Guest Editors

Michelle Mielly

Grenoble Ecole de Management (France)
michelle.mielly@grenoble-em.com

Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray

Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil)
helio.irigaray@fgv.br

Penelope Muzanenhamo

University College Dublin (Ireland)
penelope.muzanenhamo@ucd.ie

Sandiso Bazana

Grenoble Ecole de Management (France)
sandiso.bazana@grenoble-em.com

Ana Maria Peredo

University of Ottawa (Canada)
aperedo@uottawa.ca

Gazi Islam

Grenoble Ecole de Management (France)
Institut de Recherche en Gestion et Economie - IREGE (France)
gazi.islam@grenoble-em.com

This call for papers aims to provide greater visibility of decolonial perspectives in management theory and research and has the potential to contribute to a political and intellectual renewal of scholarly engagement in critical questions of history and historical subjectivity. It invites us to critically examine the embeddedness of imperialism and colonialism in the linguistic, heuristic, ontological, and epistemological foundations of management research, curriculum, and teaching. It enables a critical engagement with Eurocentric ways of being and thinking to embrace what Mignolo and Walsh (2018) refer to as “decolonial pluriversality” - the capacity of local praxes and epistemologies to illuminate, relate, or correlate to those existing in other places.

Contemporary political polarization in an ‘age of anger’ (Mishra, 2017) means identity politics and competing claims for official recognition have eclipsed the traditional struggle for economic gains, greatly altering the political landscape of the progressive left. The rise of populism has exposed ‘cracks’ in the social fabric, requiring not only the formation of new categories but what Mbembe (2016) calls the “demythologizing” work of history, memory, and race. The 2020 public assassination of George Floyd gave way to the globalization of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-police violence social movements, engendering renewed calls for decolonizing our institutions, badly in need of reexamination. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved in 2007, has put pressure on governments and other organizations, at various levels and around the world, to recognize and respect indigenous ways of life (Verbos, Henry, & Peredo, 2017), which, once again, inevitably leads us to questions about decolonization.

Studies on knowledge and praxes decolonization can provide more nuanced understanding of the identity claims deeply interwoven into the fabric of organizational life. Drawing on different ontological perspectives, including decolonial (Mbembe, 2016), Afrodiasporic (Bernardino-Costa, Maldonado-Torres, & Grosfoguel, 2018), indigenous economy (Peredo & McLean 2010), postcapitalism and whiteness (Banerjee & Tedmanson, 2010), postcolonial (Nkomo, 2011), pluriverse (Escobar, 2018), and epistemic (Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2021), this call for papers intends to highlight the engagement with alternative forms of knowledge and practice from the geographical, political, and economic margins, both “North,” “South,” and the hybrid spaces within and between each (Islam, 2012). We welcome empirical and theoretical papers examining decolonial, critical, and postmodern perspectives that:

•

Explore challenges to dominant forms of managing identity-claims and historical grievances put forth by the “colonized” in a given organizational setting.

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Discuss how resistance/re-existence may provide possible pathways to overcome the historical inheritance “colonized” societies, minority and/or marginalized groups, particularly within the organizational sphere, and how acts of resistance help (re)construct knowledge in Management and Organization Studies (MOS).

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Discuss paradoxical, ambivalent, and ambiguous facets of decolonial resistance, reified not only in social movements but also in organizational practices (such as affinity groups and employee resource groups), as well as individual acts, gestures, movements, and practices.

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Decolonize and renew research on careers, mobility, vocational identity or humanitarian work, from the perspectives of local workers in non-traditional contexts or in host countries. This perspective is very different from the emphasis on cosmopolitan expatriates, executives and highly skilled professionals from the global north who work in multinationals (Mielle & Peticca-Harris 2022).

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Investigate exclusionary experiences in the workplace and how a decolonial or decolonizing approach to knowledge and epistemological production could provide pathways to inclusive praxis.

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Approach and identify new decolonial identities, demands, and desires emerging in the contemporary organizational and social contexts of a post-COVID societal transformation.

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Examine challenges in organizational life imposed by the decolonial impetus, e.g., (re)configuration of society and politics as a response to neoconservative reactionary movements or the incursion of the political into the professional sphere.

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Elaborate epistemological approaches to decolonizing and decolonial perspectives and practices in management knowledge production, for example, through Mignolo’s reframing of Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus in light of subaltern, indigenous, or peripheral management knowledge production.

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Highlight the linguistic, cultural, or managerial practices emblematic of the “colonization of the mind” in organizational life and/or how management learning and practice could engage in “decolonizing the mind.”

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Examine cases in which ‘decolonial pluriversality (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) is embodied in organizational practices; or theorize the sorts of management and knowledge management scenarios that could support its flourishing.

The topics listed above are not exhaustive. They illustrate the goals of this call for papers and studies approaching related topics are welcome. Scholars may send informal queries to the Guest Editors to assess whether a topic fits the purpose of this call for papers.

INSTRUCTIONS TO SUBMIT YOUR PAPER

REFERENCES

Banerjee, S., & Tedmanson, D. (2010). Grass burning under our feet: Indigenous enterprise development in a political economy of whiteness. Management Learning, 41(2), 147-165.

Bernardino-Costa, J., Maldonado-Torres, N., & Grosfoguel, R. (2018). Decolonialidade e Pensamento Afrodiaspórico. Belo Horizonte, MG: Autêntica Editora.

Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Islam, G. (2012). Can the subaltern eat? Anthropophagic culture as a Brazilian lens on post-colonial theory. Organization, 19(2), 159-180.

Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: new directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29-45.

Mielly, M., & Peticca-Harris, A. (2022). Local worker perspectives from Nicaraguan surf tourism: revisiting career anchors in non-standard work contexts. Career Development International, 27(2), 245-259.

Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C. (2018). On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Mishra, P. (2017). Age of Anger: A history of the Present. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

Muzanenhamo P., & Chowdhury R. (2021). Epistemic injustice and hegemonic ordeal in management and organization studies: Advancing Black scholarship. Human Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211014802

Nkomo, S. M. (2011). A postcolonial and anti-colonial reading of ‘African’ leadership and management in organization studies: tensions, contradictions, and possibilities. Organization, 18(3), 365-386.

Peredo, A. M., & McLean, M. (2010). Indigenous development and the cultural captivity of entrepreneurship. Business & Society, 52(4), 592-620.

Verbos, A. K., Henry, E., & Peredo, A. M. (2017). Indigenous Aspirations and Rights: The Case for Responsible Business and Management. London, UK: Routledge.

EDITORIAL BOARD

PhD. Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray
Editor-in-Chief

PhD. Fabricio Stocker
Associate Editor

Fabiana Braga Leal
Editorial Assistant

Jackelyne de Oliveira da Silva
Editorial Assist

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