1,720,990 research outputs found
Economic lives of Rohingya refugees matter: Beyond the romantic tale of ‘Market Works for All’
No full textDuring 2017, almost 750,000 Rohingya refugees entered Cox’s Bazar and now more than one million of them reside in Bangladesh. Rohingya refugees are subject to life‐long statelessness and severe physical and psychological violence, as the Myanmar government denies their citizenship and any fundamental rights. I had rare, unrestricted access to Rohingya refugee camps as an independent researcher. This independence was crucial because unless a researcher sees, feels and interacts with various actors free from the interests and influence of authorities, they cannot bring facts into the public domain. Since I was born in Chittagong and fluent in Chittagonian language, which is spoken by Rohingya refugees, I was able to have deep conversations with refuges and locals in Cox’s Bazar (see my original research published in Journal of Management Studies)
From Black Pain to Rhodes Must Fall: a rejectionist perspective
No full textBased on my study of the Rhodes Must Fall movement, I develop a rejectionist perspective by identifying the understanding and mobilization of epistemic disobedience as the core premise of such a perspective. Embedded in this contextual perspective, epistemic disobedience refers to the decolonization of the self and a fight against colonial legacies. I argue that, rather than viewing a rejectionist perspective as a threat, it should be integrated into the moral learning of contemporary institutions and businesses. This approach is important in ensuring colonial legacies and biases do not create further racism or unequal situations for marginalized groups. The implication for critical management studies is that scholars from this camp should be more sensitive to issues of black consciousness and implement an authentic pragmatic ideal to promote black culture and historiographies in universities and curricula. It also highlights a need for the field of business ethics to apply more sensitive theory of marginalized stakeholders in order to prevent any escalation of violence by multinational corporations in the name of shareholder value creation and profit-maximization
(In)sensitive violence, development, and the smell of the soil: Strategic decision-making of what?
No full textFirms may commit aspects of violence in a sophisticated way. To this end, I argue that, as firms and their influential agents (e.g. government bodies and NGOs that often work as third parties and claim neutrality) participate in designing and performing violent activities under an influence of ideological beliefs, certain aspects of violence are difficult to trace. In other words, it is not always easy to point out exactly which powerful actors did what to result in violence such as injury and killing. Because of this limited traceability of actions, certain consequences of such violence remain invisible for a long period of time. However, such violence has devastating effects that go beyond the physical and mental harm suffered by the victim, affecting even the socio-emotional situations of marginalized people. Accordingly, I conceptualize a form of violence with limited traceability and invisible negative consequences, which is termed as insensitive violence. By doing so, I also discuss fundamental flaws of economic and human perspectives of development that encourage recursive use of insensitive violence at the expense of environmental damage and emotional degradation of marginalized communities
The mobilization of noncooperative spaces: reflections from Rohingya refugee camps
No full textIn this essay, I challenge key assumptions in the mainstream entrepreneurship literature that individuals have the capability to change their fate through entrepreneurial activities wherever in the world they may be. I advance the concept of a coordinated and regulative cooperative market to argue that the rebalancing of power between marginalized actors such as refugees and ordinary locals, and powerful agents of what I term the ‘uncooperative sociostructure’ is essential in order to improve the wellbeing of refugees. Without a cooperative sociostructural intervention, capitalistic market mechanisms such as bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and microfinance as means to individual freedom simply imprison refugees further.</p
Rana Plaza fieldwork and academic anxiety: Some reflections
No full textThe Rana Plaza collapse, which took place in Bangladesh in 2013, killed and injured at least 1135 and 2500 people respectively. Although the structural fault with the building had been identified before the collapse, the owner of the building and five garment factories housed in Rana Plaza had forced workers to continue production for 31 Western multinational corporations (MNCs). It was the deadliest structural failure in modern history, and resulted in a horrific rescue operation. First, the fire brigade did not have the necessary training and equipment to rescue the victims, and so the general public also participated in the rescue operation. Second, when victims were rescued, it was found that many of them had lost their limbs or suffered severe internal injuries, including internal organ failure, due to several days without water. After the completion of the rescue, the victims received neither appropriate compensation nor rehabilitation to overcome their psychological trauma and physical disabilities
Self-representation of marginalized groups: A new way of thinking through W.E.B. Du Bois
No full textI address an interesting puzzle of how marginalized groups gain self-representation and influence firms’ strategies. Accordingly, I examine the case of access to low cost HIV/AIDS drugs in South Africa by integrating W.E.B. Du Bois’s work into stakeholder theory. Du Bois’s scholarly work, most notably his founding contribution to Black scholarship, has profound significance in the humanities and social sciences disciplines, and has vast potential to inspire a new way of thinking and doing research in the management and organization fields, including business ethics research. By drawing on Du Bois’s works I argue that through reconstruction of their selves—knowing their souls—marginalized groups know their capabilities better, enabling them to overcome their political and strategic limitations and ensure their true self-representation. They are also empowered to use political imagination and strategies of resistance against more powerful opponents. This influences powerful actors to accept the demands of marginalized groups
A critique of vanishing voice in noncooperative spaces: the perspective of an aspirant black female intellectual activist
Full text linkWe adopt and extend the concept of ‘noncooperative space’ to analyze how (aspirant) black women intellectual activists attempt to sustain their efforts within settings that publicly endorse racial equality, while, in practice, the contexts remain deeply racist. Noncooperative spaces reflect institutional, organizational, and social environments portrayed by powerful white agents as conducive to anti-racism work and promoting racial equality but, indeed, constrain individuals who challenge racism. Our work, which is grounded in intersectionality, draws on an autoethnographic account of racially motivated domestic violence suffered by our lead author. Our analysis suggests that (aspirant) black women intellectual activists must develop courage to sustain their ‘voice’ within noncooperative spaces. However, the three interlinked dimensions of noncooperative spaces—namely, deceiving design, hegemonic actors’ indifference to racism, and (some assimilated gatekeepers’) false equivalence—may gradually erode a black female scholar’s courage. This forces her ‘voice’ to vanish temporarily, or even permanently. Courage is thus fragile and depletable. Yet, courage can be regenerated, resulting in regaining voice. Consequently, we propose courageous collective action by white allies and black and brown individuals who voluntarily and officially cooperate within and across various spaces to achieve racial equality
Can the female black scholar speak out in a noncooperative space?
No full textWe explore how black female intellectual activists cope in a ‘non-cooperative space’ while seeking racial equality. Our analysis adopts and extends the concept of non-cooperative space’ as an organizational and social environment portrayed by powerful white agents as victim-friendly and protective, yet, in reality, one that is perilous for individuals who challenge racism. Our analysis suggests that courage helps black female intellectual activists to cope with and navigate these non-cooperative spaces. However, courage, a traditionally manly attribute, is fragile and never omnipresent. Courage fades and regenerates, resulting in temporary loss and (re)gaining of voice. We reach our conclusion by grounding our analysis in intersectionality and drawing on an inductive theory analysis of an in-depth interview with a black African female scholar, and subsequently, her auto-ethnographic account of a racially motivated domestic violence experience. To overcome non-cooperative spaces and advance racial equality, we suggest ‘courageous collective action’ and cooperation among black, brown and white scholars (allies). Our conceptualization contributes to debates on intellectual activism and racial equality within the broader area of diversity and inclusion
Epistemic injustice and hegemonic ordeal in management and organization studies: Advancing black scholarship
No full textWhy do the majority of (white) academics within management and organization studies (MOS) endorse discourses of equality, diversity and inclusion on the one hand yet ignore the epistemic injustice suffered by black scholars on the other? We demonstrate how white supremacy within a historically racist academia marginalizes non-white bodies from knowledge production and dissemination by embedding epistemic injustice in MOS, and diminishing their utility globally. To expose the multifaceted harm caused by white supremacy, we reflect on black scholars’ experiences of epistemic injustice, conceptualizing their work (i.e. black scholarship) as underpinned by epistemic struggle and epistemicsurvival. We conceptualize epistemic struggle as striving to produce and disseminate knowledge in the face of difficulties and resistance generated by structural and agential powers. Epistemic survival denotes the sustained presence of black scholarship through compromise, collusion and radicalism. To this end, we propose collective intellectual activism based on cross-racial coalitions to eliminate epistemic injustice and locate black scholarship at the center of MOS
The continued silencing of Gayatri Spivak’s Subaltern: a critique of the elite nexus of NGOs, academia and corporations
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