Queering Queer Theory in Management and Organization Studies: Notes toward queering heterosexuality

Abstract

This article suggests new possibilities for queer theory in management and organization studies (MOS). MOS has tended to use queer theory as a conceptual resource for studying the workplace experience of 'minorities' such as gay men, lesbians and those identifying as bisexual or transgender (LGBT), often focusing on how heteronormativity shapes the discursive constitution of sexualities and genders coded asLGBT. But this deployment is crucial and apposite but it can limit the analytical reach of queer theory, ignoring other objects of analysis such as heterosexuality. Potentially, MOS queer theory scholarship could be vulnerable to criticism about ignoring queer theory as a productive site for acknowledging heterosexuality's coercive aspects but also its non-normative forms. As such, the principal contribution of this article is twofold. First, it proposes a queering of queer theory in MOS, whereby scholars are alert to and question the potential normativities that MOS queer theory research can produce, opening up a space for exploring how heterosexuality can be queered. Second, we show how queering heterosexuality can be another site where queer theory and politics can come together in the MOS field through a shared attempt to rupture sexual and gender binaries, and challenge normative social relations. This article concludes by outlining the political implications of queering heterosexuality for generating modes of organizing in which heterosexuality can be experienced as non-normative and how it might rupture and dismantle heteronormativity.

Dangerous Knowledge: The Political, Personal, and Epistemological Promise of Feminist Research in Management and Organization Studies

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A Queer Perspective on Heteronormativity for LGBT Travelers

“…Beemyn and Eliason (1996) state that it aims to bring previously silenced sexualities to light, particularly if they do not fit dominant standards of gender and/or sexuality. As such, queer theory seeks to interrogate and transform social norms and power relations and what is considered "normal," "common sense," "healthy," and "natural" (Jagose 1996;Rumens, De Souza, and Brewis 2019;Wiegman and Wilson 2015).…”

Leading to Achieve Social Change: An Interview with Ruth Hunt, Former Chief Executive Officer of Stonewall

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