The Site of Diversalizing: The Accomplishment of Inclusion in Intergenerational Dance

• Author: Maddy Janssens,Chris Steyaert
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12524
• Date: 01 September 2020

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

The Site of Diversalizing: The Accomplishment of

Inclusion in Intergenerational Dance

Maddy Janssensa and Chris Steyaertb

aKU Leu ven; bUniversity of St . Gallen

ABST RACT In this stud y, we aim to revisit theor izing on inclusion by turning to pr actice theory.

Challengi ng the individualist ontologica l assumption of most diversity and inclusion st udies,

we follow a practice-based t heory of diversity to understand how an inc lusive social order is

accomplished. Our empir ical case centres on the real-t ime practicing of a dance production

where diversity was cent ral to its production process as well as f inal performance. Using a re-

search strateg y of connected situationalism, we uncover a nd document three pract ices: mixing,

inverting a nd aff irming, that are recur sively intertwined into a nexus, produc ing inclusion. We

advance the inclusion l iterature by proposing the notion ‘a site of diversali zing’ that proces-

sually captu res the accomplishment of multiplicity th rough practices and their association s in

time and space, hi ghlighting the necessity to under stand ‘practice’ as the entanglement of bod-

ily, discursive and m aterial components, and approaching context as compr ised of mutually

constituting relations instead of micro/macro levels.

Keywo rds: connected situational ism, diversity, inclusion, multiplicity, nexus of pract ices,

practic e theory

INTRODUCTION

Please have a close look at Image 1, an image from Tornar, an award-winning

intergenerational dance production, and tr y to sense its dramatic atmosphere: six

people are running to escape a sandstorm. Heaps of sand fall from the ‘ridge’ of the

theatre roof, blown by a powerful w ind machine into a spiralling f unnel, spinning like

a tornado. We feel their agitation and anxiet y as they are the only survivors, run ning

for their life. The image also ha s a poetic force, as six, very d iverse bodies are moving

in unison, yet without a scripted notation of symmetrical movements. Rather, this

diverse group is joint in destiny, flighting the disorder that comes with catastrophe

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:6 Sep tembe r 2020

doi:10. 1111/jo ms. 1252 4

Address for re prints : Maddy Janssen s, Faculty of Economic s & Business, Depa rtment of Work and Orga nization

Studies, KU L euven, Naamsestraat 69, 30 00 Leuven, Belgium (mad dy.janssens@ kuleuven.be).

1144 M. Janssens and C. Steyaert

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

and addressing such questions like: How to start anew? Who reaches out to whom?

What kind of new lang uage will emerge? How will this d iverse group rebuild a prom-

ising new community?

In this paper, we argue that the creation and performance of this dance production

– both what happens on stage as what happened behind stage – is strikingly relevant

for diversity scholars who, now for almost three decades, have been studying how di-

versity practices can foster equality in a diverse organization (Cox and Blake, 1991; Ely

and Thomas, 2001; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Kalev, Dobbin and Kelly, 2006). Yet,

discrimination, exclusion and segregation continue to characterize most organizations

(Nkomo et al., 2019) and our knowledge on the kind of practices needed to truly trans-

form organizations into inclusive ones – where all members are ‘fairly treated, valued for

who they are, and included in core decision making’ (Nishii, 2013, p. 1754) – still remains

limited (Dwertmann and Böhm, 2016; Dwertmann, Nishii and van Knippenberg, 2016).

Throughout the diversity literature, responses to ending workplace exclusion and mar-

ginalization have evolved – from compliance to legislation, affirmative action, diversity

management to recently the inclusion approach (Nishii, 2013; Nkomo, 2014). Yet, despite

this evolution in searching for ways to reduce discrimination and leverage the advantages

of diversity, the underlying ontological assumption has remained the same. In particular,

diversity research tends to be characterized by an individualist assumption holding that

social life in a diverse organization can be best understood through studying properties

of persons and interpersonal relations (Schatzki, 2005). For example, discrimination is

explained by individuals’ cognitive biases (Milliken and Martins, 1996), diversity-related

conflict through in/outgroup dynamics (van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007), and

inclusion by fulfilment of personal needs for belonging and uniqueness (Shore et al.,

2011). In line, practices that would enhance diversity and inclusion tend to be oriented

Imag e 1. The diverse commun ity in the dance perform ance Tornar [Colour figure c an be viewed at

wileyonl inelibrary.com]

Source: © Dan ny Willems