Thinking the multiple in gender and diversity studies: examining the concept of intersectionality
- 7 November 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Emerald in Gender in Management: An International Journal
- Vol. 23 (8), 567-582
- https://doi.org/10.1108/17542410810912690
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of intersectionality. In recent management writing, a vocabulary has been introduced which enacts concepts such as assemblages, multiplicity, rhizomes, and becoming. Such a vocabulary is helpful when revising the theoretical models used in gender research. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on this fluid mode of thinking, which is fundamentally indebted to a process thinking that favours becoming and change over stability and fixed entities as the primary analytical categories, the concept of intersectionality is discussed. Findings – It is suggested that intersectionality perspectives, a concept developed to enable the analysis of co-existing and co-operating registers of knowledge and power, may inform gender and diversity studies and organization theory in general. Rather than reducing all sorts of identities or subject-positions to a single plane, intersectionality perspectives conceive of identity as being derived from different registers functioning as shifting planes, at times operating detachedly from one another; in other cases directly overlapping and even clashing. Practical implications – Intersectionality thinking is capable of influencing a variety of organizational and managerial practices. Originality/value – The paper seeks to bridge process thinking, gender theory, and diversity management literature through introducing the concept of intersectionality as a helpful tool when thinking of organizational practice.Keywords
This publication has 42 references indexed in Scilit:
- Judith Butler: On Organizing SubjectivitiesSociological Review, 2005
- Class and Other Identifications in Managerial Careers: The Case of the Lemon DressGender, Work & Organization, 2004
- Barriers to Managing Diversity in a UK Constabulary: The Role of DiscourseJournal of Management Studies, 2002
- Michel SerresTheory, Culture & Society, 2002
- Michel Serres: Science, Translation and the Logic of the ParasiteTheory, Culture & Society, 2002
- Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the CityContemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 1998
- Aramis, or, The Love of Technology.Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 1997
- Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of IdentityFeminist Review, 1991
- In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics.MLN, 1988
- Women on the LineBritish Journal of Sociology, 1983