13th International Critical Management Studies Conference

Hosted jointly by Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham

Tuesday 20 June 2023, 9 am BST - Thursday 22 June 2023, 6 pm BST

Newton Building, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, United Kingdom

 

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Stream 10 - Changing the status quo: Multi-perspectival feminist praxis for building community/ies and socially-just futures of work and employment

 

Convenors

Jenny K Rodriguez (Work & Equalities Institute, University of Manchester, UK)

Elisabeth Anna Guenther (University of Vienna, Austria)

Salma Raheem (University of Liverpool, UK)

 

Description of the Stream

The idea of community/ies has been historically central to the ways in which feminisms throughout the globe have engaged in efforts to challenge inequalities and the status quo (e.g. Combahee River Collective,1979; Espinosa Miñoso, 2009; Knobblock & Kuokkanen, 2015). However, whilst many efforts capture the otherwise of feminist praxis, dominant narratives have generally prioritized particular understandings about feminism and its values, community building and solidarity. Against the backdrop of disruptive crises, the idea of (re)building, (re)generating and (re)articulating notions of community/ies is linked to reflecting on diverse meanings and scope of human struggle, emotive engagement, trauma and magnitude of loss in relation to shaping sustainable, socially-just futures in ways that emerge from multiple/diverse/broader feminist articulations.

 

In this respect, an important challenge for Critical Management Studies (CMS) is its relevance as a credible intellectual alternative that does not merely reproduce epistemic coloniality (Ibarra-Colado, 2006). This relates to critical propositions that are transformational beyond the performative promise implicit in affirmative engagement. It requires acknowledging epistemic violence and complicity of CMS in generating and perpetuating hierarchies of critical knowledge that shape dominant narratives about work, employment, management and organizations (see Nkomo, 2011; Swan, 2017; Liu, 2021), and moving away from critique and reflection that legitimizes intellectual complacency.

 

The stream is interested in multi-perspectival feminist praxis as the critical framework that would help us to imagine and realize non-hierarchical epistemic possibilities needed for building community/ies and create socially-just futures of work and employment. This involves engaging with the complexity of social life and going beyond homogeneous universal/ising understandings, instead centring situated understandings of concepts and praxis utilized as a departure point for the multifaceted effects of race, gender and class. We see multi-perspectival feminist praxis as a means to challenge hegemonic intellectual power and knowledge production and articulate and drive actions for change.

 

In line with our approach, we invite contributions that use a broad and diverse range of tools to foster dialogical engagement and new thinking. Themes of interest to this stream include (but are not limited to) works focusing on:

• Strategies/actions to co-design and co-create communities of belonging to overcome racist, sexist, classist and ableist spaces
• Strategies/actions that move beyond the politics of belonging (see Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2011) to shape new forms of inclusiveness, allyship and solidarity
• Meanings and opportunities of multi-perspectival feminist praxis to question existing power structures and institutional norms
• Feminist strategies of intellectual reclamation of spaces of being/doing
• Feminist methodological approaches to action the otherwise
• Opportunities offered by feminist praxis to reinvigorate the political commitment to pluriversal, socially-just futures
• Strategies/actions of disruptive empowerment to move away from pre-established, cliquey traditions of collective knowledge production
• Feminist actions that embody care and responsibility within our interactions to promote egalitarian practice

 

The stream invites submissions that take the form of:

• Paper presentations
• Opinion pieces
• Short stories
• Journals (e.g., photo-journal, diaries)
• Short documentaries (e.g., photo-/video-/audio format)
• Games

 

The stream will close with an integrative workshop, with the aim to explore collective ways of engagement that consider the multi-perspective feminist praxis.

Please, reach out to convenors if you wish to discuss a potential contribution to the stream.

 

Submission guidelines

Send abstracts, summaries or synopses of approximately 500 words to [log in to unmask] by 14 April 2023. Please note this stream will run in person.

 

References

Combahee River Collective. (1979). a black feminist statement. Off Our Backs, 9(6),6-8.

Espinosa Miñoso, Y. (2009). Etnocentrismo y colonialidad en los feminismos latinoamericanos: complicidades y consolidación de las hegemonías feministas en el espacio transnacional. Revista venezolana de estudios de la mujer, 14(33), 37-54.

Ibarra-Colado, E. (2006). Organization Studies and Epistemic Coloniality in Latin America: Thinking Otherness from the Margins. Organization, 13(4), 463-488.

Knobblock, I., & Kuokkanen, R. (2015). Decolonizing feminism in the North: A conversation with Rauna Kuokkanen. NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 23(4), 275-281.

Liu, H. (2021). How we learn whiteness: Disciplining and resisting management knowledge. Management Learning, 53(5): 776-796.

Nkomo, S. M. (2011). A postcolonial and anti-colonial reading of “African” leadership and management in organization studies: tensions, contradictions and possibilities. Organization, 18(3), 365-386

Swan, E. (2017). Manifesto for Feminist Critical Race Killjoys in CMS, Feminists and Queer Theorists Debate the Future of Critical Management Studies (Dialogues in Critical Management Studies, Vol. 3), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 13-37.

Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Belonging and the politics of belonging. Patterns of Prejudice, 40(3), 197-214.

Yuval-Davis, N. (2011). The politics of belonging: Intersectional contestations. Sage.