Abstract
How do women negotiate and express authenticity in professional contexts where their presence and identities are largely rendered (in)visible? We draw on intersectional invisibility as our conceptual lens to explore how women early-career researchers subjectively negotiate authenticity given prevailing conditions of visibility, invisibility and hypervisibility at work. Based on semi-structured interviews with recipients of the Organisation for Women in Science from Developing countries (OWSD)-Elsevier award, we illuminate how (in)visible conditions shape the subjective negotiation of authenticity, informing the agentic capacity of women researchers to express themselves authentically in professional settings. Our findings reveal the negotiation of authenticity as closely tied to the performance of gender in a manner that aligns with perceived professionalism. This entails compartmentalising personal values when feeling invisible, experiencing heightened awareness of context-specific boundaries when visibility increases, and enacting adaptive agency when hypervisible. We thus posit authenticity as a continuous process of ongoing identity construction and negotiation rather than a static ideal.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-29 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Human Relations |
| Early online date | 17 Mar 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 17 Mar 2025 |
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the handling editor and three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments which helped shape our arguments and contribution. We would also like to say thank you to Dr Derrick Boakye for his critical comments and feedback on the earlier versions of the manuscript. Finally, we are particularly grateful to the women scientists who shared their inspiring stories with us.Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.