Hyphenated voices: The organization of racialized subjects in contemporary Danish public debate

Abstract

Applying a conceptual framework of hyphenation, understood as the organization of racialized subjects, this paper investigates rhetorical strategies for working existing hyphens as practiced within an Action Aid Denmark initiative to train young people to become public opinion leaders in anti-discrimination matters. We identify three such rhetorical strategies: (1) Silencing: Racialized subjects are organized by majority voices that speak of/for ‘the Other’; the training explicitly seeks to change the organization of public debate by working this hyphen. (2) Positioning: The main strategy for working the hyphen, as taught in the course, is to speak from a minority position, but in a manner that is recognizable to the majority. Thus, non-white participants are trained to speak with white voice; they become exceptions to the rule, tokens or role models when telling their stories in a scripted manner. And (3) Representing: In telling their own stories, the aspiring opinion leaders come to speak for racialized subjects as a group. Thus, the course (unwittingly) reproduces the current racialized organization of public space in the form of ‘benign discrimination’. On the basis of this analysis, the article advances postcolonial organization studies by demonstrating that hyphenation cannot be overcome, but must be engaged in a continuous process of re-working the hyphen. Thus, the task of researchers and practitioners alike is to show the constraints of current hyphenations and find strategies for organizing subjects in more equal and open relations.

From Silence to Noise – The Politics of the Other in Organization Theory

“…Alcadipani et al, 2015; Belova et al, 2008; Clegg et al, 2006; De Cock & Jeanes, 2006; Larsen, 2017; Mik-Meyer, 2016; Srinivas, 2013; Williams & Mavin, 2012). Focusing on a variety of issues, such as gender, sexuality, age/ism, dis/ability or ethnicity, the literature approaches organizations as realms of inequality in which the One has voice, whereas the Other is silenced or silent (Alcadipani et al, 2012; Alvinius & Holmberg, 2019; Christensen et al, 2022; Dar, 2019; Riach, 2007; Ward & Winstanley, 2003). Importantly, the working assumption of the literature is that the Other, although silenced/silent, is, in principle, perceived as intelligible to the One.…”

“…Building on a Foucauldian inspired lens of power (e.g. Christensen et al, 2022; Pullen & Simpson, 2009; Ward & Winstansley, 2003), this literature maintains that otherness is constituted through the very power relations embedded in discourse (Foucault, 1977, 1978).…”

“…While the Other can, in principle, participate in discursive power struggles, research suggests that s/he is silenced by the One: ‘subjects are organized by majority voices that speak of/for “the Other”’ (Christensen et al, 2022, p. 997; see also Dar, 2019). Discursive interactions limit what can be articulated or not (Brown & Coupland, 2005; du Plessis, 2020; Hardy & Phillips, 1997; Ward & Winstanley, 2003), 1 thereby silencing certain voices.…”

Racialized experiences as in-betweenness in academia

“…Not surprisingly, this has led some critical scholars to pursue studies on race as a systemic, intersectional phenomenon (Abdellatif, 2021; Bourabain, 2021; Kempf, 2020; Miller, 2021; Ramos and Yi, 2020; Yousfi, 2021) as well as to call for more research that represents voices from the margins; including from geographical locations of the Global South (Alcadipani et al, 2012; Jammulamadaka et al, 2021; Scobie et al, 2021; Ulus, 2015) and from conceptual spaces informed by Black feminism (Contu, 2018; Dorion, 2020). Accounting for racially disenfranchised voices would move toward understanding the discursive and the subtle ways in which racialized bodies become hyphenated, weakened, disabled, and silenced in contemporary organizational settings (Abdellatif, 2021; Christensen et al, 2020; Smith and Nkomo, 2003).…”

The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities: Exploring the Imperceptibility and Unspeakability of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination in Academia

“…This insight speaks to Ahmed's (2006aAhmed's ( , 2006c phenomenological scholarship on (queer) orientations, contributing to organizational research that has investigated the role of orientations 250 in organizational settings (J. F. Christensen, Just, et al, 2020;Guschke, Christensen, et al, 2022;Vitry, 2021). It highlights how the orientation of organizations influences which bodies are recognized as belonging within the organization and relatedly whose claims are acknowledged and accepted as legitimate claims towards the organization.…”