While the debate on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is becoming central to the rhetoric of institutional agencies and organizations across countries in the Global North, the extent to which this debate challenges discriminations embedded in the structure of power within organizations and in the wider labour market is still limited.

Similarly to the discourse on “diversity” predominant in the past decades, DE&I can still support a predominance of the economic value over equity and social justice arguments, and the marginalization of specific axes of inequalities and in particular of “race”. In fact, while cross-country and cross-sectors difference exists in the extent to which a specific discourse around race has emerged, still inequality based on “race” remains a marginal(ised) domain of action.

This workshop aims at discussing this “silence” around race with specific reference to the labour market, by looking at how it emerges, is structured and “justified” in different national and organizational contexts. The aim is to underline how policies and practices related to equality in the labour market are embedded in specific historical, institutional and social traditions, including the presence of activism and social movements. These specific configurations affect the framing of equality across countries, and the specific way “race” is silenced, against the supposedly “homogenizing” effect of the international transferring of “business” practices.

The workshop consists of reflections from scholars of different regional contexts based on theoretical elaborations or empirical evidence (see more details below). These will be followed by remarks from two discussants and Q&A time.

The workshop is the result of a collaboration between IILME-IMISCOE, RACED-IMISCOE and the Work and Equalities Institute (WEI) of the University of Manchester.

Chair: Stefania Marino, Work and Equality Institute and IILME-IMISCOE

Overview of the interventions:

Patrick Simon, French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED). Opening reflections

Tamara Lee, Rutgers University. “The Colorless Hand: Whiteness as a Hidden Force”

Paula Mulinari, Malmö University. “Villain, Victims and Welfare queens – Racial and gendered representation of unemployed racialized women – and how it restructures social-and unemployment policies in Sweden”

Heather Connolly, Grenoble Ecole de Management, Stefania Marino, Miguel Martinez Lucio and Holly Smith, Work and Equality Institute, University of Manchester “Findings from a cross-country comparative research on the politics and practices of equality at work”

Emmanuel Ogbonna, Cardiff Business School. Final remarks

Discussants:

Marcel Maussen, University of Amsterdam

Jenny Rodriguez, Work and Equalities Institute, University of Manchester

Q&A time