Threading Harm in the Fabric of Organization: Mobilization of Normative Violence against Refugee Workers

In this research, we explore the mechanisms that enable the mobilization and perpetuation of normative violence in business organizations. Drawing on 47 interviews with refugee and civil society workers in Italy, and an analysis of policy documents, our findings reveal that normative violence against refugee workers in organizations is mobilized through the encapsulation of refugee workers, the manufacturing of violent and precarious employment practices, the manipulation and rerouting of resources, and sanctioning in response to refugee workers’ resistance against these mechanisms. We advance current debates on normative violence by emphasizing that organizations can operate through two parallel systems: one that maintains the appearance of stability, efficiency, and order in daily operations, and the other that mobilizes and sustains various forms of violence against a specific segment of the workforce. We argue that, when othering of certain workforces is deliberately instituted at the heart of the organization, the middle managers, supervisors, and co-workers of othered workforces reinforce this othering by constructing their own superior position around and above them. Hence, when (normative) violence is mobilized in varied forms, for different purposes, and by diverse actors, it becomes increasingly fluid and its origins more difficult to trace. This study also extends the existing research on resistance in organizations by highlighting the limitations of the efficacy of individuals’ exercise of agency in shaping their own experiences and events. To this end, we conceptualize that, in organizational settings where violence against a specific othered group is deliberate, layered, and normalized, acts of resistance bring renewed and escalated forms of violence.