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Regularities of diversity discourse: Address, categorization, and invitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Tanja Juul Christiansen  and
Sine Nørholm Just
Tanja Juul Christiansen
Affiliation:
Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Sine Nørholm Just
Affiliation:
Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
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Abstract

Managerial discourses on diversity invoke goals of inclusion and emancipation of suppressed individuals and groups as well as objectives of creating benefits for organizations and society. Partially due to this two-fold emphasis, diversity discourses may, however, be as restricting as they are liberating to the subjects of which they speak. In this article we suggest that utterances pertaining to diversity discourse should be understood as constitutive rhetoric marked by three discursive regularities: address, categorization, and invitation. These regularities underlie and restrain the multiple discursive practices of the developing field of diversity management, and as researchers and practitioners alike continue to explore and enhance this field it is important to understand – and seek to broaden – its conditions of possibility. Emphasizing the theoretical argument about discursive regularities and their articulation, we provide an illustrative example of the how different discursive practices may reproduce common limitations by exploring contributions to Danish diversity discourse.

Keywords

diversitydiscourserhetoricconstitutive perspectiveaddresscategorizationinvitation
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 398 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2012

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