Scrutinized but not recognized: (In)visibility and hypervisibility experiences of faculty of color

By Isis H. Settles, Nicole T. Buchanan, Kristie Dotson. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2019

291 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Because of their minority group status and underrepresentation, faculty of color (FOC) are tokens and as such, are highly visible within the academy. Paradoxically, token status may result in their being made to feel simultaneously invisible (e.g., accomplishments are unimportant, lack of belonging) and hypervisible (e.g., heightened scrutiny). Drawing from 118 interviews, we identified six themes related to how Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, and American Indian faculty members at a single, predominantly White, research-intensive university, describe issues of (in)visibility at work. FOC experienced hypervisibility when they were treated as Tokens and used to represent diversity within the institution, and they felt invisible when they experienced Social and Professional Exclusion and Epistemic Exclusion (i.e., lack of recognition for their scholarship and achievements) from colleagues. FOC responded to tokenism and exclusion using three (in)visibility strategies: Strategic Invisibility (i.e., disengaging with colleagues while remaining engaged with their scholarly activities) to remove themselves from negative environments; Working Harder to prove themselves, counter exclusion, and create positive visibility; and Disengagement (i.e., removed effort from work). Our analysis suggests that a lack of control over one's (in)visibility is problematic for FOC. In response, FOC may attempt to increase or decrease their own visibility to counter such experiences, often with some positive effects.

Subfields: Education, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ccc8277be33f53a30d96b41909f8c4c2c49ad5a3

Citations in the corpus

• Understanding psychology's resistance to intersectionality theory using a framework of epistemic exclusion and invisibility (2020, unknown): “Empirical work supports that epistemic exclusion operates through both formal and informal processes (Settles, Buchanan, & Dotson, 2019; Settles, Jones, Buchanan, & Dotson, 2020a).”
• Epistemic Exclusion of Women Faculty and Faculty of Color: Understanding Scholar(ly) Devaluation as a Predictor of Turnover Intentions (2021, unknown): “…is consistent with the literature on workplace mistreatment which finds that these groups report more social and informational exclusion (e.g., Diggs et al., 2009; Li & Beckett, 2006; McCord et al., 2018; Mor Barak & Levin, 2002; Settles et al., 2019; Tippeconnic, 2005; Turner et al., 2008).”