Scholars have used the notion of diversity work to describe the work that employees do within an organization to create more diversity and/or to advance inclusion in the workplace (also see Ahmed, 2012; Brewis, 2019; David, 2016; Kirton and Greene, 2010; Mor Barak, 2015 Spaaj et al., 2018; Wasser, 2016). Problematizing the discursive uses of diversity in organizational life, Sara Ahmed (2008) argues that diversity work broadly entails making diversity into something that an organization does. But as Ahmed explains, we might not know what form the politics of diversity might take in advance of its circulation in organizations. At times this may require showing the organization that they should engage in diversity for ‘pragmatic, financial, business reasons’ (Litvin, 2006, p75) and/or mobilizing the ‘good feelings’ which accompany celebrations of diversity to posit differences as unthreatening to the organization (also see Swan, 2010). At other times, however, it may mean foregrounding its social justice dimensions. While diversity work may be strategic and rewarding, it can also feel like hitting your head against brick walls, require diversity workers to become blockage points and/or killjoys within the organization (Ahmed, 2012).

Indeed, while engaging diversity work may be valuable for employees by creating a more inclusive workplace culture, it is also fundamentally valuable for the organization. Diversity work can often sustain corporate diversity programmes whose aim is to support the company's human resources capabilities, promoting satisfaction, unity, productivity, and efficiency among employees in pursuit of financial goals (also see Ward, 2008a). There are also many benefits for organizations who become recognized as ‘inclusive employers’. These might include greater productivity, as outlined by the business case, but also the ‘good feelings’ that often accompany celebrations of diversity and inclusivity and which organizations can in turn harness to market themselves as progressive. Turning diversity into something that has value for the organization is one of the ways in which diversity work is done.

Diversity work has mostly been used to describe the work of advancing diversity on the workplace. Yet, in a world in which differences are themselves increasingly being ‘turned into something like the new raw material of capital’ (Wasser, 2016, p59), the notion of diversity work should be extended to describe all those forms of material and affective labour that diverse subjects perform in order to convert their differences into valuable organizational resources.