Token Fatigue: Stress of Discrimination in Women of Color

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Racialized Emotions

Abstract

Using participant observation, interview, and archival data, this paper examines how the discourse and practices of diversity cause women of color to experience token fatigue: the emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion from operating in fields that attempt to integrate historically excluded marginalized groups. By exploring how women of color mediate their experiences with token fatigue in the field of contemporary classical music as the white space, I problematize diversity as a race-gender project. Using this framework, I identify depoliticization and tokenization as examples of diversity practices that elicit token fatigue in women of color, while also recognizing how women of color use notions of community and self-representation to survive and thrive in the white space. Ultimately, I call for the decolonization - instead of the diversification - of elite spaces.

Author

• J. Shim, University of California-Los Angeles