Toward full inclusion: Understanding individual experiences as epistemic resources in sameness-difference dilemmas

Abstract

This study aims to highlight how individual experiences serve as epistemic resources in disability management by examining how differently-abled individuals respond to and resist exclusionary and essentializing mechanisms within organizational equality, diversity, and inclusion interventions, particularly in relation to the sameness-difference dilemma. Using empirical data from observations and interviews with deaf employees in a performing arts organization, we analyze how these individuals navigate a work environment shaped by hearing norms and initiate change. Our findings reveal that deaf employees resist framing their needs as economic burdens within ableist discourses, asserting their right to be different and adapting to dominant hearing structures by assuming influential roles and collaboratively effecting changes. Through these actions, they broaden the concept of able-bodiedness within organizational contexts, foster critical reflexivity, engage in learning, and enrich organizational knowledge. Building on this, we propose the concept of full inclusion, moving beyond mere critiques of ableist practices in diversity management. This approach provides an alternative epistemic pathway for reflexive organizational learning rooted in differently-abled individuals’ experiences, encouraging organizations to view “others” as essential knowledge resources to mitigate the sameness-difference dilemma within ableist norms.