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Article
Publication date: 25 November 2020

Elaine Swan

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for future research on intersection feminist studies of foodwork.

1897

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for future research on intersection feminist studies of foodwork.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper offers a brief summary of feminist domestic foodwork research and COVID-19 food-related media commentary, focusing on race, gender and class.

Findings

This paper shows how domestic foodwork during pandemic lockdowns and the wider contexts reproduced racial, classed and gendered inequalities and hierarchies.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is limited by the recency of the pandemic and lack of empirical studies but still offers recommendations for a post-pandemic intersectional feminist agenda for studies and policy interventions relation to domestic foodwork.

Originality/value

The paper raises the importance of foodwork for feminist organisational studies, and how it consolidated and created racialised, gendered and classed inequalities during the pandemic, offering insights for future research and policy interventions around food and labour.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal , vol. 35 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 1 February 2006

Mustafa F. Özbilgin

982

Abstract

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Article
Publication date: 6 December 2022

Patricia Lewis and Yvonne Benschop

This paper aims to examine the discursive constitution of leadership identities by senior women leaders working in the City of London. This study draws on postfeminism as a…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the discursive constitution of leadership identities by senior women leaders working in the City of London. This study draws on postfeminism as a critical concept to explore this constitution, as it has produced the cultural conditions for the reconfiguration of masculine and feminine gender norms in leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

In a qualitative study, 13 women leaders in positions of power in the City of London were interviewed. Discourse analysis techniques were used to unpack the postfeminist shaping of leadership identities

Findings

At the heart of the leadership identities that senior women leaders construct is a gendered hybridity that is a multifaceted calibration of masculine and feminine attributes and behaviours. Postfeminist discourses of individualism, choice and self-improvement are entangled with discourses of authenticity, relatability and connectivity as particular leadership assets. The gendered hybridity of leadership identities unfolds the possibility for a fundamental makeover of leadership by opening-up space for a transformative change that accommodates women leaders.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the very few studies that foreground the leadership identities that women leaders construct within the confines of postfeminist gender regimes. It shows how these women invoke authenticity, unfolding possibilities for the transformational change of and political challenge to traditional gendered leadership in their organizations.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal , vol. 38 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2007

Shona Hunter and Elaine Swan

The paper draws out the key conceptual, methodological and substantive issues raised in the papers around the politics of equalities.

1402

Abstract

Purpose

The paper draws out the key conceptual, methodological and substantive issues raised in the papers around the politics of equalities.

Design/methodology/approach

Rather than reviewing and summarising each paper in turn this introductory article synthesises the key themes from papers to develop an overview of the key issues raised in the edited collection.

Findings

The papers trouble traditional dichotomies in equalities studies, suggesting complex and fluid relationships between states, activists and professionals. They also identify some key elements of current equalities work such as equalities framing, diversity interpretation and the negotiation of ambiguity produced through the seesaw of hope/failure characterising this work.

Research limitations/implications

The collection highlights the continuing dearth of work around certain equalities strands, in particular, around sexualities and generation. It also suggests avenues for further work developing postcolonial analysis of equalities work in organisations.

Originality/value

The collection is unique in that it draws together current work crossing diverse national and sectoral contexts and from a range of equalities strands.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2007

Shona Hunter and Elaine Swan

The paper has two purposes: to introduce a new perspective on power and resistance in equalities work; and to trouble either or theorisations of success and failure in this work…

1330

Abstract

Purpose

The paper has two purposes: to introduce a new perspective on power and resistance in equalities work; and to trouble either or theorisations of success and failure in this work. Instead it offers a new means of exploring micro‐practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper applies/develops an “actor network theory” (ANT) analysis to a single case study of Iopia, a Black woman equalities practitioner working in a prison education context. It uses this to explore the ways in which Iopia interacts with a variety of human and non‐human objects to challenge racism in this context.

Findings

Iopia, from an initial position of marginality (as a Black woman experiencing racism) is able to establish herself (by virtue of this same identity as a Black woman combating racism) as central to a “new” network for equality and diversity. This new network both challenges and sustains narrow exclusionary definitions of diversity. Thus, Iopia's case provides an example of the contradictions, and paradox, experienced by those working for equality and diversity.

Research limitations/implications

In the future, this type of feminist ANT analysis could be more fully developed and integrated with critical race and other critical cultural theories as these relate to equalities work.

Practical implications

The approach, and, in particular, the notion of translation, can be used by practitioners in thinking through the ways in which they can use material objects to draw in multiple “others” into their own networks.

Originality/value

The article is one of the first to explore equalities workers via the lens of ANT. It is unique in its analysis of the material objects constituting both diversity workers and diversity work and thus its analysis of diversity workers and their work as part of a complex set of social and “material” relations.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2007

Shona Hunter and Elaine Swan

To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus…

Abstract

Purpose

To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus attention on the under‐explored area of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equalities work.

Design/methodology/approach

The interview is prefaced with a critical commentary on current UK equalities policy, contextualising the interview discussion, which links personal and collective histories and provides a comparison of equalities work over time.

Findings

Angela Mason, while top‐ranking civil servant, continues to claim the label activist. Like a variety of other equalities workers she uses multiple tactics to appeal to different constituents at different times and in different contexts.

Originality/value

This is an interview with one of the key protagonists in the development of UK equalities policies over the last 30 years. It is unique in its focus on the current overhaul of UK equalities policy from an “insider” and in its timing at the interim point of this reorganisation (October 2006).

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 April 2017

Elaine Swan

The aim of my chapter is to draw on conceptualisations of sexism, racism, epistemology of white ignorance and critical race theorists’ critiques of white feminism to examine…

Abstract

The aim of my chapter is to draw on conceptualisations of sexism, racism, epistemology of white ignorance and critical race theorists’ critiques of white feminism to examine critical management studies (CMS) practices. The purpose of the chapter is to acknowledge the contribution of CMS feminists and look to how we can go beyond current practices to include antiracism in our feminisms. In particular, I show how sexism, racism and white ignorance are collectively produced in CMS and operate through mundane, and avoidable, organisational and pedagogical processes. I respond to the editors’ call for chapters by offering a practical politics through the idea of a killjoy manifesto, taking inspiration from the writings of Sara Ahmed. An important part of is that is for white feminism in CMS to attend to critiques from racially minoritised academics, activists and workers. Whilst challenging, I hope the chapter provides practical and theoretical resources and encouragement.

Details

Feminists and Queer Theorists Debate the Future of Critical Management Studies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-498-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 November 2010

Elaine Swan

The purpose of this paper is to look back since the first edition of what was then Women in Management Review as a way of looking forward to suggest a future potential.

1962

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to look back since the first edition of what was then Women in Management Review as a way of looking forward to suggest a future potential.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on some historical work on issues central to the literature and practices associated with women/gender in management. It also draws on feminist theories to outline what the author calls “testings” – theoretical, conceptual and activist challenges – to some of that early thinking.

Findings

The paper emphasises the importance of differentiating women in order to understand the complexity of inequalities, and white middle class women's part in reproducing inequality. In addition, the different theoretical turns have emphasised the multiple and intersecting sources of discrimination – economic, cultural, psychosocial, social, linguistic and ideological.

Originality/value

The paper offers insights into gender in management, histories and futures.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 June 2008

Elaine Swan

The purpose of this paper is to ask how we can think about critical reflection as a pedagogical practice given the “confessional turn”. By the “confessional turn” the author…

3248

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to ask how we can think about critical reflection as a pedagogical practice given the “confessional turn”. By the “confessional turn” the author refers to the idea that “subjective, autobiographical and confessional modes of expression” have expanded exponentially across a wide range of social spheres, including education, the legal system, the media and the workplace. Examining these developments, this paper asks what these debates on critical reflection and confession mean for pedagogical practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The main approach is a review of key debates in the literature on critical reflection and also in the wider social sciences.

Findings

The discussion compares different debates. Thus it shows that for critics, the turn to the “first person” technologies is narcissistic, psychologistic and de‐politicising. On this view, critical reflective practice might be understood as an individualistic and individualising pedagogy in spite of its claims to be critical. The paper discusses how in contrast, others see this move to talk about the subjective and the self as an extension of the feminist project of the personal is political – i.e. that personal stories, feelings and issues have social and political roots and consequences. For them, reflection can be critical, leading to political consciousness‐raising, i.e. a new awareness about social, political and personal processes. It finishes by examining the view that the idea of reflexivity might help us out of the conflict between these debates.

Practical implications

The paper poses a number of questions in relation to critical reflection that can be taken up by practitioners in the field.

Originality/value of paper

The paper brings new literature to bear on the practice of critical reflection and raises important questions relevant to academics and practitioners.

Details

Journal of European Industrial Training, vol. 32 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0590

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 May 2014

Akram Al Ariss, Mustafa Özbilgin, Ahu Tatli and Kurt April

– The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical and methodological framework to overcome knowledge gaps on Whiteness in organizational and management studies.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical and methodological framework to overcome knowledge gaps on Whiteness in organizational and management studies.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on a brief review of literature on ethnic privileges.

Findings

The authors propose a relational approach to tackling ethnic privileges in organizations and management research.

Research limitations/implications

The framework contributes to a better understanding and deconstruction of ethnic privileges at work.

Originality/value

The paper proposes a theoretical and a methodological framework for tackling Whiteness in organizational and management studies. By doing so, it elucidates the topic of Whiteness, bringing new insights from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Details

Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-3946

Keywords

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