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Conceptualizing and disrupting heteronormativity as performative in management education: Speech acts and LGBTQ* injurious language

Rumens, Nick, Lewis, Patricia (2023) Conceptualizing and disrupting heteronormativity as performative in management education: Speech acts and LGBTQ* injurious language. Academy of Management Learning & Education, . ISSN 1537-260X. E-ISSN 1944-9585. (doi:10.5465/amle.2021.0480) (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:99009)

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Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2021.0480

Abstract

A slowly expanding literature has examined the problem of heteronormativity in management education. Scholars converge on the view that heteronormativity is constituted in and through management education, reproducing heteronormative binaristic notions of sexuality and gender in management curricula, teaching activities, academic scholarship and business schools. This research has demonstrated the negative outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer* (LGBTQ*) people, but questions remain about how heteronormativity is constituted as normative in management education. Addressing this, our essay demonstrates how heteronormativity is performatively constituted as normative through language, and what management educators can do to disrupt it. Analytically, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, which emphasizes the constitutive power of language and repetition of speech acts, is pivotal to conceptualizing heteronormativity as performative. This essay interrogates the performative effects of LGBTQ* injurious speech acts, lamented by scholars as ubiquitous and harmful, showing how they constitute and sustain heteronormativity as normative in management education. Remedying this, our proposal derives insight from Butler’s ideas about reworking the power of injurious speech to inform management educators how they can disrupt the performativity of heteronormativity. In essence, this essay contributes novel theoretical ideas about conceptualizing and disrupting the performativity of heteronormativity in management education.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.5465/amle.2021.0480
Uncontrolled keywords: heteronormativity, performativity, Judith Butler, LGBTQ sexualities and genders, language, injurious speech, speech acts, management education, resignification
Subjects: H Social Sciences
Divisions: Divisions > Kent Business School - Division > Department of Leadership and Management
Funders: University of Kent (https://ror.org/00xkeyj56)
Depositing User: Patricia Lewis
Date Deposited: 08 Dec 2022 11:11 UTC
Last Modified: 03 Apr 2023 09:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/99009 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)
Lewis, Patricia: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9842-4412
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