Abstract
AbstractOrganizational inclusion has become a key concept when dealing with the topic of diversity and inequality in organizations. Its core claim is to be all‐embracing and to “leave no one behind.” However, can mainstream as well as critical inclusion approaches live up to this claim? In this article, I revisit two central concepts—belongingness and recognition—of both approaches from a feminist disability lens in general and the interests and needs of autistic people in particular. The analysis shows that mainstream and critical inclusion approaches rely on implicit ableist assumptions, which results in autistic people becoming “the other Other” of the organizational inclusion discourse. Yet, instead of judging the “inclusion project” as failed, the article pleads for the acknowledgement of inclusion as always partial, based on implicit boundary drawing. Such a view makes it possible to discuss the il‐/legitimacy of certain boundaries and their inclusionary and exclusionary consequences.
Highlights
DOBUSCHScholars describe organizational inclusion—whether in terms of a positive condition or in terms of certain inclusion‐ oriented measures and practices—as a “key driver and basis for reaping diversity's potential benefits” (Ferdman & Deane, 2014, p. xxiv). Nkomo (2014, p. 589) even argues that “scholars and practitioners have no choice but to strive for ... transforming our workplaces from places of exclusion to ones of inclusion”, if they want to make use of the creativity and innovation of a diverse workforce
Scholars question its ontological assumptions (Janssens & Steyaert, 2020) as well as arguing that forms of unconditional inclusion are irreconcilable with/not livable in contemporary capitalist work organizations (e.g., Ahmed, 2012; Brewis, 2019; Burchiellaro, 2020; Priola, Lasio, Serri, & De Simone, 2018; Rennstam & Sullivan, 2018; Tyler, 2019). Both camps of research—mainstream and critical organizational inclusion studies—seem to differ fundamentally from each other regarding their assessment of the potential and limits of the organizational inclusion turn: mainstream scholars see the inclusion turn as an opportunity to get to the root of the systemic exclusion and marginalization of historically disadvantaged groups while simultaneously increasing everyone's work performance; in contrast, critical scholars judge organizational inclusion approaches as a way to preserve existing power asymmetries because the terms of one's inclusion are still defined by members of the power‐wielding elite
The analysis shows that both mainstream and critical inclusion approaches rely on implicit ableist assumptions, the effect of which is to make autistic people “the other Other” of the organizational inclusion discourse
Summary
Scholars describe organizational inclusion—whether in terms of a positive condition or in terms of certain inclusion‐ oriented measures and practices—as a “key driver and basis for reaping diversity's potential benefits” (Ferdman & Deane, 2014, p. xxiv). Nkomo (2014, p. 589) even argues that “scholars and practitioners have no choice but to strive for ... transforming our workplaces from places of exclusion to ones of inclusion” (emphasis added), if they want to make use of the creativity and innovation of a diverse workforce. This should not imply that autistic people do not value social relationships, they strive for close and meaningful relationships, not necessarily complying with neurotypical standards of certain levels of intimacy or demonstrated affection (Brownlow, Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, & O'Dell, 2015) This neurotypical imagination of social relationships as the core condition for one's inclusion entails an implicit boundary assumption between intelligible and non‐intelligible subject positions: It becomes apparent that both the subjects of inclusion measures (employees) as well as the subjects of “doing inclusion” (“inclusive leaders”) need to show a—rather high—degree of social and communicative skills in order to fit the current inclusion constructs. The argument is not that this form of subjectivity necessarily excludes autistic people, but more generally, that it may exclude persons who neither can nor want to enact such a self
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