Abstract:
Critical diversity studies emerged in the mid-1990s as a reaction to the
re-appropriation of equal opportunities by business through the notion of
diversity. They initially took issue with the dominant rhetoric of diversity as a
positive, empowering approach valorizing employees’ different capacities (e.g.
R. Thomas, 1992), arguing that the theoretical shift to diversity would obscure
unequal power relations in organizations, e.g. gender, race/ ethnicity, (dis)ability,
hampering the ability to challenge them (i.e. Bond and Pyle, 1998; Edelman et
al., 2001; Jones et al., 2000; Kelly and Dobbin, 1998; Liff, 1996; Liff and
Wajcman, 1996; Linnehand and Konrad, 1999; Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000;
Maxwell et al., 2001; McDougall, 1996; Prasad and Mills, 1997; Wilson and
Iles, 1999).
