Songs of Ourselves

Abstract

Research on diversity in the workplace considers the conditions for creating a safe, equitable, and welcoming work environment. Inclusivity is a challenge when visible social identities trigger potentially judgmental and divisive reactions (e.g., Wharton, 1992). A distinct set of challenges arises when employees bring invisible, marginalized, or even stigmatized aspects of their identities into the workplace. Making a social identity visible not only sets the stage for others’ reactions, whether positive, negative, or mixed, it also lays the groundwork for social changes that may reduce the stigma and costs of the social identity. In this article, we investigate the deployment of social identity in the interest of organizational change, extending a concept used by Bernstein (1997) to describe the faceto-face lobbying practices of gays and lesbians in state and local political campaigns for nondiscrimination legislation. We also extend the concept of encounters, through which individuals who identify with a category engage in some self-conscious and intentional performances that announce and enact who they are (Goffman, 1969). This concept has been elaborated for understanding the micromobilizing moments of social movements in broader societal contexts (W. A. Gamson, Fireman, & Rytina, 1982). We examine how employees deploy their social identity in the workplace in ways that they hope will advance social