MARGINALISATION AND STIGMA IN THE WORKPLACE
 

Another key stream of my research focuses on marginalisation and stigma, and particularly on how individuals who occupy socially devalued or marginal positions navigate organisational norms. I am interested primarily in what people do in response to such marginalisation and stigma. Rather than approaching marginalised individuals primarily as passive recipients of exclusion, my research examines their agency: how they develop creative practices, build legitimacy, establish relationships, access economic opportunities, and create change for themselves and others.

 

This interest takes me to individuals whose identities, bodies, histories, or social positions can make participation in mainstream economic and organisational life difficult. I examine how stigma enters everyday encounters at work, how it shapes interactions with customers, colleagues, managers, and communities, and how these encounters are ultimately navigated, or not. Importantly, navigating marginalisation and stigma does not necessarily mean that they disappear. I am interested in the ways through which people make marginalisation less significant, and create possibilities for participation within environments that may continue to exclude them.

 

Much of this research is again grounded in Asia and in close field engagement with communities that have historically received limited attention in management and organisation research. In Bangladesh, I continue to work with Hijra (third gender or non-binary) entrepreneurs, a stigmatised gender minority whose visible difference often shapes workplace interactions and their ability to participate in mainstream economic life. My research explores how Hijra entrepreneurs seek to manage marginalisation and stigma. In particular, I examine their everyday practices at work and outside work, how they work on and through their bodies, and how these practices can help them build supportive relationships and survive in a hostile context.

 

My work in Thailand also addresses related questions of marginalisation and stigma, embodiment, and social acceptance. I have been examining how professionals whose gender identities have historically been marginalised can draw on culturally meaningful understandings of the body, including spirituality, intuition, and culturally embedded beliefs, to develop legitimacy and recognition in organisational life. I have been especially interested in how transgender professionals use their positions and experiences to support others within their communities, including through advocacy, employment opportunities, and networks of mutual support.

 

Across these research projects, I argue that individuals experiencing marginalisation and stigma operate within social structures that they cannot simply choose to escape, yet they are not without possibilities for action. They can work creatively within, around, and sometimes against these constraints, although such efforts may themselves generate tensions and unintended consequences.

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