Marjolein Dennissen

81 An intersectional analysis of diversity networks a close collaboration between scholars and practitioners is needed. This collaboration helps to develop diversity management practices that go beyond the business case (Tomlinson & Schwabenland, 2010) and to better assess how diversity management practices impact processes of power and privilege that sustain and (re)produce inequalities. As Verloo (2006) notes, practices on one axis of inequality are almost never neutral to other axes. A close examination and awareness of the simultaneous processes of disadvantage and privilege would enable diversity researchers and practitioners to explicitly address and interrogate them. Furthermore, my findings suggest that it is also important to involve privileged members of historically marginalized groups in diversity management practices. Although addressing privilege will not be an easy task, starting these conversations is indispensable to advance awareness of intersectionality, intersectional marginalization and the implications for equality and social justice (Atewologun & Sealy, 2014). Drawing on Scully, Rothenberg, Beaton and Tang (2017), the concept of privilegework might be helpful. Privilege work entails an ongoing reflection on one’s privileged status as well as the relationship to the underprivileged (Scully et al., 2017). Such reflections may raise the awareness of privilege, the acceptance of being privileged, and, moreover, the process of owning up to privilege (Scully et al., 2017). For example, engaging in privilege work, ethnic minority networks and LGBT networks might be able to organize a collaborative event that addresses both white and heterosexual privilege in the organization. A refocus on privilege may not only reduce the tendency to assign diversity management practices to historically marginalized groups, but also challenge the heterogeneity within these groups. Lastly, the politics of privilege might also reflect wider sociopolitical structures. Social norms of the privileged have become generalized normative expectations for marginalized groups (McIntosh, 2012), not only in organizations, but also in society at large. As Rodriquez et al. (2016) noted, “intersectional analyses should not be con ned to organizational practices (…) but also identify transnational practices and processes that construct and reconstruct marginalization and privilege in other societal spaces” (p. 211). As this study has been conducted in the Dutch context, a comparative study on intersectionality in relation to diversity networks in different national contexts would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the importance of the wider sociopolitical structures within those contexts. Putting intersectionality into practice will be “long-term thorny endeavor” (Benschop et al., 2015, p. 569; Rodriguez et al., 2016). My study on structural and political intersectionality in single category diversity networks suggest that the complexity of multiple identity categories, inequalities and their intersections require ongoing reflection processes. Especially the introduction of political intersectionality is promising in this respect, as it addresses how inequalities and their intersections are relevant to organizational policies. Rethinking diversity management to build on reflective and critical perspectives with attention to structural and political intersectionality will open up possibilities towards more effective diversity management practices that foster organizational equality.