Oddity as Commodity? The body as symbolic resource for Other-defying identity work

Abstract

While studies on the work people undertake on their ‘identities’ in professional contexts tend to focus on inner conversations between different possible selves, this paper considers the impact of ‘inherited’ prescriptions and expectations on such inner conversations and the entwining of identity work with historic conditions written onto the body. It does so by studying performing artists with dwarfism. Taking into account their long history of stereotypical roles within the entertainment sector and their visibly ‘different’ body which guarantees to solicit the gaze of others, this study considers identity in terms of the corporeal positioning of the self of artists whose position on stage is often morally disputed, both inside and outside the community of people with dwarfism. Analysing how people use their Othered bodies as a symbolic resource for identity work, we describe three different ways of engaging in embodied identity work: identity ‘ethicalisation’, through stereotype- avoiding bodywork, ‘queering’, through stereotype- provoking bodywork, and ‘distancing’, through stereotype- acting bodywork. Each strategy is an attempt to redress the incoherence between preferred (personally aspired) and ascribed (historically inherited) identity. By analysing how people preserve an aspirational self and defy the image of being Other, this study contributes to existing debates by highlighting the role of history and the symbolic use of ‘oddity’ as an instrument in embodied identity work. In addition, it offers a reflective note on the problem of ‘academic exoticism’ through the sensitisation of Other bodies and on the potential of able-bodied allyship to attenuate the lack of disability knowledge in management and organisation studies.

Treating disability as an asset (not a limitation): A critical examination of disability inclusion through social entrepreneurship

“…Cases such as Amita's outburst triggered moments of astonishment (Van Maanen, 2011) that compelled us to reflect more deeply about the complex and varying ways in which social enterprises perform disability. Reflecting on the performative production of disability sparked our reading of research on CDS to help make sense of our emergent findings (Deshen, 1992;Jammaers and Ybema, 2022;Maravelias, 2022a;Stienstra and Nyerere, 2016;Tremain, 2006). Given the ethnographic orientation of our research, we are aware of our own interpretive authority in the process of knowledge formation (Holmes, 2020).…”

“…Central to our interest are CDS studies that focus on how practices of valuation and inclusion position and reproduce disabled people as other (Mitchell and Snyder, 2015;Shildrick, 2012;Titchkosky, 2003). Processes of othering involve acts of defining, portraying and treating individuals and groups with disabilities as inferior to and as not fitting in with mainstream (able-bodied) society (Jammaers and Ybema, 2022).…”

“…As we turn toward our case, we focus on how blindness is being (re) shaped by social entrepreneurial agendas. A focus on the various ways in which blindness is "done" allows us to reveal essentializing tendencies that emanate from the "disability as asset" approach and hence to problematize the rising trend of framing disability as productive and useful in economic terms (Jammaers and Williams, 2021;Jammaers and Ybema, 2022).…”

“…We contend that these four doings of disability converge in the intention to satisfy market demand by leveraging the natural talents of blind therapists (Kaul et al, 2022). However, viewing blindness as a capacity that has market value leads to the essentialization and commodification of disability (Jammaers and Ybema, 2022) while giving rise to new distinctions between high and low performers among blind persons. Our results suggest that the social entrepreneurial quest to "do good while doing well" leads to a paradoxical situation in which disability inclusion is achieved at a formal (access to salaried work) and symbolic level (affirmative representations of disability), but new ways to restore disability as "other" emerge.…”

Organizational Body Work: Efforts to Shape Human Bodies in Organizations

“…Older bodies and disabled bodies are frequently targets of organizational body work: care workers developed "bodily techniques" to help seniors out of bed and shower (even when they resisted) (Yakhlef & Essén, 2013); and wheelchair users were penalized for their absences when they lost working time looking for accessible toilets in the workplace (Jammaers & Zanoni, 2021). An important stream of organizational body work in relation to differently abled bodies involved constructing the meaning of those bodies, often in devalued ways: performers with dwarfism were mocked, stereotyped, and fetishized when asked to wear gnome costumes and dance on top of the bar for a club gig (Jammaers & Ybema, 2022). Differently abled bodies targeted by organizational body work also included highly abled bodies such as Israeli combat soldiers who performed their masculine identities by either "shaving and shining" (controlling body hygiene and hair growth) or opting for "mess and filth" (Kachtan & Wasserman, 2015), and ballet dancers who endured extreme injuries and physical pain from over-rehearsing (Wulff, 2008).…”