Local inefficiencies in french public-private diversity and inclusion policies: envisioning a locality-based intersectional analysis.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose to transpose the cross-disciplinary concept of intersectionality from an individual and community-based level to a locality-based context, where various intersecting economic, educational, ethnic and geographical disadvantages mutually reinforce each other.
Abstract: Purpose
This study aims to explore inefficiencies that arise from public and private policy initiatives undertaken in suburbs and outlying localities, where various intersecting economic, educational, ethnic and geographical disadvantages mutually reinforce each other. The authors propose to transpose the cross-disciplinary concept of intersectionality from an individual and community-based level (i.e. encompassing a variety of racial, ethnic and socio-economic minority communities) to a locality-based context.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical data underlying this study were based on a long-term field study drawing on both interviews and observations. A self-administered ethnographic research approach was combined with classic analyses of conversations transcribed verbatim, using qualitative coding.
Findings
The main actors’ inability to understand the concrete situations experienced by subjects residing in outlying localities, as well as the managers’ failure to cooperate and engage collectively to promote employment among these populations, can be explained by the ineffectiveness of the categories that were designed and used in carrying out managerial action, as part of corporate policy, and then implemented within factories. These findings are particularly well-illustrated by the relatively lower inefficiency of SMEs, which had more limited resources, as compared with the actions undertaken at production facilities run by large companies, even though the latter devoted considerable resources to vocational inclusion (recruitment, integration and job preservation) and efforts to combat discrimination.
Research limitations/implications
In identifying a new way to categorize a certain type of social dynamic driven by businesses and various social actors, the authors sought to overcome the epistemological obstacles that arise from relying on neo-institutional theory, which, when applied to the case at hand, would have merely resulted in mimetic similarities, without offering any means for unblocking the socio-economic factors that come into play. The limitations of the study are related to its strict temporal and geographic isolation (i.e. a two-year study examining three production facilities located within the same suburb north of Paris).
Practical implications
The authors hope the study will urge actors operating in the same disadvantaged locality to collectively address the multiple intersectional challenges that tend to render policies for social inclusion and economic development so difficult to implement within areas suffering from a myriad of socio-economic ills. The first step in that direction, the authors feel, consists in naming these intersectionalities adequately.
Originality/value
Using a rich empirical database, this paper aims to show the relevance of the concept of intersectionality beyond its traditional scope of application (disadvantaged minority communities and individuals) while directing interest toward a less anthropocentric level of analysis: the locality.
Citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effects of two economic freedom components, namely, regulatory efficiency on business freedom and monetary freedom; and market openness on investment freedom and financial freedom.
Abstract: Microfinance institutions (MFIs) play a significant role in society to help low-income consumers that liaise with sustainable development goals. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of two economic freedom components, namely, regulatory efficiency on business freedom and monetary freedom; and market openness on investment freedom and financial freedom. Their influence on the efficiency of MFIs in both social and financial ways is examined.,This study collected a total of 88 MFIs from Thailand and the Philippines for the years 2011 to 2017. The data envelopment analysis approach has been used to measure the MFIs’ efficiency level. Then, the ordinary least squares and generalised least square estimation methods serve to analyse the effects of economic freedom and other determinants on efficiency.,The results show that overall MFIs operate at an encouraging level. However, they were managerially inefficient when exploiting resources to achieve both social and financial efficiency. Therefore, MFIs should focus more on managerial operations to improve the level of efficiency. Results from panel regression analysis showed a mixed outcome for the relationship between economic freedom and MFIs’ efficiency both financially and socially. This suggested that different freedoms will result in different outcomes and significantly influence MFIs’ financial and social efficiency.,Regulatory efficiency and market openness are the vital aspects of economic freedom components that may significantly influence MFI’s performance specifically on social and financial efficiency. This study fills the research gap by examining the relationship between economic freedom components and specific MFIs’ social and financial efficiency, to ensure MFIs work to achieve sustainable development goals.
8 citations
References
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TL;DR: This paper explored the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color and found that the experiences of women of colour are often the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism.
Abstract: Over the last two decades, women have organized against the almost routine violence that shapes their lives. Drawing from the strength of shared experience, women have recognized that the political demands of millions speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices. This politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand violence against women. For example, battering and rape, once seen as private (family matters) and aberrational (errant sexual aggression), are now largely recognized as part of a broad-scale system of domination that affects women as a class. This process of recognizing as social and systemic what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual has also characterized the identity politics of people of color and gays and lesbians, among others. For all these groups, identity-based politics has been a source of strength, community, and intellectual development. The embrace of identity politics, however, has been in tension with dominant conceptions of social justice. Race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination-that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power works to exclude or marginalize those who are different. According to this understanding, our liberatory objective should be to empty such categories of any social significance. Yet implicit in certain strands of feminist and racial liberation movements, for example, is the view that the social power in delineating difference need not be the power of domination; it can instead be the source of political empowerment and social reconstruction. The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite- that it frequently conflates or ignores intra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class. Moreover, ignoring differences within groups frequently contributes to tension among groups, another problem of identity politics that frustrates efforts to politicize violence against women. Feminist efforts to politicize experiences of women and antiracist efforts to politicize experiences of people of color' have frequently proceeded as though the issues and experiences they each detail occur on mutually exclusive terrains. Al-though racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And so, when the practices expound identity as "woman" or "person of color" as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling. My objective here is to advance the telling of that location by exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color. Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have failed to consider the intersections of racism and patriarchy. Focusing on two dimensions of male violence against women-battering and rape-I consider how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism... Language: en
15,236 citations
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The authors discusses structural intersectionality, the ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection of race and gender makes their real experience of domestic violence, rape, and remedial reform qualitatively different from that of white women.
Abstract: Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have failed to consider the intersections of racism and patriarchy. To overcome this difficulty, an original approach is suggested here: that of intersectionality. In the first part, the paper discusses structural intersectionality, the ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection of race and gender makes their real experience of domestic violence, rape, and remedial reform qualitatively different from that of white women. The focus is shifted in the second part to political intersectionality, with the analysis of how both feminist and antiracist politics have functioned in tandem to marginalize the issue of violence against women of color. Finally, the implications of the intersectional approach are addressed within the broader scope of contemporary identity politics.
11,901 citations
Book•
09 Dec 1999
TL;DR: In this article, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe and provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde.
Abstract: In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.
10,052 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that intersectionality is the most important theoretical contribution women's studies, in conjunction with related fields, has made so far, and they even say that intersectional is a central category of analysis in women’s studies, and that women are perhaps alone in the academy in the extent to which they have embraced intersectionality.
Abstract: Since critics first allegedthat feminism claimed tospeak universally for all
women, feminist researchers havebeen acutely aware ofthe limitations of
genderas a single analyticalcategory. In fact, feministsare perhaps alone in
the academy in theextent to which theyhave embraced intersectionality – the
relationshipsamong multiple dimensions andmodalities of social relations
and subject formations – as itselfa central category ofanalysis. One could
evensay that intersectionality isthe most important theoreticalcontribution
that women’s studies,in conjunction with relatedfields, has made sofar.1
4,744 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions, and compared the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism.
Abstract: This article explores various analytical issues involved in conceptualizing the interrelationships of gender, class, race and ethnicity and other social divisions. It compares the debate on these issues that took place in Britain in the 1980s and around the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism. It examines issues such as the relative helpfulness of additive or mutually constitutive models of intersectional social divisions; the different analytical levels at which social divisions need to be studied, their ontological base and their relations to each other. The final section of the article attempts critically to assess a specific intersectional methodological approach for engaging in aid and human rights work in the South.
1,909 citations