Communitarian Organising: Maya Women Decolonising Organisation and Management Studies

Abstract

There is limited empirical engagement with marginalised, indigenous women in the Global South within the organisation and management studies (OMS) discipline. As a result, little is known about how these women construct their identity as women and their work and organisation/organising experiences in the context of their social, cultural and historical location. In this paper, I draw upon my doctoral ethnographic research with Maya women working together in community weaving groups in the rural Western Highlands of Sololá, Guatemala, to contribute to the decolonisation of OMS. I apply decolonial feminist theory to OMS to create a space that recognises the importance of the Other’s capacity for intellectual autonomy, and use border thinking to encourage the acceptance of another way of working and organising. Together with the Maya women participants, I build a theorisation of how Maya women work together in the margins, namely communitarian organising. In sum, this paper provides a space for the voices of marginalised, indigenous women from the Global South to become a visible part of the OMS discourse, and produces knowledge form outside of the border, specifically the gendered colonial difference.