A blind spot in organization studies: gender with ethnicity, nationality and religion

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to make a case for empirical research for British Pakistani managerial and professional women, a group who have remained invisible in organization studies; to give voice to their experiences, to highlight the issues and challenges they are facing as women who have careers, their perceptions of what they are and how they have reached where they are and where do they think they would be going while taking an all-inclusive view of the historical/social/culture/religious context. Design/methodology/approach -The paper undertakes a comprehensive re-examination of the intersectional approach. An approach of gender with ethnicity and with religion and nationality or diaspora is suggested, in order to capture identities and focuses on relationship between gender and other categories of difference, in particular gender. Findings -A review of race/ethnicity in organization studies in the UK reveals the homogenizing of ethnicities and a gap, as there is a lack of focused research on a large ethnic group in the United Kingdom. The paper then argues for intersectionality as being the most valid method as a means of analysis of a complex phenomenon, as it bridges partly the theoretical gap between critical theory and liberalism or deconstructionist tradition. Originality/value -Empirical research on this marginalized group of women will highlight the structures and systems that are created and maintained. These may be self-created and self-perpetuated, but unless and until voice has been given to their experiences they will remain unknown.

New Lands, New Languages: Navigating Intersectionality in School Leadership

“…As parents learned to negotiate aspects of their own and their children's diasporic identities (Arifeen and Gatrell, 2013), Saeeda's identity practice afforded bridge leadership (Horsford, 2012). Most would expect a positive response to a focus on raising academic attainment (Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010;Arnold and Brooks, 2013;Santamaría, 2014;DeMatthews, 2016); instead, male governors questioned her authority.…”

“…In their hostility, they reasserted the dominant discourse of education and leadership as white to undermine Saeeda's authority (Gillborn, 2005;Coleman and Campbell-Stephens, 2010). They refused to recognize the institutional racism that led to under-attainment among children who had traveled to new lands to be faced with learning new languages of reconfigured identities (Arifeen and Gatrell, 2013). Any "vision of coherence" (Lumby and Heystek, 2012, p. 17) was unmasked to reveal Saeeda's exclusion and an expectation to educate against the interests of children with EAL (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010).…”

Intersectionality, identity and identity work

“…Notwithstanding differences in the ontological construction of class and gender, Walby et al (2012, p. 236) call for the "reinsertion of class" in intersectional analyses of gender with other social-identities. Arifeen and Gatrell (2013) argue the case for an intersectional approach of gender with race/ethnicity, religion and nationality. Atewologun (2014, in this Special Issue) illustrates these intersections and comments on how religion featured strongly in Indian participants' experiences but was relatively absent for black and mixed ethnicity participants.…”

“…Like intersectionality researchers (such as Arifeen and Gatrell, 2013;Jones, 2009;Shields, 2008;Styhre and Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2008) and identity/identity work studies researchers (such as Bryans and Mavin, 2003;Grandy, 2008;Harding, 2008;Watson, 2008, Watson andHarris, 1999), we understand identity as a dynamic, emergent and ongoing process of becoming. This process perspective recognizes both the dynamism "in and between and within identity categories" (Shields, 2008, p. 308) and of self-and social-identities as they change over time (Shields, 2008).…”

“…From an intersectionality perspective, ... we should treat ... each [individual's] (fluid) social locations ... as continually interacting ... to produce multiple, dynamic senses of self over time (Diamond and Butterworth, 2008, p. 375) A process perspective on identities and intersectionality, then, enables researchers to explore how identity alters (Arifeen and Gatrell, 2013;Warner, 2008) within particular social contexts. Ruth Simpson's paper (2014 in this Special Issue) illustrates effectively how different social contexts, and more specifically space, offer dynamic resources for identity work.…”