Paper Title
An Intersectional Analysis of Strategies Adopted by Ethnic Minority (IJAW) Women to Overcome Perceived Discrimination in Nigerian Civil Service (NCS)
Panel
Women’s Agency in Comparative Perspective
Location
Room 212, West Center
Keywords
Intersectionality, Agency, Gender, Ethnicity
Start Date
1-4-2016 3:30 PM
End Date
1-4-2016 4:45 PM
Abstract
This paper examines the strategies adopted by ethnic minority women to combat perceived discrimination in the Nigerian civil service. Findings presented here are part of a doctoral research aimed at exploring the significance of gender and ethnicity in the workplace lived experience of ethnic minority women in the Nigerian civil service.
An intersectional framework is developed for this research, within which a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology is used to examine the meaning of gender and ethnicity through the lived experience of ethnic minority women. Data is collected using in-depth qualitative interviews.
Respondents tend to view their gender and ethnicity as independent, sequential and simultaneous, rather than intersecting identities. A reason for this is that for most respondents, ethnicity is a politicized identity while gender identity tends to be passive. A critical analysis of the data revealed that sometimes gender and ethnicity operated additively to be of significance in the workplace lived experience of respondents. At other times there was a mutual shaping of both identities in dealing with issues of discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity and gender. Other emerging identities were revealed such as language and indigeneship (having historical ties to one’s state of residence) these were identified. However they intersected with gender and ethnicity.
An Intersectional Analysis of Strategies Adopted by Ethnic Minority (IJAW) Women to Overcome Perceived Discrimination in Nigerian Civil Service (NCS)
Room 212, West Center
This paper examines the strategies adopted by ethnic minority women to combat perceived discrimination in the Nigerian civil service. Findings presented here are part of a doctoral research aimed at exploring the significance of gender and ethnicity in the workplace lived experience of ethnic minority women in the Nigerian civil service.
An intersectional framework is developed for this research, within which a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology is used to examine the meaning of gender and ethnicity through the lived experience of ethnic minority women. Data is collected using in-depth qualitative interviews.
Respondents tend to view their gender and ethnicity as independent, sequential and simultaneous, rather than intersecting identities. A reason for this is that for most respondents, ethnicity is a politicized identity while gender identity tends to be passive. A critical analysis of the data revealed that sometimes gender and ethnicity operated additively to be of significance in the workplace lived experience of respondents. At other times there was a mutual shaping of both identities in dealing with issues of discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity and gender. Other emerging identities were revealed such as language and indigeneship (having historical ties to one’s state of residence) these were identified. However they intersected with gender and ethnicity.
