ABSTRACT
This chapter initiates a discussion around contemporary issues at the interface of gender, globalisation and the workplace, which will then be picked up by all authors in the chapters that follow. We thereby aim to make visible a range of salient political issues which have global applicability, but which are also subject to often significant socio-cultural variation dependent upon geographical location.
This chapter also addresses important methodological and analytical aspects of researching language, gender and the globalised workplace. We draw attention to and introduce the variety of different methods and approaches showcased in the subsequent chapters, and we highlight the importance of drawing on a wide range of empirical data, including spoken and written workplace interactions, online media and narrative, as well as reflective accounts, elicited through focus group and interview data. We argue that employing a variety of different methods and approaches and drawing on different empirical data enables researchers to identify recurring themes around navigating gender stereotypes and discrimination across the different cultural, linguistic and geopolitical contexts. Such an endeavour, in turn, provides important evidence to inform current discussions of the geopolitical dimensions of language, gender and sexuality scholarship in increasingly fractious global workplaces.
