The political economy of diversity: Theorizing the unequal valuation of social identities as a class process

Abstract

The paper advances a class theory of diversity to re-conceptualize the role of socio-demographic identities in the reproduction of symbolic and material inequality in organizations. Drawing on Resnick and Wolff’s process theory of class, it is argued that the capitalist process enjoins socio-demographic identity categories in the valuation underlying the unequal distribution of value among economic actors. This theoretical approach is used to theorize the nexus between diversity and inequality in a way that better accounts for the specific nature of capitalistic organizing and to envision novel research questions and empirical foci of investigation. The paper contributes to the critically oriented diversity literature by reconnecting symbolic inequality to material effects in a non-essentialistic, non-deterministic way. It further contributes to the broader field critical management studies by pointing to the analytical and political potency of a process theory of class.