While studies on the work people undertake on their ‘identities’ in professional contexts tend to focus on inner conversations between different possible selves, this paper considers the impact of ‘inherited’ prescriptions and expectations on such inner conversations and the entwining of identity work with historic conditions written onto the body. It does so by studying performing artists with dwarfism. Taking into account their long history of stereotypical roles within the entertainment sector and their visibly ‘different’ body which guarantees to solicit the gaze of others, this study considers identity in terms of the corporeal positioning of the self of artists whose position on stage is often morally disputed, both inside and outside the community of people with dwarfism. Analysing how people use their Othered bodies as a symbolic resource for identity work, we describe three different ways of engaging in embodied identity work: identity ‘ethicalization’, through stereotype-avoiding bodywork, ‘queering’, through stereotype-provoking bodywork, and ‘distancing’, through stereotype-acting bodywork. Each strategy is an attempt to redress the incoherence between preferred (personally aspired) and ascribed (historically inherited) identity. By analysing how people preserve an aspirational self and defy the image of being Other, this study contributes to existing debates by highlighting the role of history and the symbolic use of ‘oddity’ as an instrument in embodied identity work. In addition, it offers a reflective note on the problem of ‘academic exoticism’ through the sensitization of Other bodies and on the potential of able-bodied allyship to attenuate the lack of disability knowledge in management and organization studies.
AdelsonBetty (2005a). Dwarfs: The changing lives of archetypal ‘curiosities’—and echoes of the past. Disability Studies Quarterly, 25.
2.
AdelsonBetty (2005b). The lives of dwarfs: Their journey from public curiosity toward social liberation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
3.
AhujaSumatiHeizmannHelenaCleggStewart (2019). Emotions and identity work: Emotions as discursive resources in the constitution of junior professionals’ identities. Human Relations, 72, 988–1009.
4.
AlvessonMats (2003). Beyond neopositivists, romantics, and localists: A reflexive approach to interviews in organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 28, 13–33.
5.
AlvessonMatsAshcraftKarenThomasRobyn (2008). Identity matters: Reflections on the construction of identity scholarship in organization studies. Organization, 15, 5–28.
6.
AlvessonMatsRobertsonMaxine (2016). Money matters: Teflonic identity manoeuvring in the investment banking sector. Organization Studies, 37, 7–34.
7.
AlvessonMatsSpicerAndré (2016). The stupidity paradox: The power and pitfalls of functional stupidity at work. London: Profile Books.
8.
AlvessonMatsWillmottHugh (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 619–644.
9.
AshforthBlakeKreinerGlen (1999). “How can you do it?”: Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review, 24, 413–434.
10.
AshforthBlakeKreinerGlen (2014). Dirty work and dirtier work: Differences in countering physical, social, and moral stigma. Management and Organization Review, 10, 81–108.
BeechNic (2008). On the nature of dialogic identity work. Organization, 15, 51–74.
13.
BeechNicGilmoreCharlotteHibbertPaulYbemaSierk (2016). Identity-in-the-work and musicians’ struggles: The production of self-questioning identity work. Work, Employment and Society, 30, 506–522.
14.
BennettDawnHennekamSophie (2018). Self-authorship and creative industries workers’ career decision-making. Human Relations, 71, 1454–1477.
15.
BiernackiPatrickWaldorfDan (1981). Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological Methods & Research, 10, 141–163.
16.
BogdanRobert (1990 [1988]). Freak show: Presenting human oddities for amusement and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17.
BourdieuPierre (1993). Sociology in question. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
18.
BrownAndrew D. (2019). Identities in organization studies. Organization Studies, 40, 7–22.
19.
CampbellFiona (2009). Contours of ableism: The production of disability and abledness. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
20.
ChandlerElizaRiceCarla (2013). Alterity in/of happiness: Reflecting on the radical possibilities of unruly bodies. Health, Culture and Society, 5, 230–248.
21.
ChenKatherine K. (2016). Using extreme cases to understand organizations. In ElsbachKimberley D.KramerRoderick M. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative organizational research: Innovative pathways and methods (pp. 33–44). London: Routledge.
22.
CollinsonDavid L. (2003). Identities and insecurities: Selves at work. Organization, 10, 527–547.
23.
ContuAlessia (2008). Decaf resistance: On misbehavior, cynicism, and desire in liberal workplaces. Management Communication Quarterly, 21, 364–379.
24.
CouplandChristine (2001). Accounting for change: A discourse analysis of graduate trainees’ talk of adjustment. Journal of Management Studies, 38, 1103–1119.
25.
CourpassonDavidMontiesVanessa (2017). “I am my body”. Physical selves of police officers in a changing institution. Journal of Management Studies, 54, 32–57.
26.
CunliffeAnn L. (2003). Reflexive inquiry in organizational research: Questions and possibilities. Human Relations, 56, 983–1003.
27.
DanieliArdhaWoodhamsCarol (2005). Emancipatory research methodology and disability: A critique. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8, 281–296.
28.
De CosterMarjanZanoniPatrizia (2019). Governing through accountability: Gendered moral selves and the (im)possibilities of resistance in the neoliberal university. Gender, Work & Organization, 26, 411–429.
29.
De SouzaEloisioParkerMartin (2020). Practices of freedom and the disruption of binary genders: Thinking with trans. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420935602.
30.
DickPenny (2015). To see ourselves as others see us? Incorporating the constraining role of socio-cultural practices in the theorization of micropolitical resistance. Gender, Work & Organization, 22, 16–35.
31.
EisenhardtKathleen M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14, 532–550.
32.
EllisLesley (2018). Through a filtered lens: Unauthorized picture-taking of people with dwarfism in public spaces. Disability and Society, 33, 218–237.
33.
EllisNickYbemaSierk (2010). Marketing identities: Shifting circles of identification in inter-organizational relationships. Organization Studies, 31, 279–305.
34.
ErevellesNirmala (2011). Disability and difference in global contexts: Enabling a transformative body politic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
35.
FriedmanSamO’BrienDave (2017). Resistance and resignation: Responses to typecasting in British acting. Cultural Sociology, 11, 359–376.
36.
Garland-ThomsonRosemarie (1997). Extraordinary bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
37.
GerberDavid A. (1992). Volition and valorization in the analysis of the ‘careers’ of people exhibited in freak shows. Disability, Handicap and Society, 7, 53–69.
38.
GevaertBert (2016). Het grote verhaal van kleine mensen – Een geschiedenis. Leuven: Davidsfonds.
39.
GoffmanErving (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Prentice-Hall.
40.
HardyCynthiaPhillipsNelsonCleggStewart (2001). Reflexivity in organization and management theory: A study of the production of the research ‘subject’. Human Relations, 54, 531–560.
41.
HuizingaJohan (2007). Herfsttij der middeleeuwen. Amsterdam: Olympus.
42.
JammaersEline (2021a). Embodied reflections of an able-bodied disability scholar. Gender, Work & Organization. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12714.
43.
JammaersEline (2021b). On ableism and anthropocentrism: A canine perspective on the workplace inclusion of disabled people. Human Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211057549.
44.
JammaersElineWilliamsJannine (2021a). Care for the self, overcompensation and bodily crafting: The work-life balance of disabled people. Gender, Work & Organization, 28, 119–137.
45.
JammaersElineWilliamsJannine (2021b). Turning disability into a business: Disabled entrepreneurs’ anomalous bodily capital. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084211032312.
46.
JammaersElineZanoniPatrizia (2020). Unexpected entrepreneurs: The identity work of entrepreneurs with disabilities. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 32, 879–898.
47.
JammaersElineZanoniPatrizia (2021). The identity regulation of disabled employees: Unveiling the ‘varieties of ableism’ in employers’ socio-ideological control. Organization Studies, 42, 429–452.
48.
KennyKate M. (2010). Beyond ourselves: Passion and the dark side of identification in an ethical organization. Human Relations, 63, 857–873.
49.
KornbergerMartinBrownAndrew D. (2007). ‘Ethics’ as a discursive resource for identity work. Human Relations, 60, 497–518.
50.
KruseRobert J. (2003). Narrating intersections of gender and dwarfism in everyday spaces. Canadian Geographer, 47, 494–508.
51.
MavinSharonGrandyGina (2013). Doing gender well and differently in dirty work: The case of exotic dancing. Gender, Work & Organization, 20, 232–251.
52.
MavinSharonGrandyGina (2016). A theory of abject appearance: Women elite leaders’ intra-gender ‘management’ of bodies and appearance. Human Relations, 69, 1095–1120.
53.
McRuerRobert (2006). Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability. New York: New York University Press.
54.
McRuerRobert (2010). Compulsory able-bodiedness and queer/disabled existence. In DavisLennard J. (Ed.), The disability studies reader (3rd edn) (pp. 383–392). New York: Routledge.
55.
NiccoliOttavia (1990). ‘Menstruum quasi monstruum’: Monstrous births and menstrual taboo in the sixteenth century. In MuirEdwardRuggieroGuido (Eds.), Sex and gender in historical perspective (pp. 1–25). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
56.
ParkerMartin (2002). Queering management and organization. Gender, Work & Organization, 9, 146–166.
57.
ParkerMartin (2016). Queering queer. Gender, Work & Organization, 23, 71–73.
ShakespeareTom (1999). Joking a part. Body and Society, 5, 47–52.
62.
ShakespeareTom (2015). It’s time dwarfs stopped demeaning themselves in public. The Telegraph, 6February. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk
63.
ShakespeareTomThompsonSueWrightMichael (2010). No laughing matter: Medical and social experiences of restricted growth. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 12, 19–31.
64.
ShildrickMargrit (2009). Dangerous discourses of disability, subjectivity and sexuality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
65.
ShildrickMargrit (2012). Critical disability studies: Rethinking the conventions for the age of postmodernity. In WatsonNickRoulstoneAlanThomasCarol (Eds.), Routledge handbook of disability studies (pp. 30–41). London: Routledge.
66.
SimpsonRuthSlutskayaNatashaHughesJason (2012). Gendering and embodying dirty work: Men managing taint in the context of nursing care. In SimpsonRuthSlutskayaNatashaLewisPatriciaHöpflHeather (Eds.), Dirty work: Concepts and identities (pp. 165–181). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
67.
SlayHolly S.SmithDelmonize A. (2011). Professional identity construction: Using narrative to understand the negotiation of professional and stigmatized cultural identities. Human Relations, 64, 85–107.
68.
SlutskayaNatashaGameAnnilee M.SimpsonRuth (2018). Better together: Examining the role of collaborative ethnographic documentary in organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 21, 341–365.
69.
SmallMario L. (2009). ‘How many cases do I need?’ On science and the logic of case selection in field-based research. Ethnography, 10, 5–38.
70.
SpicerAndréAlvessonMatsKärremanDan (2009). Critical performativity: The unfinished business of critical management studies. Human Relations, 62, 537–560.
71.
SrinivasNidhi (2013). Could a subaltern manage? Identity work and habitus in a colonial workplace. Organization Studies, 34, 1655–1674.
72.
SwainJohnFrenchSally (2000). Towards an affirmation model of disability. Disability & Society, 15, 569–582.
73.
ThanemTorkildWallenbergLouise (2016). Just doing gender? Transvestism and the power of underdoing gender in everyday life and work. Organization, 23, 250–271.
van AmsterdamNoortjevan EckDide (2019). “I have to go the extra mile”. How fat female employees manage their stigmatized identity at work. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 35, 46–55.
78.
WatsonTony J. (2009). Narrative, life story and manager identity: A case study in autobiographical identity work. Human Relations, 62, 425–452.
79.
WendellSusan (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. New York: Routledge.
80.
WiltonRobert D. (2003). Locating physical disability in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis: Problems and prospects. Social & Cultural Geography, 4, 369–389.
81.
YbemaSierk (2020). Bridging self and sociality: Identity construction and social context. In BrownAndrew D. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of identities in organizations (pp. 51–67). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
82.
YbemaSierkKeenoyTomOswickCliffBeverungenArminEllisNickSabelisIda (2009). Articulating identities. Human Relations, 62, 299–322.
83.
YbemaSierkThomasRobynHardyCynthia (2016). Organizational change and resistance: An identity perspective. In CourpassonDavidVallasSteven (Eds.), The Sage handbook of resistance (pp. 386–404). London: SAGE Publications.
84.
ZanoniPatriziaThoelenAnneliesYbemaSierk (2017). Unveiling the subject behind diversity: Exploring the micro-politics of representation in ethnic minority creatives’ identity work. Organization, 24, 330–354.
