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(Re)constructing economic citizenship in a welfare state – intersections of gender and class

Heidi Hirsto (Institute for Organization Studies, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria)
Saija Katila (Department of International Business and Management, Aalto University School of Business, Helsinki, Finland)
Johanna Moisander (Department of Communication, Aalto University School of Business, Helsinki, Finland, and Center for Consumer Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden)

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

ISSN: 2040-7149

Article publication date: 4 February 2014

851

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to discuss and illustrate how contemporary market discourses rearticulate socio-political relationships and identities, including the rights, duties, and opportunities of individuals and categories of individuals as citizens. More specifically, the purpose is to analyze how “economic citizenship” is articulated and negotiated in the intersection of (Nordic) welfare state ideals and shareholder-oriented market discourses. The paper further elaborates on how different identity markers, especially gender and class, intersect in these articulations and contribute to exclusionary practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper approaches the articulation of economic citizenship through an empirical study that focusses on business media representations and online discussions of a major factory shutdown in Finland. Drawing from discourse theory and the notions of representational intersectionality and translocational positionality, the paper analyzes how gender and class intersect in the construction of economic citizenship in the business media.

Findings

The study illustrates how financialist market discourses render citizenship intelligible in exceedingly economic terms, overriding social and political dimensions of citizenship. The business media construct hierarchies of economic citizens where two categories of actors claim full economic citizenship: the transnational corporation and the transnational investor. Within these categories, particular systems of privilege intersect in similar ways, rendering them masculine and upper middleclass. Whether interpreted as hegemonic or counter-hegemonic, the financialist discourses rearticulate the social hierarchies and moral landscape in Finnish society.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to critical/feminist management studies by elaborating on the role of the business media as an important site of political identity work, positioning, and moral regulation, where neoliberal ideas, based upon and reproducing masculine and elitist systems of privilege, appear as normalized and self-evidently valued.

Keywords

Citation

Hirsto, H., Katila, S. and Moisander, J. (2014), "(Re)constructing economic citizenship in a welfare state – intersections of gender and class", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 122-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2012-0036

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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