Research
You will find a complete range of our peer-reviewed monographs, multi-authored and edited works, including original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
Chapter 1 reflects on the difficulty of transforming unequal organizational settings into more equal and socially just spaces. This critical reflection is crucial, as it clarifies what to avoid when practicing diversity. Drawing on critical diversity, gender, and race literature, the chapter identifies three interconnected blockages that obstruct most efforts to change the inhospitable nature of organizational settings, largely because they fail to address the systematic nature of inequality. First, it discusses the pervasive influence of the neoliberal discourse, which drives instrumentalization and individualization within organizational life. Next, it explores how entrenched societal stereotypes and stigmas extend into organizational settings, perpetuating subtle forms of discrimination. Finally, it analyses the limitations of current diversity initiatives, which struggle to transform inhospitable organizational spaces due to their neutral, instrumental, individual, and cognitive nature.
The Conclusion presents the distinct proposal of practicing diversity with an explicit aim towards social transformation. Drawing on critical practice theory, queer theory, and the integrated research case within the dance world, it combines the conditions of possibility developed in earlier chapters into a politics of organizational worldmaking oriented at multiplicity. The Conclusion begins by revisiting what not to do when practicing diversity, to then introduce the politics of organizational worldmaking that consists of three spaces: a problematizing space, an experimental space, and a collaborative space. Each space is described through an evocative account and a schematic box outlining various dimensions, highlighting each space’s role in worldmaking: an experiential moment of exploration, a playful moment of experimentation, and a collaborative moment of engagement.
This introduction outlines the authors’ reflexive positioning to explain to the reader the premises of their distinct proposal to reimagine the practicing of diversity. It highlights three aspects of epistemic positionality that shaped the proposal’s development. First, it addresses the authors’ personal research experiences, showing how their engagement with the history of diversity and the theoretical turns in social science informs the proposal. Next, it discusses the proposal’s metatheoretical foundation, emphasizing the importance of a relational ontology that highlights the non-binary, performative aspects of social life. Finally, the introduction shares the imaginary endorsed in the book, focusing on the central concepts of multiplicity, its affective layer, and the importance of future worldmaking. It concludes with an overview of the book’s organization.
Chapter 4 presents an integrative research case within the dance world to illustrate and further develop the conditions of possibility for practicing diversity differently. It documents how multiplicity was enabled in three dance productions while simultaneously striving for social transformation within the dance field, ultimately resulting in organizational worldmaking. The case demonstrates how meaningful change can begin with small, personal actions that, over time, evolve into a collective practice. The chapter introduces the case by discussing its purposiveness of bringing diversity to the world of dance, the three practices – mixing, inverting, and affirming – that jointly, over time and space, contribute to playful worldmaking through affective attunement among diverse bodies, the affordances of materiality for experiencing the possibility of worldmaking, and the emergence of a new organizational setting, which serves as an example of organizational worldmaking.
How can diversity be practiced without reinforcing the very inequalities it aims to dismantle?
In this book, Maddy Janssens and Chris Steyaert address this pressing question by critically examining the assumptions behind current diversity initiatives and turning to critical practice theory and queer theory for novel insights. Through imaginative concepts, inspiring illustrations, and an integrative case study within the dance world, the authors articulate the ‘conditions of possibility’ for a fresh, impactful alternative. This book advocates for a shift from individual efforts to collective practices, proposing a politics of organizational worldmaking oriented at multiplicity – a practicing of diversity that aspires to transformative change into livable and just work lives.
As a first theoretical inspiration, Chapter 2 examines how critical practice theory can guide diversity scholars and practitioners to rethink the practicing of diversity. Drawing on practice theory’s processual view on organizing, it introduces new concepts to the field of diversity and reconceptualizes the possibility of multiplicity as the net effect of practices and their associations or nexus. The chapter then illustrates the potential of practice theory for advancing the practicing of diversity through three research examples, demonstrating how the ends of practices, material arrangements, and the nature of the association among the practices are critical in organizing differences. Building on these concepts and examples, the chapter concludes by articulating three conditions of possibility that support the organizing of multiplicity.
Chapter 3 introduces queer theory as a second theoretical perspective to guide diversity scholars and practitioners rethink the practicing of diversity. Drawing on queer theory’s ontological, phenomenological, and political tenets, it proposes a new approach to address identity-related concerns in organizational settings – one that avoids reinforcing reified, negative representations of individuals and groups. The chapter advocates for conceptualizing identity as the formation of a multiplicitous self, acknowledging feeling and knowing otherwise, and viewing transformation as a process of disidentification and worldmaking. It then demonstrates the potential of queer theory through three arts-based examples, illustrating how to possibly live and work along these three tenets. Finally, building on the tenets and examples, the chapter concludes by articulating three conditions of possibility that further support the reimagination of practicing diversity.
One of the main career stages that contributes to the gender imbalance among academic staff in physics is the transition from PhD to postdoc. At this stage, many woman physics students give up on an academic career path. To explore the causes of the gender imbalance at this stage, we focused on the decision-making juncture between PhD and postdoc. We used the mixed-methods paradigm, combining a nationwide representative survey among PhD students in Israel (n=267/404) and interviews with PhD students and postdoctoral fellows (n=38). The theoretical novelty that we suggest is viewing the career decision-making in this context as a ‘deal’, which involves contextual, organizational, and individual variables and their intersection. We argue that women are examining the components of this deal: what it offers them and what prices they will have to pay, but their decisions are made within a gendered power structure. Studying both context factors and agency, we reveal the multiple and hidden ways in which gender operates as a power structure, putting up barriers to women’s academic careers. This latent power structure influences women’s decision-making and experiences in several ways. In the academic field, it produces unequal competition in a male-dominated playground. In the social sphere, choosing a demanding academic career is seen as disrupting the gender order in Israel. Within the family, Israeli culture determines that women carry a greater burden of family work and give precedence to their husband’s career and preferences. Within this social structure, women who decide to follow an academic career feel that they must excel. The demand for ‘excellence’ acts as a hidden mechanism within the gender power structure that may prevent talented women from pursuing an academic career in physics.
The aim of this chapter is to explore personal stories of physicists including their own experiences and views on under-representation of women in physics. Discussions around the under-representation in physics often focus on structural factors that influence the attraction and retention of minorities into the field. In this chapter we focus on individual perceptions of the culture and environment in physics and the common themes that emerge from physicists’ experiences.
This chapter overviews the contribution of the collection to our understanding of the under-representation of women in physics. The chapter is divides into four sections: (1) it demonstrates the loss to physics as a discipline through the marginalization of women; (2) we address the question of why the under-representation of women in physics remains endemic and slow to change; (3) we argue that strategic leadership, evidence-based policies, and successful role models are essential for change to be effective; and (4) we conclude by offering recommendations for policy to achieve a sustainable culture shift in academic physics.
