Dilemmas and positioning when encountering micro aggressive exclusion at work: An analysis of a „small story“ of double-victimization by an international employee

The purpose of this study is to identify the relation and fluidity between micro-level, interpersonal discrimination and institutionalized discrimination in professional, organizational settings, through the gaze of an international employee at a large Danish company. I retrace the multi-layered victimization of an international employee as she reports mistreatment and misbehavior of employees to management using a formally established whistleblowing function.
Conceptually, the study departs from the notion of discrimination in form of micro-aggressions as well as from Sue at al.’s (Sue, 2007) classification of four types of dilemmas for the victims responding to microaggressions. Discrimination refers to the detrimental treatment of humans based on (assumed) categories of their social belonging (e.g., race, age, sex, or disability). It manifests through actions, policies, and attitudes that create inequalities among individuals and groups (Fredrickson, 2002).