this assumption by applying intersectionality to examine privilege's juxtaposition with disadvantage. We offer an elaborated conceptualisation of organisational privilege and insight into the agency employed by individuals traditionally perceived as non-privileged. Approach: Using diaries and interviews, we analyse twenty micro-episodes from four senior minority ethnic women and men's accounts of intersecting ethnic, gender and senior identities. We identify how privilege plays out at the juxtaposition of (male gender and hierarchical) advantage with (female gender and ethnic) disadvantage. Findings: The fluidity of privilege is revealed through contextual, contested and conferred dimensions. Additionally, privilege is experienced in everyday micro-level encounters and we illustrate how 'sometimes privileged' individuals manage their identities at intersections. Research Limitations: This in-depth analysis draws on a small sample of unique British minority ethnic individuals to illustrate dimensions of privilege. Practical and social implications: It is often challenging to discuss privilege. However, our focus on atypical wielders of power challenges binary assumptions of privilege. This can provide a common platform for dominant and non-dominant group members to share how societal and organisational privileges differentially impact groups. This inclusive approach could reduce dominant group members' psychological and emotional resistance to social justice. Originality: Through bridging privilege and intersectionality perspectives, we offer a complex and nuanced perspective that contrasts against prevalent conceptions of privilege as invisible and uncontested.
Intersectionality is a critical framework that provides us with the mindset and language for examining interconnections and interdependencies between social categories and systems. Intersectionality is relevant for researchers and for practitioners because it enhances analytical sophistication and offers theoretical explanations of the ways in which heterogeneous members of specific groups (such as women) might experience the workplace differently depending on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or class and other social locations. Sensitivity to such differences enhances insight into issues of social justice and inequality in organizations and other institutions, thus maximizing the chance of social change. The concept of intersectional locations emerged from the racialized experiences of minority ethnic women in the United States. Intersectional thinking has gained increased prominence in business and management studies, particularly in critical organization studies. A predominant focus in this field is on individual subjectivities at intersectional locations (such as examining the occupational identities of minority ethnic women). This emphasis on individuals’ experiences and within-group differences has been described variously as “content specialization” or an “intracategorical approach.” An alternate focus in business and management studies is on highlighting systematic dynamics of power. This encompasses a focus on “systemic intersectionality” and an “intercategorical approach.” Here, scholars examine multiple between-group differences, charting shifting configurations of inequality along various dimensions. As a critical theory, intersectionality conceptualizes knowledge as situated, contextual, relational, and reflective of political and economic power. Intersectionality tends to be associated with qualitative research methods due to the central role of giving voice, elicited through focus groups, narrative interviews, action research, and observations. Intersectionality is also utilized as a methodological tool for conducting qualitative research, such as by researchers adopting an intersectional reflexivity mindset. Intersectionality is also increasingly associated with quantitative and statistical methods, which contribute to intersectionality by helping us understand and interpret the individual, combined (additive or multiplicative) effects of various categories (privileged and disadvantaged) in a given context. Future considerations for intersectionality theory and practice include managing its broad applicability while attending to its sociopolitical and emancipatory aims, and theoretically advancing understanding of the simultaneous forces of privilege and penalty in the workplace.
This paper presents a systematic literature review of individual-level targets (or foci)of identification, that is, the bases by which one derives a sense of self as a unique being in the context of work. We reviewed 253 articles from over 30 top management journals between 2005 and 2016. In examining foci types, definitions, underpinning theoretical and philosophical assumptions, we catalogue nine categories of individual-level identification foci (manager, leader, follower, team, organization, occupation-specific, professional, career and work), finding a dominance of functionalist meta-theoretical orientations (comprising over half the sample, with interpretivist approaches comprising about a third of studies). Further, we enhance construct clarity in the field; we identify conceptual challenges with extant definitions of key foci, and offer integrative definitions by specifying scope conditions for each identity focus and semantic relationships between various identity foci. We contextualize our discussion of construct clarity to different research orientations in the field and offer possibilities for theoretical developments therein. Third, we offer an integrative framework for positioning work in the field by scope of interest (identity content or context) and identity construction assumptions (stable or evolving), suggesting directions for future research.
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