Language, religion, and workplace discrimination: intersectional microaggressions in India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Microaggression has recently gained prominence. It is a psychological construct that examines everyday slights experienced by marginalized groups. While much of the research has stemmed from the United States and has focused on race, gender, and sexuality, very few studies have investigated ways in which complex and overlapping identities involving language, religion, and caste/class intersect in cross-cultural workplace settings in the Global South. This study fills this gap by exploring a minoritized group carrying a ‘double discrimination’ burden due to their religion and socio-economic historical class background. It examines in what ways, if any, Indian Meos experience microaggressions in cross-cultural workplace settings. In doing so, it extends research that remains understudied. One of the criticisms against microaggression studies is their reliance on self-reporting and recall of past instances, thus lacking validity. This paper proposes conversation analysis as a useful approach offering an empirically grounded analysis of microaggression in action.