Organizing Challenges: The Diversity Initiative Paradox in Occupational Communities

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 19: Creative and Entertainment Industries

Abstract

Race and gender-based occupational segregation persists in many sectors despite concerted efforts toward equality. Existing research has identified what I call the diversity initiative paradox: marginalized workers’ participation in diversity initiatives inherently emphasizes their marginalization and risks essentializing their difference. While most studies focus on the inefficacy of diversity initiatives in bureaucratic workplaces, in this study I explore how marginalized workers experience the diversity initiative paradox in their occupational communities. Drawing on 40 interviews with marginalized country music performers, I find that non-bureaucratic diversity initiatives offer marginalized workers opportunities to gain a sense of belonging but also entrench marginalized workers’ difference. Additionally, non-bureaucratic diversity initiatives help marginalized workers accumulate various kinds of capital, but to varying extents depending on workers’ identities and proximity to initiative organizers and activities. Thus, this research illuminates the complexities of organizing marginalized workers outside bureaucratic settings and demonstrates how, like bureaucratic efforts, diversity initiatives in occupational communities can reinforce race, gender, and other inequalities.

Author

• Katherine Beekman, Vanderbilt University