Marjolein Dennissen

61 An intersectional analysis of diversity networks example, in research addressing gender inequality and the advancement of women, women are often considered as a single, homogeneous group. As such, current studies on diversity management practices fail to theorize the heterogeneity within identity categories. Single identity approaches ignore the complex reality of multiple differences and inequalities (Nkomo & Hoobler, 2014; Tatli & Özbilgin, 2012). For example, Kalev et al. (2006) showed that diversity management practices work out differently for various groups of employees in US organizations: while white women significantly benefitted from networking programs, black women do not, and black men are even disadvantaged by these programs. Since the mid-1990s, studies with a more critical perspective on organizational diversity management have emerged (Nkomo & Hoobler, 2014; Prasad & Mills, 1997; Zanoni et al., 2010). Critical diversity scholars took issue with the fixed, predefined, essentialist notions of identity categories and developed an understanding of diversity and identities as “socially (re)produced in on-going, context-specific processes” (Zanoni et al., 2010, p. 10). Individuals always have multiple identities that intersect in various ways through time and space. Yet, thus far, intersectionality has not been studied in relation to diversity management practices in organizations. Apart from critical diversity studies, the diversity management literature has been "almost deaf" to the realities of multiple identities and their intersections (Nkomo & Hoobler, 2015, p. 255). In this chapter, I will take into account multiple identity categories by applying an intersectionality lens to study single category diversity networks. Intersectionality in organizations Intersectionality can be defined as the interaction betweenmultiple categories of difference (Davis, 2008; Holvino, 2010). Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) first coined the term intersectionality in her law study on discrimination against black women. According to Crenshaw (1989), these women were not discriminated against because theywerewomen, nor were they discriminated against because theywere black, theywere discriminated against because theywere blackwomen. Crenshaw (1989) used the concept of intersectionality to help scholars think about different identities and howthese identities possibly collide inways that are not understood by focusing on single identity categories. Within black feminist scholarship, intersectionality was used to critique feminist research for a lack of consciousness of the experiences of women of color, who unlike white women are neither white nor economically privileged (Crenshaw, 1991; Holvino, 2010). Feminists of color criticized the essentialism inherent in the dominant liberal white feminist paradigm that defined women as a homogeneous group (Holvino, 2010; McCall, 2005). Counterbalancing this paradigm, the introduction of intersectionality made way for the recognition of differences among women and, moreover, for a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of other identity categories on women’s identities, experiences and struggles (Holvino, 2010). Since Crenshaw (1989) introduced the term, intersectionality has become a thriving concept (see, inter alia, Collins & Bilge, 2016; Cho, Crenshaw & McCall, 2013; Davis, 2008; Hancock, 2007; Holvino, 2010; McCall, 2005; Nash, 2008; Rodriguez et al., 2016; Yuval-Davis, 2006; Zanoni &