Repressive Equality Regimes: How Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Initiatives Constrain Equality and Conceal Politics at Work
研究澳大利亚三家企业的实地调查，揭示多元化、平等与包容倡议（DEI）如何通过压制性平等体制阻碍真正的平等进展，对关注组织变革和职场公平的学者与管理者有启示。
This paper examines how diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives (DEI) hinder better outcomes for the workforce labelled as diverse. Fieldwork in three Australian organisations demonstrated that the lack of progress towards equality was not just caused by the persistence of inequality but by how the practice of equality perpetuated a repressive status quo. Bringing together Joan Acker’s ‘inequality regimes’ and Herbert Marcuse’s ‘repressive tolerance’ explains how the understanding and enactment of equality constrain workplace change. From this, ‘repressive equality regimes’ is developed to explain how the ensemble of culturally organised sets of practices that seemingly promote DEI prevent achieving meaningful progress towards equality. ‘Repressive equality regimes’ registers the disassociating and segregating processes that create and maintain hierarchies of difference, limit the tolerance of ‘others’ and bound equality to an unchallengeable practice. To address structural inequalities and embed sustainable change at work it is essential to illuminate the political in DEI.