Re-situating organizational knowledge: Violence, intersectionality and the privilege of partial perspective

Abstract

Scholars have called repeatedly for more nuanced understandings of power and organizational knowledge, but researchers have yet to integrate available critical frameworks that could link these concepts. Moreover, existing analyses of power in organizational knowledge tend to focus on role differences but do not yet consider how social differences – including gender, race and sexuality – shape knowledge. Working from a practice-based approach, I draw upon standpoint theory and intersectionality to show how whiteness, masculinity and heteronormativity are embedded in organizational knowledge. I construct this argument using a case study at a US university known for having some of the best systems for building organizational knowledge about sexual violence on campus. I argue that the university’s practices – specifically those related to interpretation and definition – mask heterogeneity in knowledge across the university. I also show how practices give the university’s knowledge the appearance of neutrality and, subsequently, can unintentionally defer important organizational actions.

Understanding psychology's resistance to intersectionality theory using a framework of epistemic exclusion and invisibility

“…Further, as the personal is political, scholars from marginalized groups may see intersectionality as better accounting for their experiences than other theories and thus more easily see its value than do scholars from privileged groups. For whatever the reasons, scholars from marginalized groups most readily use intersectionality, and notably, scholars tend to use intersectionality to understand phenomena relevant to marginalized communities, such as intergroup relations (Ellison & Langhout, 2020; Nair & Vollhardt, 2020), sexual violence (Harris, 2017; McCauley et al., 2019), minority stress and resilience (Duran, 2019; Williams, Job, Todd, & Braun, 2020), and physical and mental health concerns among individuals from marginalized groups (Torres, Mata‐Greve, Bird, & Herrera Hernandez, 2018; Weber & Parra‐Medina, 2003; Young, 2020). Thus, the epistemic exclusion of intersectionality limits scholarship on marginalized groups, and correspondingly, the social issues relevant to such communities.…”

Constituting Intersectional Politics of Reinscription: Women Entrepreneurs’ Resistance Practices in China, Denmark, and the United States

“…Finally, we captured how participants turn their intersectional locations as situated knowledge and opportunities to advocate for change (Harris, 2017). Resistance at the intersection can transcend the covert, isolated, individual struggles into explicit, collective entrepreneurial organizing (e.g., Andrea created her business to coach women entrepreneurs in marginalized positions).…”

No family left behind: Flexibility i-deals for employees with stigmatized family identities

“…The extent of identity disclosure depends on the degree of privilege associated with it. Privilege is often determined by race, heteronormativity, and wealth, which dictate prevalent social norms (Harris, 2017). For example, in many cultures, cisnormativity is the social expectation (Resnick and Galupo, 2019) and transgender employees know that their gender identity will not be accepted or accommodated in the workplace (Jones, 2020), and so, they remain silent for self-protection (Booth and Beauregard, 2019).…”