https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318917725202
Management Communication Quarterly
2017, Vol. 31(4) 614–639
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0893318917725202
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Article
Invisibility and
Visibility in Alternative
Organizing: A
Communicative and
Cultural Model
Joëlle M. Cruz
1
Abstract
This study reengages organizational communication scholarship on invisibility
and visibility through a cultural lens. Departing from Western-centered
approaches, I deploy African feminisms to examine how organizational members
communicatively negotiate invisibility and visibility in a different cultural logic and
context. I focus on market women’s susu groups—grassroots organizations—in
postconflict Liberia, West Africa. I conducted 100 hr of participant observation
and 40 interviews with susu group members in Monrovia, Liberia. I unearth
a communicative situational model to culture. At a micro-level, the model
uncovers three situational dimensions—temporal, relational, and structural—
that shape how organizational members negotiate invisibility and visibility.
At a macro-level, the model contributes to emerging work on culture and
organizing. In conclusion, the study moves past understandings of culture as
a factor to consider underlying assumptions shaping how we conceptualize
communicative processes, here invisibility and visibility.
Keywords
alternative organizations, culture, invisibility, visibility
1
University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Corresponding Author:
Joëlle M. Cruz, University of Colorado Boulder, Hellems 96, UCB 270, Boulder, CO 80309-0401,
USA.
Email: joelle.cruz@colorado.edu
725202MCQ XX X 10.1177/0893318917725202Management Communication QuarterlyCruz
research-article 2017