Gender, business and human rights: Academic activism as critical engagement in neoliberal times

Abstract

This paper contributes to the debate about academic activism in organization studies through an exploration of my engagement with recent international policy-making relating to gender, business, and human rights. It brings social movement theory to the debate to elucidate how our work as academic activists can be conceived of in terms of social movement strategies with respect to political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and strategic framing processes. The aim is to further elucidate what we do as academic activists, and how such actions might advance feminist social movement agendas through a process that is both critical AND engaged in neoliberal contexts. I conclude with a discussion of the implications for Gender, Work & Organization (GWO) scholars and the GWO journal.

Breaking isolation: Consciousness-raising as a methodology for academic activism

“…Kate reflects on her engagement with international policy makers, introducing different ways of understanding and framing gender equality. These engagements seemed to offer partners/participants the opportunity to reflect on and discuss their ambitions to facilitate broader progress, to see more clearly beyond the confines of neo-liberal individualistic solutions towards possibilities for wider change (Grosser, 2021). These hopeful encounters facilitated more ongoing contact and collaboration in policy making in ways that supported several feminist social movement agendas.…”

“…Recent suggestions as to how we might do so include: through improving business practice to address grand challenges such as climate change (Wickert and Schaefer, 2015); advising and working with government and intergovernmental bodies (e.g. Grosser, 2021) and collaborating with NGOs in research and practice (Grosser, 2016; Grosser and McCarthy, 2019). Long-standing debates have also focussed on collaborating with research participants to resist organisational injustices such as sexism (Coleman and Rippin, 2000).…”

An attempt to become an-Other critical scholar: Bridging as ‘activist performativity’

“…Nevertheless, against the background of continuous attacks on academic freedom and critical theory in higher education institutions today, ‘activist performativity’ should be taken not only as an individual attempt to be relevant to communities out there but also as an epistemological and political proposal to build other ‘bridges’ between collective struggles and alliances within and beyond the university to construct a critical mass. Hence, given its social change agenda, activist performativity cannot be separated from the broader collective critical work and resistance at the neoliberal academy and should be considered part and parcel of other academic activist engagements (Contu, 2018; Dar et al, 2021; Grosser, 2021; Rhodes et al, 2018). Activist performativity, in that sense, means working towards becoming the change we want to make with the emergence of new (academic) subjectivities and promotion of alternative research practices that challenge and push the orthodoxy at the business schools and society, of course, within the opportunities and limitations we have.…”

“…In this essay, by drawing on my fieldwork experience at a community organisation problematising food surplus and food waste in Aotearoa New Zealand, I call for more activist research in the neoliberal academy through activist performativity. I build my argument on the scholarly conversations about postcapitalism (Gibson-Graham, 1996, 2006), alternative organising (Just, De Cock, and Schaefer, 2021; Parker and Parker, 2017; Zanoni et al, 2017), critical performativity (Fleming and Banerjee, 2016; Reedy and King, 2019) and activist turn in critical management studies (Alakavuklar, 2020; Contu, 2018, 2020; Grosser, 2021; Prichard and Alakavuklar, 2019; Prichard and Benschop, 2018; Weatherall, 2021). As a case of activist performativity, I present the practice of ‘bridging’ to inspire and invite my colleagues to engage more with alternative/non-capitalist practice(s).…”

Radicalizing Managers’ Climate Education: Getting Beyond the Bull**** Fairy Tale of Eternal Economic Growth

“…My proposal for radical practices builds on recent work outlining forms of management academics’ intellectual activism (Callahan & Elliott, 2020; Contu, 2020). These practices are aimed at radically countering neoliberal capitalist practices (Grosser, 2021; Rhodes et al, 2018) including those related to the neoliberal growth paradigm. With radicalization, particularly in the managerial climate change education context, I aim to change RMLE practices that support an established climate-damaging management paradigm to climate-restorative alternative practices.…”