A decolonial feminist contribution to management studies: Introducing Maya women’s communitarian organising

Decolonial feminist theory is an important tool to counter the coloniality manifested in the control of knowledge and gender present in management studies. In this article, I use decolonial feminist theory as a framework to introduce Maya women and their communitarian organising. Maya women’s communitarian organising is a theorisation developed with Indigenous Guatemalan women. It is a way of working and organising that is built in the socioeconomic margins and oriented by the plurality of life as a Maya woman. Communitarian organising cultivates the women’s Buen Vivir through the decentralisation of power, self-management and participative decision-making based on collective, consensus-based participation by members. This article provides an empirically grounded contribution to the decolonial epistemic shift in management studies. By centring Maya women and their communitarian organising, this article enables management academics to learn from diverse epistemic encounters, engage with alternative worldviews, and think about management and organisation from the perspective and experiences of Global South Indigenous women.