Whisper network knowledge of BAME women in academia: a critical realist, critical race feminist theory model of theorising inequality regimes

Purpose: This paper introduces a new approach to theorising and learning from BAME women's experiences of inequality in academia. It offers a versatile model with which the structure of a particular racist-sexist inequality regime can be theorised from empirical evidence.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents composite, fictionalised accounts of intersectional discrimination which are then analysed through critical realist frameworks, employing critical race feminist theory insights. This novel ‘whisper network’ method centres the knowledge of BAME women in academia, translatable to other marginalised actors, offering a more protective means by which to access their knowledge as a foundation for change.

Findings: Through theorising the ontological arrangement of key causal mechanisms responsible for the reproduction of inequality regimes, the paper illuminates links between micro-level intersectional discrimination and meso-level institutional inequality.

Originality: The novelty of the paper is twofold: in its original synthesis of critical realist depth ontology and critical race feminist theory ontological insights about social structures of oppression, using these to analyse and theorise from fictionalised empirical material, and in the development of the innovative ‘whisper network’ method based upon a critical race theory counter-storytelling epistemology, in conversation with the emergent stream of literature within feminist organisation studies regarding the importance of ‘writing differently’.

Research limitations/implications: In order to preserve anonymity and reduce potential backlash, this whisper network methodology may not precisely reflect empirical reality. Nonetheless, the analytical method developed here could be applied to rigorously collected empirical data, with clear implications for improving transformative organisational practice.

Practical Implications: The paper offers a structured and systematic process by which qualitative data on institutional inequality can be analysed and stakeholders engaged to develop and propose solutions, even by staff new to the field. 

Social Implications: A methodical basis for strategic action addressing the issues revealed through such an analysis can be developed in order to galvanise and steer organisational change.