“Us foreigners”: intersectionality in a scientific organization

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore intersectionality as accomplished in interaction, and particularly national difference as a component of intersectionality.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use ethnographic, shadowing methods to examine intersectionality in-depth and developed vignettes to illuminate the experience of intersectionality.

Findings

National difference mitigated the common assumption in scientific work that tenure and education are the most important markers of acceptance and collegiality. Moreover, national difference was a more prominent driving occupational discourse in scientific work than gender.

Research limitations/implications

The data were limited in scope, though the authors see this as a necessity for generating in-depth intersectional data. Implications question the prominence of gender and (domestic) race/gender as “the” driving discourses of difference in much scholarship and offer a new view into how organizing around identity happens. Specifically, the authors develop “intersectional pairs” to understand the paradoxes of intersectionality, and as comprising a larger, woven experience of “intersectional netting.”

Social implications

This research draws critical attention to how assumptions regarding national difference shape workplace experiences, in an era of intensified global migration and immigration debates.

Originality/value

The study foregrounds the negotiation of national difference in US workplaces, and focusses on how organization around said difference happens interactively in communication.

Citation

Wells, C.C., Gill, R. and McDonald, J. (2015), "“Us foreigners”: intersectionality in a scientific organization", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 539-553. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2014-0086