Racial Influences on the Practices of Organizing Spaces of Sociability: Experiences of Black Brazilian Women

Josiane Silva de Oliveira and Snjezana Clonira Simunovic de Abreu

Gender, Work and Organization, 2026, vol. 33, issue 1, 105-120

Abstract: The aim of this research was to understand racial influences on the practices of organizing spaces of sociability by Black Brazilian women. We discuss practice‐based studies (PBS) and racial studies, based on Black feminist, emphasizing race as the basis of organizational practices, especially in organizational spaces in which sociability is a central dimension of their constitution. The qualitative research was carried out in a city located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, from May to July 2019, through observations of spaces of sociability and in‐depth interviews with seven Black women living in the place under study. As a result of the research, we present three theoretical propositions about how Black women resist the racism that shapes sociability in organizations; the (1) ethical, (2) esthetic, and (3) controversial break of the silencing of Black bodies in the social relationships that form organizational spaces. This process occurs through the occupation of these spaces by Black women, also through the fight against racism in affective–sexual relationships, and through the anti‐racist educational practice that Black women establish in their organizational sociabilities. Finally, as a contribution to gender studies in management, we stress that organizational sociabilities are characterized by practices that are racially gendered, and the reciprocal actions of Black women's organizational sociabilities emerge as ethical–political practices that disrupt the dominant paradigm of whiteness as the ethical subsidy of tacit norms in organizations.

Date: 2026
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