Approaching intersectionality through metonymy: Coloniality and recursion at work

Sally Riad and Deborah Jones

Gender, Work and Organization, 2023, vol. 30, issue 2, 547-573

Abstract: This paper critically engages with intersectionality in an effort to counter its development into a reified ground and grid for examining and articulating difference in organization studies. We theorize intersectionality as frame/work and problematize the work of its frame through the disruptions and recursions of coloniality. We turn to metonymy for the analytical and conceptual possibilities it offers for interrogating intersectionality and examining the dynamics of difference and power. We analyze engagements with Kara Walker's artwork, Sugar Baby, which invite us to think about intersectionality in metonymic terms. We offer a double reading of this work of representation. The first reading outlines (re)productions and ironic subversions of metonymies of work, race, and gender, while the second scrutinizes them and forwards the significance of positionality and provisionality in intersectional work on coloniality. In doing so, we cultivate intersectionality as a critical idea but also submit it to critical analysis. By theorizing intersectionality as frame/work, we counter its metonymic role as proxy for diverse possibilities for engaging with difference and thereby confront its power dynamics. In closing, we outline the contributions to organizational research and contemplate the implications for “doing intersectionality” in organization studies.

Date: 2023
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