Why work it when you can dodge it? Identity responses to ethnic stigma among professionals

Abstract

Culturally different professionals often encounter stigma as they negotiate work lives. Professionals commonly seek to repair stigmatized identities by constructing more positive and relatively coherent self-views. This study draws on interview, observation and diary data from Romanian professionals in the UK, in order to understand how they construct their identities when faced with ethno-cultural stigma. We find that these professionals engage in counterintuitive identity responses which consist of simultaneously denying and acknowledging personal stigmatization (doublethink), and evading engagement with the stigmatized identity (dodging). Unlike the restorative identity work highlighted by previous studies, these atypical responses require less effort, provide less coherence and do not attempt to restore the blemished ethno-cultural identity. Our analyses further indicate that being professional and being White confer on individuals privileges that sustain doublethink and dodging. We contribute to scholarship by underscoring the need to consider both stigmatized and privileged identities when investigating reactions to stigma. We also reflect on the practical implications for organizations of what it means for stigmatized individuals to deny stigmatization or to dodge engagement with stigma.

Negotiating a Sense of Fit in Elite Higher Education: Exploring the Identity Work of “Widening Participation” Students

“…These findings demonstrate the use of intersecting social identities in identity work (Atewologun et al, 2016) to problematize and shift patterns of disadvantage associated with the WP category. While these respondents did play down certain aspects of their WP status to some extent (Doldor & Atewologun, 2020;Gray et al, 2018), what is different in our study is that they did so in a positive rather than a negative manner, choosing not to hide their WP status, but to lessen the importance attached to it. The respondents' tendency to dynamically background and foreground their WP background as the situation demands highlights how social minorities cope in 'diversifying' exclusive organisations.…”

“…Alternatively, individuals can recalibrate the standards they use to evaluate themselves (Ashforth et al, 2007) and/or focus attention on the positive aspects of their new experiences as a way of enhancing themselves (Dutton et al, 2010;Maitlis, 2009) and coping with perceived identity gaps. Individuals can also dodge issues of identity when their identities are concealable (Doldor & Atewologun, 2020;Gray et al, 2018) or circumvent questions relating to identity altogether through disengagement (Alvesson & Robertson, 2015). More radically, they can choose to exit organisational or occupational settings (Lips-Wiersma, 2002) or question and challenge the prescriptions that lead to gaps between expected and experienced identities.…”

Countering transphobic stigma: Identity work by self‐employed Keralan transpeople

“…Yet, to be abjectified is not merely to be an abjectly constituted subject but rather to have live options for agential self-constitution (Tyler, 2013). Management scholars who show that the stigmatized have empowering identity work response options reinforce this point (Doldor & Atewologun, 2020;Toyoki & Brown, 2014). Abjection denotes a "liminal space where the subject experiences a crisis of meaning in which transformation is possible" (Phillips, 2014, p. 20).…”

Towards liminality competence: a migrant's talent identity narratives for re-imagining global talent management

“…For Robert, adept at several languages, unjust negative comments about his language proficiency seemed like ethnic discrimination. Such subtle discrimination is shaped by an individual's societal context (Van Laer and Janssens, 2011) and a feeling of being singled out and having a sense of ethno-cultural stigma (Doldor and Atewologun, 2020). The threat of inequality has been highlighted by the recent pandemic, and it is anticipated that more inequality issues will emerge in the future at individual and societal levels (Bapuji et al, 2020).…”

“…Betwixt-and-between home and host country values and norms (Grabowska, 2018), migrants are often seen as outsiders in the host country workplace and, like Robert, can experience both blatant and subtle forms of discrimination from different social groups which can affect their emotions and wellbeing (Van Laer and Janssens, 2011). But coping with such challenges helps them refocus and reposition their social (Doldor and Atewologun, 2020) and talent identities and begin to develop liminality competence, defined here as 'a reconstruction of identity (in which the sense of self is significantly disrupted) in such a way that the new identity is meaningful for the individual and their community' (Beech, 2011;pp. 296-297).…”