Marjolein Dennissen

46 The Herculean task of diversity networks individual responsibility for one’s career. “Feeling at home” is a second subgoal. One of the board members explains that he had to “turn some switches” in his behavior to fit in when he just started to work in Finance. He therefore considers it is important that ethnic minority employees have to “turn as little switches” as possible to feel at home within the organization. For employees to feel at home and to facilitate the exchange of experiences, the network organizes monthly drinks. A third subgoal is to increase visibility and create awareness of ethnic diversity through an ongoing dialogue between members and senior management. The network wants to serve as a “collective voice” to influence the agenda of the board of directors on diversity-related matters. The network organizes regular lunches and drinks for network members, managers and members of the board of directors. I note that the board members emphasize the importance of awareness, calling attention to ethnic diversity and the struggles ethnicminority employeesmay encounter. Yet, inmy interviews I observe ambivalence towards being visible as a network that spotlights ethnic diversity. We do not want to give the impression that it is only for foreigners or something… The impression is just, we want to bond and connect, so then you want to include everybody. But that is a difficult task. (Hassan) It sounds a bit contradictory, but you have… I think you need it on the long term to show that actually you just belong to the [organization]. (…) To show that it is just something very normal. (…) And what is needed not to have it on the map any more, is to first put it on the map. (Glenn) Hassan explicitly states that the network should not become or be labeled as a network exclusively for ethnic minorities. Glenn voices similar feelings when he presents the ethnic minority network as a means to an end, the end being belongingness. Employees with a cultural diverse background are not different from any other employee, they are “normal”. Glenn constructs equality in the sense of sameness , avoiding any reference to inequality. This is “a bit contradictory”, as he also notes himself, because the network is legitimate exactly because of its focus on ethnic diversity. On the one hand, the board members state that it is important to increase the visibility of ethnic diversity, so that ethnic minority employees fit in without the need to assimilate. On the other hand, ethnic diversity should be “normal”. Increasing the importance of ethnic diversity implicates more visibility of ethnic diversity, but that goes against the wishes of the board members for belongingness and blending in with the majority. In doing so, they are losing difference for equality. Board members invoke discourses of belongingness and visibility, in line with what Ghorashi and Sabelis (2013) call “a struggle in relation to sameness and difference” (p. 79). This struggle is affected by a larger societal discourse on ethnic minorities, in which ethnic minorities are constructed as a deviation from the norm, and therefore as lacking (Ghorashi & Sabelis, 2013; Siebers, 2010). This is illustrated by existing tensions between the network and