simultaneity speaker series

Opportunities and Challenges in bringing more of ourselves to work

CGO Speaker SeriesSimmons School of Management

February 9, 2012

Evangelina Holvino, Ed.D.

SIMULTANEITY

Agenda

Part 1: The why of simultaneity

Part 2: The theory of simultaneity

Part 3: The practice of simultaneity

© 2012 EVANGELINA HOLVINO 2

Part 1: The Why?


The challenges to feminism

The USA, 1974, The Combahee River Collective

Committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression.The development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

Hull, et al, 1982, All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are Brave.

4

Women in Globalization

5

Marvel’s New Spiderman

© 2011 MARVEL COMICS 6

Part 2: The Theory


Changing assumptions about differences

From treating differences as To treating differences as

•Innate•Essential•Independent; additive

•One-dimensional•Fixed•Universal

•Socially constructed•Power relations•Interacting; interdependent•Multiple•Changing•Historical; contextual


Metaphor: The Diversity Wheel

9http://www.robindiangelo.com/

Metaphor: Intrapersonal Networks

© 2011 LAKSHMI RAMARAJAN 10

Indian

Mother

Wellesley

American

EnhancementConflict

AmericanAmericanParentParent

WhartonWharton

IndianIndianAcademicAcademic

AmericanAmericanParentParent

WhartonWharton

IndianIndianAcademicAcademic

Metaphor: Intersection/ality

©1992 BELL & NKOMO 11

Gender Race

Ethnicity Class

Identity

.

Revisioning Women Manager’s Lives, Bell and Stella Nkomo, 1992

Simultaneity: A hologram Race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, nation, … are simultaneous processes of:individual identityorganizational practicesand societal processes


• All together and at the same time…• Always changing…• Constructed in interaction…

Simultaneity Model:Multiple and Contradictory


Religion

Race

Ethnicity

Gender

Class

Sexuality

Nationality

Age

Within USA

Simultaneity Model: Contextual


Religion

Race

Ethnicity

Gender

Class

Sexuality

Nationality

Age

Outside USA

Simultaneity Model A Choice?


Religion

Race

Ethnicity

Gender

Class

Sexuality

Nationality

Age

© 2012 EVANGELINA HOLVINO16

Simultaneity Model Three Processes

INDIVIDUAL GROUP/ORGANIZATIONAL

SOCIETAL

Opportunities

Enhance congruence and intergroup relations: Openness More diverse networks Innovative team performance

Deploy differences fluidly to enhance the taskDeconstruct “oppressed-oppressor” dichotomy:

More fluid & “productive” understandings of power

In Ramarajan and Thomas, 2010, A positive approach to studying diversity in organizations17

Simultaneity in action


The USA Supreme Court: Changing the culture?


Challenge:Miniaturization

Suppressing ones’ complex identities

Forcing a choice for a predominant identity that “drowns other

affiliations.” In this case:

Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence. 2006 20

Mother, Accountant, Mexican,Catholic, Woman, Heterosexual, etc.

GENDER “floats”

Everything else “drowns”:Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, Class, Religion, Sexuality, etc.

Part 3: The Practice


Developing Awareness: Teaching and Learning


Understand and own one’s multiple identities and differences

Activity: Step 1Owning Your Simultaneous Identities


Religion

Race

Ethnicity

Gender

Class

Sexuality

Nationality

Age

?

Activity: Step 2 Claiming (or not) one’s differences

Think of a situation, especially a leadership situation, where you found yourself claiming

or not claiming your complex identities.

What about the context made it so?

Share with one other person.


Simultaneity Practices

© 2012 Evangelina Holvino

Owningcomplexity

Managing pressure for for singularity

Location in time and space i.e. context

Heteroglossia

Discernment

25

(Holvino, 2012)

Application: Developing Awareness and Actions

© 2012 EVANGELINA HOLVINO26

Step 3Move beyond the individual to connect ones’ differences/identities to structures of power, inequality, change, and the task.

Gains of simultaneity

“The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent

in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity, and in the appreciation that they cut across each

other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of

impenetrable division.”

Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence, 2006

27

Q & A & COMMENTS


Thank youEVANGELINA HOLVINO, Ed.D.

CHAOS MANAGEMENT, LTD.178 Meetinghouse Lane

BRATTLEBORO, VT 05301802.257.5218

[email protected]

Dr. Holvino is also Affiliate FacultyCenter for Gender in Organizations

Simmons College, Boston, Massachusettswww.simmons.edu/som/cgo


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