Received: 12 December 2019
DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12574
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
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Revised: 29 September 2020
The inclusivity of inclusion approaches:
A relational perspective on inclusion and
exclusion in organizations
Laura Dobusch
Radboud Social Cultural Research, Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Correspondence
Laura Dobusch, Radboud Social Cultural
Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands.
Email: l.dobusch@ru.nl
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2020 The Authors. Gender, Work & Organization published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Gender Work Organ. 2021;28:379–396.
Accepted: 13 October 2020
Abstract
Organizational inclusion has become a key concept when
dealing with the topic of diversity and inequality in orga-
nizations. Its core claim is to be all‐embracing and to “leave
no one behind.” However, can mainstream as well as critical
inclusion approaches live up to this claim? In this article, I
revisit two central concepts—belongingness and recogni-
tion—of both approaches from a feminist disability lens in
general and the interests and needs of autistic people in
particular. The analysis shows that mainstream and critical
inclusion approaches rely on implicit ableist assumptions,
which results in autistic people becoming “the other Other”
of the organizational inclusion discourse. Yet, instead of
judging the “inclusion project” as failed, the article pleads
for the acknowledgement of inclusion as always partial,
based on implicit boundary drawing. Such a view makes it
possible to discuss the il‐/legitimacy of certain boundaries
and their inclusionary and exclusionary consequences.
KEYWORDS
autism, boundaries, exclusion, neurodiversity, organizational
inclusion
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1 | INTRODUCTION

Scholars describe organizational inclusion—whether in terms of a positive condition or in terms of certain inclusion‐
oriented measures and practices—as a “key driver and basis for reaping diversity's potential benefits” (Ferdman &
Deane, 2014, p. xxiv). Nkomo (2014, p. 589) even argues that “scholars and practitioners have no choice but to
strive for … transforming our workplaces from places of exclusion to ones of inclusion” (emphasis added), if they
want to make use of the creativity and innovation of a diverse workforce. For Shore, Cleveland, and Sanchez (2018,
p. 177), organizational inclusion research represents a shift of attention from trying to prevent discrimination
against historically disadvantaged groups to “proactively creating inclusive organizational environments.” At the
same time, the more organizational inclusion research is establishing itself as a coherent and acknowledged field of
study, the more critical engagement with this inclusion turn is arising. Scholars question its ontological assumptions
(Janssens & Steyaert, 2020) as well as arguing that forms of unconditional inclusion are irreconcilable with/not
livable in contemporary capitalist work organizations (e.g., Ahmed, 2012; Brewis, 2019; Burchiellaro, 2020; Priola,
Lasio, Serri, & De Simone, 2018; Rennstam & Sullivan, 2018; Tyler, 2019).
At first glance, both camps of research—mainstream and critical organizational inclusion studies—seem to differ
fundamentally from each other regarding their assessment of the potential and limits of the organizational inclusion
turn: mainstream scholars see the inclusion turn as an opportunity to finally get to the root of the systemic exclusion
and marginalization of historically disadvantaged groups while simultaneously increasing everyone's work perfor-
mance; in contrast, critical scholars judge organizational inclusion approaches as a way to actually preserve existing
power asymmetries because the terms of one's inclusion are still defined by members of the power‐wielding elite.
Notwithstanding the important differences between mainstream and critical studies, I want to draw attention to
the common ground of both camps: the core assumption that “full” inclusion means the absence of exclusion. As I will
argue in this article, this oppositional view of inclusion and exclusion—even though it might seem intuitively accurate—
entails problematic aspects, which can lead to actually undermining the objectives linked to claims for inclusion in the
first place. I come to this conclusion by turning to a very basic but rarely acknowledged observation within organi-
zational inclusion studies: “For every ‘inside,’ there is something which is ‘outside.’ … [I]nclusion as a practice only
makes sense against the background of something or another simultaneously being 'excluded'” (Goodin, 1996, p. 349).
Such a relational perspective understands inclusion and exclusion as mutually constitutive, which allows us to shed
light on the “other Other,” which necessarily emerges in the shadows at the (newly charted) border of all inclusion
attempts (Butler, 2015). For inclusion approaches to live up to their own standards, it is necessary to explicitly
acknowledge their constitutive relationship with forms of exclusion. Only then does it become possible to discuss the
legitimacy of certain ways of drawing boundaries and their inclusionary and exclusionary consequences.
In order to not only tell, but actually show the significance of such a relational view of inclusion and exclusion,
I engage with mainstream and critical approaches to organizational inclusion and analyze their explicit and implicit
boundary conditions. In particular, I make use of a feminist disability lens (Garland‐Thomson, 2002, 2005; Shildrick,
2015) with a focus on autistic people to identify the boundary conditions of the actual inclusivity of current
organizational inclusion approaches. The reason for this is that both mainstream and critical organizational in-
clusion studies have developed their theoretical constructs by relating them first and foremost to differences and
inequalities in the areas of gender, ethnicity, race, or queerness and have widely neglected the topic of dis‐/ability
(e.g., Ahmed, 2012; Shore et al., 2018; Tyler, 2019). The particular focus on people located on the autism spectrum1
emerges from the fact that both inclusion approaches rely on belongingness or recognition as key concepts. These
concepts, in turn, are closely intertwined with certain (neurotypical) ideals of “doing social” that might not easily fit
with the interests and needs of autistic people. Against this background, I pose the following research questions:

1. How applicable are current organizational inclusion approaches to the interests and needs of autistic people,
who have been excluded from initial theory building?
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2. What can we learn from this case about the consequences of boundary conditions underlying organizational
inclusion approaches more generally?

To answer these questions, I will start by outlining the central aspects of a feminist disability lens and
indicating how it can be useful for a relational investigation of inclusion and exclusion. This is followed by a brief
overview of the newly emerging neurodiversity movement and the role of autistic people therein. Subsequently,
I present my in‐depth analysis of mainstream inclusion constructs as identified by the most recent literature review
made by Shore et al. (2018) as well as the core inclusion idea(l)s of the critical inclusion literature, in particular as
presented by Tyler (2019) and Janssens and Steyaert (2020). The analysis shows that both mainstream and critical
inclusion approaches rely on implicit ableist assumptions, the effect of which is to make autistic people “the other
Other” of the organizational inclusion discourse. In a final step, I discuss the idea that this (unintended) exclusion of
autistic people from organizational inclusion approaches should not be understood as a clear sign of their failure.
Instead, I argue that only by acknowledging the constitutive relationship between inclusion and exclusion does it
become possible to discuss and object to the unintended as well as intended exclusionary consequences of certain
inclusion approaches.

2 | DIS‐/ABILITY, ABLEISM, AND THE FANTASY OF THE SOVEREIGN SUBJECT

Although disability has been addressed by anti‐discrimination legislation in many countries during the last decades
(e.g., UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), and these laws are often directly connected to
preventing disability‐related discrimination in the workplace, it is a relatively neglected topic in management and
organization studies (Beatty, Baldridge, Boehm, Kulkarni, & Colella, 2019; Williams & Mavin, 2012). However,
scholarly work that actually engages with the topic of dis‐/ability shows a tendency to approach and describe it in
terms of an overall negative or problematic phenomenon (Shore et al., 2009; for exceptions, see, e.g., Dobusch,
2017; Jammaers, Zanoni, & Hardonk, 2016; Van Laer, Jammaers, & Hoeven, 2020). This biased research focus is
rooted in the widespread “medical model of disability,” which basically rests on two assumptions: (1) that disability
is a phenomenon primarily resulting from deficits inherent in the individual person; and (2) that disability represents
a quintessentially negative condition per se, which should be avoided at all costs.
This individualized deficit perspective on disability is connected to the specific “invention” of disability during
the industrialization in European countries in the 18th century (Oliver & Barnes, 2012). The emerging industrial
forms of production relied on a reorganization of work that forced standardization and simultaneously evoked the
individualization of labor (Oliver, 1990). At the same time, statistical methods gained popularity, which fueled the
notion of norm(ality)‐adequate—and thus fully functional—bodies and their opposites, the deviant, impaired bodies
(Davis, 2006). Oliver and Barnes (2012) describe these developments as the “gradual creation of the disabled in-
dividual” (p. 16; emphasis added), who quickly became “a problem for government” (p. 16). Since then, in many
Western countries a complex fabric of medical diagnostics, segregating institutions (e.g., certain schools, sheltered
workshops, stationary facilities), and social benefits has evolved, targeting individual persons and thereby simul-
taneously labeling them and confirming their status as “disabled” (Sullivan, 1991). With regard to work organiza-
tions, disability is regularly addressed as a “personalised” (Foster & Fosh, 2010, p. 579) matter without wider
“implications for workplace equality and diversity agendas” (p. 579). The underlying assumption behind all these
policies and approaches is that an impairment connected to potential functional limits represents an exception that
should be prevented or compensated for, and is somehow rooted in an individual—although not self‐inflicted—
deficit (Barnes & Mercer, 2005).
This deficit perspective is not only the result of a specific form of work organization based on the avoidance or
rejection of bodies and/or behavior perceived as “undesired diversity” (Dobusch, 2015), but is also underpinned by
the widespread and often unquestioned notion that disability is a “sign of inferior life itself” (Mitchell &
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Snyder, 2000, p. 3). It is part of what Campbell (2001, p. 44) describes as an ableist “network of beliefs, processes
and practices that produces a particular kind of self and body (the corporeal standard) that is projected as the
perfect, species‐typical and therefore essential and fully human.” Ableism—in contrast to similar terms such as
racism or sexism—does not unfold its force primarily through a systematic devaluation and discrimination of certain
groups, but rather by ubiquitously present and unquestioned expectations of able‐bodiedness/able‐mindedness
implicitly embedded in a multiplicity of fields such as social theory, medicine, law, or capitalist modes of production
(Campbell, 2014; McRuer, 2006).
A feminist disability lens builds on a general criticism of the medical model of disability and rejects any attempt
to depict disability as a natural phenomenon unaffected by/preceding its sociomaterial environment (Garland‐
Thomson, 2002, 2005). Additionally, in comparison to traditional disability studies, a feminist disability lens
develops a certain etho‐ontological stance (Dobusch, 2019) on impaired embodiment, which emphasizes the
fundamental vulnerability and inter‐/dependence of human life in general. Feminist disability scholars argue that
the impaired body is no exception to a human biography, but should be acknowledged as a necessary and inevitable
part of “human variation” (Garland‐Thomson, 2005, p. 1567). Experiencing an impaired body is understood as a core
and very likely condition of one's life course considering the fact that human existence is dependent on its actual
embodiment; an embodiment that needs to be constantly nurtured—actively produced—and is thus always
confronted by the possibility of unexpected changes and “failures.” Instead of denying human vulnerability, a
feminist disability lens asks to “embrace the supposedly flawed body of disability” and thereby to “critique the
normalizing phallic fantasies of wholeness, unity, coherence, and completeness” (Garland‐Thomson, 2002, p. 28;
emphasis added).
Consequently, such an etho‐ontological stance also has implications for the widespread modernist idea(l) of the
human subject as a sovereign and intentional actor (Shildrick, 2015). This is because the basis for this sovereign,
intentionally acting subject is the assumption of an individual possessing more or less standardized and self‐
contained abilities: “Since the late 1300s, ability has signified a quality in a person that makes an action possible and,
in turn, abledness designates an actionable (potentially worthy) life” (Campbell, 2014, p. 79; emphasis in original).
A feminist disability studies lens questions this coupling of becoming an intelligible subject with the expectation of
certain individually possessed abilities. Instead, it emphasizes—and values—the fact that human life per se is
characterized by both interdependence and dependence: “no matter what social arrangements we enter into on a
voluntaristic basis, the fact is that we must be engaged in some social arrangements, some forms of dependence;
interdependence is not a matter of voluntarism” (Kittay, 2015, p. 287; emphasis in original). In a nutshell: a feminist
disability lens explodes the idea of the sovereign subject as fantasmatic and remains vigilant against any idea that
ties being a “full human” to exhibiting certain, self‐contained abilities.
This focus basically guides the relational analysis of current inclusion approaches with regard to their actual
inclusivity for autistic people by looking particularly at their (implicit) subject concepts and their possible link to a
required able‐bodiedness/able‐mindedness. I go on to discuss the state of, and tensions within, the discourse on
neurodiversity and autism, hoping to paint a fine‐grained picture of the interests and needs of autistic people.

3 | AUTISM, NEURODIVERSITY, AND THE DE‐/CONSTRUCTION

OF “NEUROTYPICALITY”

Current medical diagnostics uses the term autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in order to refer to a “diverse clinical
picture” (Bellini, 2004, p. 78) with a broad set of characteristics ranging from diagnoses of so‐called low‐functioning
to high‐functioning autism, with Asperger Syndrome representing the high‐functioning end of the continuum.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO),2 one in 160 children “has” ASD and the prevalence of (the
diagnosis of) autism as well as research on this topic is steadily increasing. The common denominator for locating
persons on the autism spectrum is the medical assessment that they have some form of “difficulties with reciprocal
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and interpersonal communication” (Hendricks, 2010, p. 125) and that they are showing “unusual or repetitive
patterns of behaviors” (p. 125).3 Most of the respective knowledge production takes place in Anglo‐American
countries, Western Europe and Australia, framing autism primarily in terms of a neuro‐biological deficit (O'Dell,
Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Ortega, Brownlow, & Orsini, 2016).
This means that the majority of research on autism fits in seamlessly with the medical model of disability or, in
other words, is firmly built on what Runswick‐Cole (2014, p. 1118) describes as “the ‘autism‐as‐disorder’ narrative.”
Within this narrative, autistic persons require forms of treatment and “neurotypical guidance” in order to become
fully accepted members of society. In contrast, non‐autistic people are viewed as “neurologically healthy and
psychologically well” (Robertson, 2010). Since the late 1990s, this deficit perspective on persons diagnosed with
ASD has been challenged by a growing neurodiversity movement, which also includes other groups with “neuro-
logical particularities” (e.g., persons diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder,
dyslexia, or Tourette syndrome) and works on disseminating a different narrative to the disorder‐centered
approach (Fenton & Krahn, 2007).
One important feature of this counter‐narrative is that autism should be understood as one of many
neurological differences naturally occurring and evolving among the human population (Jaarsma & Welin, 2012).
In particular, it is people diagnosed with high‐functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome who emphasize that they
are not in need of a cure but of acknowledgment that their neurological condition represents a “human specificity
(like sex or race) that must be equally respected” (Ortega, 2009, p. 426). Connected to this, there is the argument
that so‐called neurodiverse people represent a marginalized group such as women or ethnic minorities and
thus should not only be legally protected, but also recognized as valuable and capable members of society
(Runswick‐Cole, 2014).
This has consequences for the policies and measures deemed appropriate for dealing with the interests and
needs of autistic persons. For instance, forms of intervention or support are rejected that are—according to autistic
activists—guided by the “assumption of a non‐autistic worldview as … main point of reference” (O'Dell et al., 2016,
p. 168). This implies questioning conventional, implicitly neurotypically oriented understandings of adequate social
behavior as well as generally accepted ways of relationship building. Such a rethink of possible forms of social
(well‐)being and its range is crucial for autistic persons to arrive at an intelligible subject status: “Within taken‐for‐
granted assumptions about being human is the production of particular ways of ‘doing social.’ … Differences in
sociability/sociality or social functionality have a dramatic impact on the social, cultural and legal position of the
individual” (O'Dell et al., 2016, p. 174).
In concrete terms, autistic persons may develop certain strengths and weaknesses in areas such as (a) language,
communication, and social interaction; (b) sensory processing; (c) motor skill execution; and (d) goal‐oriented,
reflexive thinking and self‐regulation (all retrieved from Robertson, 2010), but at the same time show a large
overlap in interests, needs, and pleasures with people who are located on the neurotypical spectrum. In what sense
an individual impairment is actually experienced as disabling and disadvantaging is co‐constituted by contextual
and situational factors: “living in a society designed for non‐autistic people contributes to, and exacerbates, many of
the daily living challenges that autistic people experience.… Sensory demands, social ambiguities, and information
complexities are among the barriers that the modern 21st century presents to autistic people” (Robertson, 2010,
para. 8).
Having briefly sketched the current state of, and tensions within, the discourse about neurodiversity and
autism, I hope it becomes apparent why the interests and needs of autistic people offer a particularly suitable
example to reflect on the actual inclusivity of current inclusion approaches. These approaches attach great
importance to belongingness and recognition—both notions that are closely connected to and based on certain
forms of “doing social.” In the next step, I present the analysis of mainstream organizational inclusion approaches,
followed by in‐depth engagement with the core inclusion concepts (Janssens & Steyaert, 2020; Tyler, 2019) of
critical inclusion studies.
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4 | ANALYSIS PART I: MAINSTREAM INCLUSION APPROACHES

In mainstream inclusion studies, the notion of inclusion is framed as the answer to simmering discomfort over the
sense that “diversity is not delivering on its promises” (Oswick & Noon, 2014, p. 26). For instance, Sabharwal (2014,
p. 211) states that “inclusive management appears to hold greater potential for workplace harmony and improved
productivity than diversity management alone” (see also Ferdman, 2014; Mor Barak, 2015; Nkomo, 2014). On the
other hand, the idea(l) of inclusion is not only linked to the hope of sticking to “old promises,” but also connected to
new ones. One of the most significant novelties is its claimed appeal to both minority and majority employees
(Nishii & Rich, 2014) and its assertion that both minority and majority employees must be able to satisfy their
“needs for belongingness and uniqueness” (Shore et al., 2011, p. 1265). In contrast to diversity management ap-
proaches, which first and foremost target—and thereby create and often essentialize—“diversity‐relevant” groups
(Zanoni, Janssens, Benschop, & Nkomo, 2010), inclusion approaches seek to appeal to all organizational members
by building an inclusive environment as such (Shore et al., 2018).
At the same time, dis‐/ability is rarely addressed explicitly by the mainstream inclusion literature. In their
comprehensive literature review on the topic of inclusion in work organizations, Shore et al. (2018) investigate 42
empirical studies, of which only one deals with the topic of dis‐/ability. Against this background, it is crucial to
examine whether current conceptualizations of organizational inclusion are applicable to the interests and needs of
autistic people, who have been excluded from initial theory building. With this in mind, I build on the systemati-
zation of Shore et al.’s (2018) literature review and engage with the five distinct inclusion constructs they have
identified across the literature: (1) work group inclusion, (2) leader inclusion, (3) perceived organizational inclusion,
(4) organizational inclusion practices, and (5) inclusion climate. One particular focus is on the embedded subject
concepts and their possible link to the requirement of able‐bodiedness/able‐mindedness.

4.1 | Constructs of inclusion at the individual level: Focus on relationships and

communicative/social skills

The analysis shows that the inclusion constructs at the individual level—(1) work group inclusion, (2) leader in-
clusion, and (3) perceived organizational inclusion—all revolve around the individual organizational member and the
form and quality of social relationships with which they are engaged. The underlying core assumption is that
building and enjoying social relationships represents the key pillar of experiencing individual inclusion.
With respect to the construct of (1) work group inclusion, the main idea is that how individual employees
experience their involvement and position with(in) group contexts is crucial for inclusion. In this regard, Shore et al.
(2011) emphasize the simultaneous importance of belongingness and uniqueness for organizational members in
order to experience (work group) inclusion. In particular, they define belongingness as “the need to form and
maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships” and uniqueness as “the need to maintain a distinctive and
differentiated sense of self” (p. 1264). Building on Shore and colleagues' definition, for Jansen, Otten, van der Zee,
and Jans (2014), belongingness is characterized by “frequent and affectively pleasant interactions in a stable group”
and uniqueness by “downplaying one's commonalities with others or by defining oneself in terms of one's idio-
syncratic traits and opinions” (p. 371). In addition, Ferdman (2010) emphasizes that in order to experience inclusion,
collaborations need to be enacted in a way meaning that everyone can take part actively without hiding or giving up
important parts of themselves. The common thread running through constructs of work group inclusion is that
relationship building not only represents a basic need, but is also a source of pleasure and capable of creating/
sustaining a positive sense of the self.
Similarly, the construct of (2) leader inclusion revolves around relationship building as an inclusion stimulating
force. Most of the research on inclusive leadership deals with the individual employee and their (perception of the)
relationship with their direct supervisor or manager (Shore et al., 2018). For instance, Nembhard and Edmondson
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(2006) define inclusive leadership as the proactive involvement of voices and perspectives that would otherwise
have remained unheard. Booysen (2014, p. 306) describes inclusive leadership as a “collaborative and respectful
relational practice that enables individuals and collectives to be fully part of the whole,” where every organizational
member strives towards common goals but at the same time can preserve their uniqueness. In addition,
Wasserman, Gallegos, and Ferdman (2008, p. 180) emphasize that an “inclusive leader” needs to show certain
qualities such as flexibility, self‐awareness, mindfulness, courage as well as vulnerability. In the construct of leader
inclusion, it is dyadic relationship building that is perceived as crucial. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that the
performance of inclusive leadership is understood as deeply connected to a high degree of social and communi-
cative competences.
With respect to the construct of (3) perceived organizational inclusion, relationships also seem to play an
important role but are supplemented by additional components. This is shown in the most prominent inclusion–
exclusion model (Mor Barak, 2000; Mor Barak & Cherin, 1998), on which subsequent studies have built their
measurement of organizational inclusion–exclusion perceptions (e.g., Bae, Sabharwal, Smith, & Berman, 2017;
Hwang & Hopkins, 2015). Mor Barak and Cherin (1998, p. 48) define inclusion and exclusion in terms of the “degree
to which individuals feel part of critical organizational processes.” These processes include one's involvement in
work groups and taking part in decision‐making processes, as well as access to information and resources.
Regarding one's involvement in work groups, the overlap with the construct of work group inclusion becomes
apparent. With respect to the other two indicators—decision making and access to information and resources—it is
not relationship building but certain communicative and information processing skills that implicitly underlie these
inclusion indicators.
Looking at the constructs of organizational inclusion at the individual level together, it becomes clear that
building and enjoying social relationships represents a crucial pillar for all of them. At first sight, this overall focus
on relationships seems like a confirmation of the inclusivity of organizational inclusion concepts, as the imagination
of the prototypical human as a social being—thus depending on and permanently building relationships—appears
like an “innocent” common denominator for the potentially large variety of different needs among organizational
members. However, the analysis reveals that the taken‐for‐granted characteristics of relationships as well as the
modes of establishing and maintaining them are based first and foremost on a neurotypical understanding of “doing
social.” Thus, it is questionable whether the inclusion concepts are applicable to the interests and needs of autistic
employees.
For instance, both the need for belongingness and uniqueness might manifest under different conditions for
autistic employees: in general, autistic people describe how a lot of the problems they are facing are a “direct result
of others not understanding them” (Beardon & Edmonds, 2007, p. 13): such as the need for acceptance of a
particularly direct communication style (Dreaver et al., 2020; Seitz & Smith, 2016), for the rigid maintenance of and
compliance with structures and routines (Milton & Sims, 2016), or for opportunities to retreat because of social
and/or sensory overload (Hayward, McVilly, & Stokes, 2019; Runswick‐Cole, 2014). Consequently, for autistic
employees, maintaining one's “uniqueness” might not entail enacting and thereby preserving it through social in-
teractions with their co‐workers and supervisors, but rather realizing their needs such as partial social withdrawal,
“passive” social interaction or a strong focus on task fulfillment without ridicule, latent sanctioning or manifest
bullying (Krieger, Kinebanian, Prodinger, & Heigl, 2012; McIntosh, 2016; Milton & Sims, 2016; Richards, 2012).
This is closely connected to the creation, feeling, and relevance of belongingness. For autistic employees,
belongingness that emphasizes the production and actualization of “being part of a whole” through proactive
relationship building in settings of collective collaboration (see definitions above) might not be desirable (Hayward
et al., 2019; Krieger et al., 2012). Such a tight coupling between (the experience of) belonging and a specific form of
group participation can actually reduce the possibilities for autistic employees to feel included because of the
additional efforts needed to comply with ableist sociability demands: “the stress of not understanding the social
rules of the environment, not knowing which topics are appropriate to talk about and which are not, having dif-
ficulty asking for help, and being exhausted from concentrating so hard all day to understand the world of
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neurotypicals can become overwhelming” (Hurlbutt & Chalmers, 2004, p. 219; see also Sang, Richards, & Marks,
2016). However, this should not imply that autistic people do not value social relationships, in fact, they strive for
close and meaningful relationships, although not necessarily complying with neurotypical standards of certain levels
of intimacy or demonstrated affection (Brownlow, Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, & O'Dell, 2015).
This neurotypical imagination of social relationships as the core condition for one's inclusion entails an implicit
boundary assumption between intelligible and non‐intelligible subject positions: It becomes apparent that both the
subjects of inclusion measures (employees) as well as the subjects of “doing inclusion” (“inclusive leaders”) need to
show a—rather high—degree of social and communicative skills in order to fit the current inclusion constructs. It is the
expectation of a certain form of able‐mindedness in terms of self‐awareness, social‐awareness, and impulse control
that underlies these constructs, which is taken for granted and thus neither made explicit nor questioned.

4.2 | Constructs of inclusion at the organizational level: Focus on assumingly ability‐

neutral equal opportunity policies

Inclusion constructs at the organizational level—(4) organizational inclusion practices and (5) inclusion climate—first
and foremost assume an ability‐neutrality of equal opportunity policies in general and human resource manage-
ment practices in particular.
Regarding the construct of (4) organizational inclusion practices, Shore et al. (2018) describe them as key for
creating an organizational environment that takes the interests and needs of all organizational members into
account, and not only those of privileged groups. Roberson (2006, p. 231), for instance, refers to organizational
inclusion practices as formalized human resources (HR) practices such as “collaborative work arrangements and
conflict resolution processes” that make sure everyone is treated equally regardless of their group identity. In a
similar manner, Daya (2014) points to the importance of transparent recruitment and promotion processes for
creating an inclusive organization for organizational members of all backgrounds. Boehm, Kunze, and Bruch (2014,
p. 668) focus on “age‐inclusive human resource practices” and elaborate on specific bundles of HR practices such as
fostering skills, knowledge, and abilities of all employees regardless of their age, or nourishing motivation and
rewarding effort through equal opportunity policies and career opportunities for all organizational members. When
looking at the commonalities of these organizational inclusion practices, it becomes apparent that they focus mainly
on making human resource management fairer and more participatory in general. The underlying rationale is that
the basic elements of human resource policies have been biased toward particular group members (majority em-
ployees, certain privileged groups), but can largely stay intact as long as they are recalibrated under an anti‐
discriminatory and inclusionary agenda. However, a side effect of this “bias perspective” is that the HR measures as
such, as well as the organizing of work itself are constructed as ability‐neutral, as equally suitable for any (potential)
organizational member.
Looking at the construct of (5) inclusion climate, measures of creating equal opportunities and fair working
conditions also play an important role. Shore et al. (2018, p. 181) define an inclusive climate with reference to Nishii
(2013) as the “collective perception” that employees are encouraged to stay true to their sense of self, to voice their
—even controversial—opinions, and to take part in decision making. Put simply, whether an organization exhibits an
inclusive climate results from the individually perceived organizational inclusion, a construct already analyzed in the
previous section. However, a crucial difference to the construct of perceived organizational inclusion is that the
focus shifts from the assessment of one's individual inclusion status to an assessment of the inclusionary (or
exclusionary) conditions of the work unit as a whole. For instance, Mor Barak et al. (2016, p. 309) describe how a
climate for inclusion “promotes employee perceptions of the organizational context that leads to the full accep-
tance of all employees.” Nishii (2013) proposes that the work unit needs to provide certain conditions to enable a
climate of inclusion: first, equitable employment practices such as fair promotion processes and development
opportunities for all employees; second, a culture where uniqueness is appreciated and differences between
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employees are valued; third, participation in decision making, which means that input from employees is actively
sought, appreciated, and actually has an impact. Taken together, the construct of an inclusion climate is composed
mainly of elements of organizational inclusion practices in addition to the construct of perceived organizational
inclusion.
Regarding the constructs of organizational inclusion at the organizational level as a whole, two issues come to
the fore: on the one hand, a commitment to the full acceptance, appreciation, and support of the individual
employee, on the other hand, the emphasis on implementing fair and participatory processes for all organizational
members. The first topic also seems applicable to the interests and needs of autistic employees, since an adequate
understanding of ASD, combined with sufficient motivation by management to come up with tailor‐made working
conditions for autistic employees is key in enabling them to thrive at the workplace (Hayward et al., 2019; Seitz &
Smith, 2016). However, the second topic, the actual implementation of this inclusion commitment via fair,
participatory, and assumingly universal processes of recruitment, promotion, training, conflict management, and
decision making might unfold rather more exclusionary effects for autistic employees. This is because these in-
struments of the “discrimination‐and‐fairness paradigm” (Thomas & Ely, 1996) aiming at equal opportunities
commonly take a certain able‐mindedness for granted and thus—although unintentionally—disadvantage autistic
employees.
Austin and Pisano (2017) notice that HR processes often design application procedures in a standardized way
for the largest possible groups. However, such scalability runs counter to hiring and supporting autistic employees:
“common notions of what makes a good employee—communication skills, being a team player, emotional intelli-
gence, persuasiveness, salesperson‐type personalities … screen out neurodiverse people” (p. 100). Instead, autistic
employees can thrive in extended, flexible assessment procedures, where the stress level is reduced and they can
slowly adjust to the “social demands” of the application situation (Austin & Pisano, 2017). Similarly, for the suc-
cessful, long‐term employment of autistic people it is necessary to synchronize their individual skills and talents
with the physical and social working environment (Dreaver et al., 2020). For instance, meeting the interests and
needs of autistic employees implies oscillating between establishing reliable and formalized working routines on the
one hand and showing flexibility in terms of adjusting the workspace to particular sensory and social needs (e.g.,
single offices, adaptation of office lighting, telecommunication, option of home office) on the other (Hayward et al.,
2019). Furthermore, policies and practices aimed at enhancing participation are not ability‐neutral: common modes
of opinion formation and decision making are inherently built on neurotypical ideas of cognitive and communicative
abilities and thus tend to marginalize and exclude autistic people (Knight, 2015; Luke, Clare, Ring, Redley, &
Watson, 2012).
As the overall analysis has shown, the constructs of inclusion at the individual level implicitly invoke a subject
whose intelligibility is based on compliance with expectations of able‐mindedness. The constructs of inclusion at the
organizational level further perpetuate and reinforce this ableist subject idea(l): the proposed inclusion practices
and the conditions for creating an inclusive climate rely on an individual organizational member who is intrinsically
equipped with certain abilities and competencies that precede and encounter these organizational policies, which
themselves represent distinct, self‐contained tools that are not in an interdependent relationship with each other.
This runs counter to the feminist disability perspective that “human interdependence and the universal need for
assistance [need to] be figured into our dialogues about rights and subjectivity” (Garland‐Thomson, 2002, p. 17).

5 | ANALYSIS PART II: CRITICAL INCLUSION APPROACHES

In contrast to mainstream inclusion research, critical inclusion studies—whose common denominator is explicitly
refusing any (implicit) conditions connected to one's inclusion—has long been a rather scattered stream of research.
Only recently—related to the establishment of mainstream research (Oswick & Noon, 2014)—has a more connected
stream of critical organizational inclusion studies been emerging (see, e.g., Adamson, Śliwa, Kelan, Lewis, & Rumens,
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2018). The primary focus of this research is on identifying the inherent flaws, shortcomings and “broken promises”
of mainstream inclusion concepts or organizational inclusion attempts in practice.
In her paper, Tyler (2019) argues that the inclusion approaches of contemporary (capitalist) organizations are
fundamentally flawed, expecting those to be included to add value, fit in with dominant norms, and simply stabilize
the organizational hierarchies already in place. Thereby, so her argument, it is very likely that inclusion attempts
will actually end up in a “perpetuation of exclusion or (conditional) over‐inclusion and a reification of difference”
(p. 57). Similarly, Brewis (2019, p. 108) states that organizational inclusion policies are “bound within the confines of
the existing market logics … and are unlikely to challenge deeply rooted hierarchies of power.” Adding to this,
Burchiellaro (2020, p. 12), in her ethnographic research of a gentrification project and its associated inclusion
initiative, describes how it actually resulted in the “active disciplining of sexuality, space and class” (emphasis added;
see also Priola et al., 2018). More generally, Ahmed (2012, p. 163) judges inclusion policies to be a “technology of
governance” that produces subjects who are “willing to consent to the terms of inclusion.”
The vast majority of critical organizational inclusion research thus engages in a “negative way” with the notion
of inclusion: it focuses on what inclusion should not look like. Rarely do scholars apply a positive perspective—in the
sense of identifying conditions and characteristics of organizational inclusion that could meet their own standards
of unconditionality. One exception are the works by Tyler (2019) as well as Janssens and Steyaert (2020), who have
developed more elaborate idea(l)s of organizational inclusion distinct from mainstream inclusion concepts. Sub-
sequently, I will describe both approaches in more detail and, as in the previous section, analyze their embedded
subject concepts and their possible link to required able‐bodiedness/able‐mindedness with a particular focus on the
interests and needs of autistic people.

5.1 | Tyler (2019): Embodied recognition and “liveable interdependency” instead of

inclusion

As mentioned above, Tyler (2019, p. 49) takes a critical stance towards mainstream inclusion approaches and
suggests caution towards the “presumption that inclusion is by definition a ‘good thing.’” She urges scholars to
refrain from organizational inclusion policies that serve the ideas of “performance, functionality and instrumen-
talism” (p. 55), as these would end up disciplining and exploiting differences instead of unconditionally recognizing
them. In contrast, she pleads for a turn to feminist embodied ethics (Butler, 2015; Butler & Athanasiou, 2013),
which basically means that every body is ontologically characterized by fundamental vulnerability and an ineluctable
intercorporeal interdependence. As there is no such thing as an autonomous, “unassailable” subject, who can evade
their inter‐/dependence with and from others, mutual—unconditional—recognition becomes a necessity for living
an anxiety‐free, unharmed, and intelligible life.
Referring to Benjamin (1990), Tyler (2019) notes that the act of recognizing is based on elements such as
affirming, accepting, understanding, and empathizing, in a nutshell: loving. Against this background, inclusion is
understood as a “basic human need” (Tyler, 2019, p. 52) as it can facilitate and reassure one's intelligibility: “we
might argue that recognition epitomizes many of the qualities of social relations that we would hope to associate
with inclusion” (p. 52). In order to showcase how such felicitous inclusion can actually be practiced, Tyler refers to
Butler's (2015) work on the power of public assemblies. Butler (2015) argues that assemblies can question and
intervene in exclusionary politics of recognition in two ways: on the one hand, by explicitly raising political de-
mands; on the other hand, implicitly, by people who take up space, who dare to appear, who literally put their
bodies on the line: “when bodies assemble … they are exercising a plural and performative right to appear, one that
asserts and instates the body … in its expressive and signifying function” (p. 11).
Tyler (2019) illustrates the power of assemblies using two examples of what she calls “recognition‐based
activism”: The first is about the candlelit vigils that took place in response to a mass shooting in an LGBTIQ (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer [or questioning]) nightclub with high attendance by people of color.
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The second is about the global feminist demonstrations the day after Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.
Although Tyler (2019, p. 59) acknowledges that both forms of assemblies were afterwards criticized for their lack of
intersectional inclusivity, she emphasizes their force of “embodied interconnection”: the experience of bodies simply
standing next to each other in the case of the vigils, and the sharing of food and clothes, laughing, singing, and
shouting together with strangers in the case of the Women's Marches. Against this background, Tyler (2019, p. 60)
argues that the “opposite of marginalization is not inclusion, but ‘a liveable interdependency’ (Butler, 2015, p. 69),”
which is based on the necessary insight into every body's fundamental vulnerability as well as a “reflexive
acknowledgment of our reliance on organizational processes and structures, as well as resources” (p. 61).
Examining Tyler's concept of embodied recognition, both similarities and differences to mainstream organi-
zational inclusion approaches come to the fore: with respect to similarities, social relations play a key role for
enabling recognition, connected to being part of a larger whole in Tyler's approach, as well—albeit not part of the
work group but of public assemblies. She even frames the presence of social relations in their function for mutual
recognition as a “basic human need,” which represents not only an ontological necessity but also a (normatively)
desirable goal for everyone. Thereby, as in the case of mainstream approaches, certain neurotypical forms of “doing
social” are taken for granted: mass gatherings based on bodily synchronicity are described as enjoyable and
positively energizing, whereby from the perspective of autistic people, however, they are likely experienced as
highly unpleasant, overwhelming events (Davidson & Smith, 2009). By assuming that neurotypical forms of so-
ciability represent a core element of intelligible subjectivity, those who cannot or don't want to take part in this
kind of relationship building emerge as the “other Other” of this recognition‐based approach. In a similar way to
mainstream inclusion concepts, able‐mindedness becomes the underlying condition of one's inclusion—an approach
that is explicitly intended to be void of any conditions.
Divergent ontological premises become apparent with respect to the differences between mainstream ap-
proaches and Tyler's concept. While mainstream inclusion concepts build on an individualist idea(l) of the subject
(Janssens & Steyaert, 2020) that is characterized by certain rather stable properties (e.g., uniqueness, bias) and self‐
contained abilities (e.g., neurotypical self‐ and social‐awareness), Tyler pleads for a relational ontology that takes
the fundamental interdependence and vulnerability of people as its starting point (Butler, 2015; Butler & Atha-
nasiou, 2013). This reveals a considerable overlap with a feminist disability lens, which follows a similar ontological
perspective including an explicit affirmation of the impaired, supposedly flawed body and mind. However, linked to
this common ground, a discrepancy between Tyler's recognition‐based approach and the feminist disability lens
accrues. This is because for Tyler (2019, p. 62) the “mutual recognition of our intercorporeal relationality and
ontological vulnerability” (emphasis added) can pave the way for unconditional inclusion. Taking a close look at this
assumption, it means that one's acknowledgement and affirmation of such an ontology turns into a condition of
itself. Not only might some disagree with this ontological assessment, certain groups—such as autistic people—
might simply be excluded from such a neurotypical way of experiencing their (social) being in the world.

5.2 | Janssens and Steyaert (2020): Inclusion as practice‐based multiplicity

Similar to Tyler (2019), Janssens and Steyaert (2020) argue that the topic of organizational inclusion needs to be
approached from a relational ontology. While Tyler comes to this conclusion by primarily problematizing the
tendencies of organizational inclusion initiatives to result in co‐optation and over‐inclusion, Janssens and Steyaert
criticize first and foremost the individualist assumptions underlying mainstream inclusion research. They show
that constructs such as work group inclusion, inclusive leadership or inclusion climate all revolve around the in-
dividual: “Mental structures and activities are treated as the ontological realm of the ‘inner’ that cause or are
conditions of the ‘outward’ human behaviour” (Janssens & Steyaert, 2020, p. 1147). A crucial consequence of this
emphasis on the individual—so their argument goes—is that the measures deemed feasible to create inclusive
organizations also target the individual organizational members, their potential biases and stereotypes, their
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discriminatory attitudes and behavior. However, this focus on the individual as both the cause for exclusion and the
solution for inclusion neglects the perspective that a particular social order—and its inclusionary and exclusionary
ramifications—results from a complex entanglement of re‐enacted practices that are simultaneously embodied,
material, and discursive: It is “everyday actions [that] are consequential in producing the structural contours of social
life” (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011, p. 1241; emphasis in original).
Against this background, Janssens and Steyaert plead for an alternative way to conceptualize organizational
inclusion: namely through a relational ontology of practice theory. The main idea is that it is not individuals but
practices that represent the core unit of analysis/action. Such a perspective seeks to identify practices that
“contribute to a social order where multiplicity [is] enabled, highlighted and strengthened” (Janssens & Steyaert,
2020, p. 1154), multiplicity being understood as “inclusion‐producing” (p. 1154). The definition of inclusion itself—as
stressed by the authors—remains largely the same as in mainstream inclusion studies: it is about feeling accepted,
valued, and recognized.
Janssens and Steyaert (2020, p. 1146) identify the particular practices that together create a “site of divers-
alizing” that “recursively produce[s] multiplicity in a processual way” by analyzing the empirical case of a dance
performance called “Tornar” located in an impoverished suburb of Brussels. The explicit aim of this dance per-
formance was to stimulate intergenerational dance interactions; over the years, other differences related to ethnic
background, cognitive and physical impairments or flight experiences also gained significance. In particular, Jans-
sens and Steyaert describe three practices as crucial for creating multiplicity as a precondition to inclusion: mixing,
inverting, and affirming.
They describe the practice of mixing as based on the proactive, continuously rearranged pairing of dancers.
Thereby, customary power asymmetries related to dominant norms, identity assumptions, and related privileges
tend to lose their relevance. Instead, the practice of mixing stimulates the “suspending of individuals’ habitual
relational positions” (Janssens & Steyaert, 2020, p. 1156) and thereby frees them from normative expectations
connected to certain group memberships. The practice of inverting builds on the practice of mixing and further
reinforces it by trying to make the “difference[s] larger and more visible” (Janssens & Steyaert, 2020, p. 1158)
instead of mitigating or neutralizing them. One effect of this practice is not only the weakening but even the
potential reversal of common power asymmetries. And lastly, Janssens and Steyaert identify the practice of
affirming—building on and further fueling the practices of mixing and inverting—as crucial for the sustainable
establishment of a “site of diversalizing.” By affirming they mean continuously (re‐)enabling and experimenting with
the experience of differences and unusual relational encounters.
Seeing Janssens and Steyaert's conception of inclusion from the interests and needs of autistic people, a major
difference comes to the fore by comparison to the approaches of mainstream inclusion studies as well as of Tyler—
although all of them define inclusion, more or less, as characterized by acceptance and recognition through social
relations. However, because Janssens and Steyaert focus on inclusion‐producing practices and not on the successful
accomplishment of a certain state of experience or feeling of inclusion, they also make room for non‐neurotypical
preferences for, and the enactment of relationship building. While mainstream inclusion concepts and Tyler's
embodied ethics approach imagine a certain type of inclusion, namely the affirmative experience of being part of a
social whole, Janssens and Steyaert follow a different path by focusing on the notion of multiplicity, which refrains
from any substantialist inclusion idea(l). The practice of mixing, for instance, which stimulates the unprejudiced
interaction of groups of two or three dancers, where normative expectations of appropriate behavior/feeling
coupled to certain group memberships are avoided, could be a setting for autistic people to establish their preferred
forms of relational interaction with both the human and non‐human world (Davidson & Smith, 2009) as an equally
valid alternative to neurotypical ways of “doing social.” This could indeed create the feeling of acceptance and
recognition for autistic members of the dance performance.
However, does this mean that Janssens and Steyaert's inclusion approach can be described as unconditional?
Their conceptualization of inclusion is certainly not grounded in implicit expectations of neurotypical relationship
building and the “innocent” idea(l) of able‐mindedness, but that does not mean that it is void of boundary
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conditions. When applying a relational perspective to the case at hand, we see that inclusion into the dance per-
formance—apart from being selected by the choreographer—is based on the enactment of a subjectivity that seeks
to be confronted with differences. This depends to some extent on being comfortable with leaving one's comfort
zone and finding pleasure in interacting with people perceived as different from oneself. The argument is not that
this form of subjectivity necessarily excludes autistic people, but more generally, that it may exclude persons who
neither can nor want to enact such a self.

6 | DISCUSSION

The aim of this article was twofold: First, organizational inclusion approaches claiming to be all‐embracing were
investigated to ascertain whether they are applicable to the interests and needs of autistic people, who have been
excluded from initial theorizing. On the one hand, the analysis was guided by an onto‐epistemological stance rooted
in a feminist disability lens embracing the impaired, supposedly flawed body and mind as an inevitable aspect of
human variation (Garland‐Thomson, 2002, 2005; Shildrick, 2015). On the other hand, the analysis followed a
relational perspective on inclusion and exclusion, which approaches them as mutually constitutive (Goodin, 1996).
Thereby, it suggests looking for the inherent boundary conditions in terms of a mostly implicit link between in-
clusion and exclusion, by which subject positions and certain subjectivities are made intelligible (to be included) and
non‐intelligible (to be excluded). In particular, this relational perspective was connected to the second aim of the
article, namely to discuss more generally whether the dependence of inclusion approaches on some form of
boundary conditions leads to the necessary abandonment of (the desire for) inclusivity as such.
Investigating the applicability of organizational inclusion approaches to the interests and needs of autistic
people, the analysis clearly shows that both mainstream and critical organizational inclusion approaches take
neurotypical forms of “doing social” for granted. This is of crucial importance, since the notions of belongingness
and recognition—both perceived as core elements of establishing and maintaining social relationships—represent
central pillars of prominent organizational inclusion concepts (e.g., Shore et al., 2011; Tyler, 2019). One conse-
quence of this unquestioned equation of generic human needs with neurotypical forms of sociability (O'Dell et al.,
2016) underpinned by expectations of able‐mindedness is that certain subject positions such as autistic employees
emerge as “the other Other” of the organizational inclusion discourse. They are made non‐intelligible by a discourse
whose claim is to “leave no one behind” (Nkomo, 2014).
However, despite this common ableist foundation underlying both mainstream and critical organizational in-
clusion studies, not all approaches are equally ill‐suited to taking the interests and needs of autistic people into
account. With respect to mainstream approaches, it is exactly because of their individualist ontology that they
could develop some leeway for responding to the concerns of autistic employees. As an example, the overall
emphasis on the full acceptance, appreciation, and support of the individual employee (Mor Barak et al., 2016;
Nishii, 2013) paired with sufficient knowledge about ASD could lead to the arrangement of tailor‐made working
conditions for autistic employees, which is key for them to thrive at the workplace (Hayward et al., 2019; Seitz &
Smith, 2016). At the same time, this perpetuates the widespread understanding of disability as an “individual
problem” instead of one created and sustained by processes of work organizing that are deeply infused with
ableism (Williams & Mavin, 2012).
In contrast, Tyler's (2019) approach of imagining inclusion as embodied recognition applies a relational ontology
that acknowledges a fundamental vulnerability and intercorporeal interdependence as core conditions of human life.
This fits very well with a feminist disability studies lens, which also emphasizes our mutual inter‐/dependence as well
as the fact that impairment can represent an “integral part of one's embodiment, character, life, and way of relating to
the world” (Garland‐Thomson, 2005, p. 1568). However, because Tyler's concept of embodied recognition is closely
linked to a specific—neurotypical—idea of how affirmative social relations are experienced (e.g., through public as-
semblies) it becomes rather exclusionary for certain groups of people such as autistic people.
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In comparison, Janssens and Steyaert (2020) also engage with a relational ontology but focus on practice theory
instead. Their inductive approach of identifying inclusion‐producing practices in a dance performance means they
refrain from idealizing a certain form of “doing social,” but “simply” turn to the notion of accomplished multiplicity to
assess whether a setting can be judged as inclusive. As multiplicity is a fundamentally relational concept, it can only
emerge through the presence of more than one option. This means, for instance, that there can only be multiplicity
related to “doing social” when non‐neurotypical ways of interaction and relationship building can also be enacted
alongside the neurotypical ways. Consequently, autistic people do not necessarily emerge as the “other Other”
within this inclusion approach, as long as multiplicity is defined in a way that also covers variety in “doing social” and
“able‐mindedness.”
In a nutshell, from the outset none of the analyzed organizational inclusion approaches are applicable to the
interests and needs of autistic people. At the same time, the in‐depth engagement with each approach has shown
that some might be more easily adjustable than others: the more one‐dimensional (e.g., experiencing and building
affective, affirmative relationships) inclusion idea(l)s are imagined, and the more firmly they are linked to only one
way (e.g., through interaction in a group setting) of enacting them, the more likely they will be to exclude groups of
people—such as autistic people—who were not considered in initial theory building.
Given that these identified boundary conditions between intelligible and non‐intelligible subject positions and
subjectivities were primarily implicit, they are very likely unintended and could thus be taken into account in future
developments of these approaches. However, all of the approaches are also built and depend on other boundary
conditions, which—even if not consciously intended—are nevertheless necessary in order to “make the specific
inclusion approach work” (see also Goodin, 1996). As Butler (2015, pp. 5–6; emphasis in original) states: “Even when
a form of recognition is extended to all the people, there remains an active premise that there is a vast region of
those who remain unrecognizable.… Paradoxically, as certain forms of recognition are extended, the region of the
unrecognizable is preserved and expanded accordingly.” In regard to mainstream inclusion approaches, their im-
plicit boundary conditions are built, for instance, on one's alignment with certain performance expectations and
pro‐diversity attitudes (e.g., Ferdman & Deane, 2014; Nishii, 2013; Nkomo, 2014; Shore et al., 2011). In contrast,
Tyler's (2019) embodied ethics concept explicitly rejects a link between one's recognition and any kind of instru-
mentality. However, it is the acknowledgement and affirmation of a relational ontology as well as the agreement on
certain political attitudes (e.g., towards inequalities or social differences) that can be judged as the boundary
conditions of her approach. Similarly, Janssens and Steyaert's (2020) case of the intergenerational dance perfor-
mance is dependent on one's willingness and capability to confront oneself with—probably uncomfortable—dif-
ferences, as well as the alignment with pro‐diversity attitudes.
What can we learn from this inevitability of boundary conditions underlying organizational inclusion
approaches? Does this mean that we have to give up striving to create contexts that are (more) inclusive? Or that
the notion of inclusion is irrevocably doomed? I would argue the opposite. Rather, in order to actually reduce the
gap between the aspiration and reality of organizational inclusion concepts, a first step would be to look for the
implicit boundary conditions of one's own approach and make them explicit. Thereby, one's own theorizing and core
assumptions can not only become less exclusionary in connection with inherent, unintended boundary conditions;
the intended boundary conditions can also become the subject of discussion: “these explicit and implicit forms of
inequality that are sometimes reproduced by fundamental categories such as inclusion and recognition have to be
addressed as part of a temporally open democratic struggle” (Butler, 2015, p. 6).
Only if we explicitly acknowledge and work with the boundary conditions that make inclusion—as ontologically
constituted by some form of exclusion (Goodin, 1996)—possible, can we legitimately describe certain contexts as
“inclusive in regard to …”. In a similar way to Haraway (1988, p. 583), who does not abandon the concept of sci-
entific objectivity as such but introduces a feminist version of objectivity as characterized by “limited location and
situated knowledge,” I would argue that inclusion should be imagined as necessarily partial. A positioning then
becomes inevitable with respect to the inherent, enabling boundary conditions of one's inclusion approach, and this
“[p]ositioning implies responsibility for our enabling practices” (Haraway, 1988, p. 587).
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O RC ID
Laura Dobusch https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5773-0854

E N D N O TE S
1
I have not been diagnosed myself as on the autism spectrum, nor is this article based on first‐hand action research
co‐produced with autistic people. Instead, this study builds on research at the intersection of feminist disability,
neurodiversity, and autism studies. The screening of the literature was guided by a normative and an epistemological
standpoint: the first implies rejecting any kind of individualized deficit perspective on people labeled as “autistic”; the
second is meant to approach both organizational inclusion as well as autism as powerful discourses that constitute and
produce their il‐/legitimate subjects by applying the “essentializing trick” of only discovering them—hence assumed as
pre‐discursively existing—in the first place. Whether this stance does justice to the (diverse) interests and needs of
autistic people needs to be judged first and foremost by the people themselves.
2
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/autism-spectrum-disorders/en/
3
It is important to note that the diagnosis of ASD is neither gender‐neutral nor do autistic women necessarily resemble
autistic men with regard to their style of communicative and interactional behavior, nor can they expect equal support
from health and social care systems (Mandy & Lai, 2017). However, a limitation of this study is that it engages with the
ableist and in particular neurotypical assumptions underlying organizational inclusion approaches in general, but does not
address their gender‐specific consequences for autistic women and autistic men.

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A U TH O R BI O GR A PH Y

Laura Dobusch is Assistant Professor of Gender & Diversity at Radboud Social Cultural Research at Radboud
University, The Netherlands. Her main research interests include why and how differences become relevant in
organizations, how organizational inclusion and exclusion dynamics unfold, and how contemporary forms of
organizing are linked to the construction of il‐/legitimate subjectivities.

How to cite this article: Dobusch L. The inclusivity of inclusion approaches: A relational perspective on
inclusion and exclusion in organizations. Gender Work Organ. 2021;28:379–396. https://doi.org/10.1111/
gwao.12574