12857: Rooted Resistance: Advancing The Literature on Race, Gender, and Self-Presentation

This professional development workshop (PDW) embraces the global presence of the Academy of Management (AOM) by highlighting the distinctive self-presentation experiences of marginalized diasporas throughout the world. Professional appearance standards have rapidly evolved through key forces, such as the integration of racially marginalized individuals and women into the workforce, COVID-19’s impact on work modalities, and ubiquitous calls for authenticity at work. This year, we are pleased to offer the second Rooted Resistance gathering as a PDW tailored for the global community researching these issues. In 2022, a group of women scholars from the African Diaspora conceptualized Rooted Resistance as a presenter symposium exploring how Black individuals navigate workplace appearance norms, particularly around natural hair. The 2024 AOM conference in Chicago saw this initiative bud into a community eager to research these topics. Our proposed 2025 PDW will catalyze this emerging area of academic inquiry. By focusing on the experiences of individuals marginalized within academic, corporate, nonprofit, and public sectors, we amplify diverse voices and foster inclusive academic discourse. We maintain our original, intersectional grounding of a natural hair focus while broadening ourselves to generate discourse about additional self-presentation issues and their intersection with social hierarchies. We do this by offering three modules within the scope of self-presentation: (1) fostering connections, (2) navigating publication challenges, and (3) enhancing pedagogies. The modules will feature interactive activities, small group discussions, and presentations by organizers. We plan to leave participants with an established community of self-presentation scholars and toolkits for their research and classrooms.