Sub-theme 78: Time to Create Queer Spaces: Queering Organization Studies -> HYBRID sub-theme!
Call for Papers
Time and time again violent attacks on LGBTI+ people and laws to limit their rights abound (Lempinen, 2022). In many countries
queer repression and criminalization remains an everyday reality, in some cases enforced with the death penalty (Price, 2022).
International right-wing leaders, such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, preach hostility to LGBTI+ communities as a central
tenet of their politics (Reuters, 2022; Walkers, 2021). In more liberal countries, queer communities face severe backlash.
Emmanouel Macron speaks of ‘gender ideology’ and mobilizes against transgender people, whose rights are perceived as a threat
to cisgender people (Sage, 2021). Several U.S. states seek to ban school discussion and books that feature ‘LGBTI+ issues’
(Gabbat, 2022), often alongside banning books on critical race theory. These incidents are flashpoints in a historic political
and legal anti-LGBTI+ fight with measures seeking to limit the rights of this group, even after their visibility has advanced
(Kindy, 2022). One motive of such backlash is “to return society to a time when homosexuality was viewed as a sin, if not
a crime, and heterosexuality was upheld as the norm for everyone in society” (Encarnación, 2020, p. 1). To counter these developments,
this sub-theme resists creeping back in time by celebrating queer approaches to organization studies, including queer theories,
politics and lives.
Queer theory has been an important avenue for questioning what is ‘normal’ and normative
in/on/for organizations (Halperin, 1995; Warner, 1999) and troubling heteronormative aspects of everyday life (Taylor &
Addison, 2013). Defining queer becomes problematic because for something or someone to be queer is to resist, or at least
challenge, the process of categorisation and meaning propositions that a definition relies upon (Christensen, 2021). Phenomenologically,
queer can be understood to create disorientation in organizational spaces, providing a new angle to what is given or taken
for granted (Ahmed, 2006). Queer research in and of organization(s) has received attention across journal special issues (Pullen
et al., 2016) and books (Rumens, 2017), and has been informed by community and activist projects. Queer theory has been used
as a conceptual resource for studying minority homo/bisexual and/or trans people workplace experiences, often focusing on
how heteronormativity shapes the constitution of sexualities and genders (Rumens et al., 2019).
In addition, some
queer research concerns itself less with queer individuals, groups, and communities and engages in queering as a
critical ‘attitude of unceasing disruptiveness’ (Parker, 2002: 148, 2016). This is an important development, to the extent
that the (activist) act of queering is based on theorizing from – and with – queer subjects and subjectivities. However, queer
as a concept can get detached from the queer phenomena from which it originated and takes its meaning. In such cases the mainstream
preoccupation with queering comes at the expense of the critical edge and emancipatory potential promised for queer people
by queer theory (Christensen et al., forthcoming).
To bring back queer to the heart of queering organization
studies, this sub-theme embraces the double meaning of queer organizing as an object of study and as an analytical strategy.
This way we encourage the study of embodied, lived, particular experiences of queer people and communities in (partially)
organized spaces and queer(ing) used as an approach for thinking critically about cis-hetero normative organizational
theorizing and practice. Halberstam (2005) argues that queer ‘uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in opposition
to the institutions of family, heterosexuality and reproduction’ - supposedly ‘happy objects’ (Ahmed, 2011) that we learn
to strive for to lead a, supposedly, happy life (Guschke et al., 2022), and which in queer terminology are frequently referred
to as homonormativity, cis-heteronormativity, and repronormativity. Such normativity not only imposes certain assumptions;
it also produces and maintains idealized expectations against which queer bodies become just that: queer, why queers historically
have organized and continue to organize alternative safe(r) and brave(r) spaces for identification (The Roestone Collective,
2014) where one is both more free from homo-, bi-, and transphobia and, at the same time, more free to be
themselves, expressing their sexual and gender identities with less fears of risk, danger, harm, controversy, or other difficulties
(Ladwig, 2022).
This sub-theme invites queer empirical, methodological and conceptual multidisciplinary contributions.
Submissions may address the following areas of interest (but are not limited to):
Queer and LGBTI+ subject positions, subjectivities & bodies in organizational spaces
Queer(ing) approaches to space & time
Organizing through queer solidarity & affects
The organization of queer communities, Pride, & activism
Leading organized queer resistance, queer & queering leadership
Reflections on queering queer, genders, sexualities, work & organizational life
To facilitate wide ranging discussions at the crossroads of queer(ing)
and organization(s), organizing, and the organized, we invite conventional papers and encourage creative and artistic formats
as well. Please state in your submission your preferred method of presentation. We encourage people to attend in person but
will plan hybrid sessions to include those who are not able to travel.
References
- Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer Phenomenology. Duke University Press.
- Ahmed, S. (2011). Willful parts: Problem characters or the problem of character. New literary history, 42(2), 231-253.
- Cheng, P. S. (2014). Contributions from queer theory. The Oxford handbook of theology, sexuality, and gender, 153-169.
- Christensen, J. F. (2021). Weird Ways of Normalizing: Queering Diversity Research Through Norm Critique. In Just, S. N., Risberg, A., & Villesèche, F. (eds.) Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods, 59-72. London: Routledge.
- Christensen, J. F., Reiss, L. K., & Andrighetto, G. (forthcoming). Queer(ing). In Mills, J. H., Mills, A. J., Williams, K. S., & Bendl, R. (eds.) Elgar. Encyclopedia of Gender and Management. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Encarnación, O. G. (2020). The gay rights backlash: Contrasting views from the United States and Latin America. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(4), 654–665.
- Gabbatt, A. (2022, April 07). ‘Unparalleled in intensity’ – 1,500 book bans in US school districts. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/book-bans-pen-america-school-districts
- Halberstam, J. J. (2005). In a queer time and place: Transgender bodies, subcultural lives. NYU Press.
- Halperin D. (1995) Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford University Press.
- Kindy, K. (2022, March 25). GOP lawmakers push historic wave of bills targeting rights of LGBTQ teens, children and their families. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/25/lgbtq-rights-gop-bills-dont-say-gay/
- Ladwig, R. C. (2021). Proposing the safe and brave space for organisational environment: including trans* and gender diverse employees in institutional gender diversification. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 37(6), 751-762.
- Lampinen, E. (2022, May 2). Attack on LGBTQ+ rights: The politics and psychology of a backlash. Berkeley News. https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/05/02/attack-on-lgbtq-rights-the-politics-and-psychology-of-a-backlash/
- Parker, M. (2002). Queering management and organization. Gender, Work & Organization, 9(2), 146-166.
- Parker, M. (2016). Queering queer. Gender, Work and Organization, 23(1), 71-73.
- Price, C. (2022, November 29). Map of Countries that Criminalise LGBT People. Human Dignity Trust. https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/
- Pullen, A., Thanem, T., Tyler, M., & Wallenberg, L. (2016). Sexual politics, organizational practices: Interrogating queer theory, work and organization. Gender, Work and Organization, 23(1), 1-6.
- Reuters (2022, October 27). Russia to ban sharing LGBT 'propaganda' with adults as well as children. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63410127
- Roestone Collective. (2014). Safe space: Towards a reconceptualization. Antipode, 46(5), 1346-1365.
- Rumens, N. (2017). Queer business: Queering organization sexualities. Routledge.
- Rumens, N., De Souza, E. M., & Brewis, J. (2019). Queering queer theory in management and organization studies: Notes toward queering heterosexuality. Organization Studies, 40(4), 593-612.
- Sage, A. (2021, July 01). Woke leftists are ruining France, claims Emmanuel Macron. The Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/woke-leftists-are-ruining-france-claims-emmanuel-macron-8zmx7k8lc
- Taylor, Y., & Addison, M. (2013) Queer Presences and Absences. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Warner, M. (1999) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. The Free Press.
- Walkers, S. (2021, July 21). Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will hold referendum on anti-LGBT law. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/21/hungarys-viktor-orban-will-hold-referendum-on-anti-lbgt-law.