Relatability as a Racialised Construct in Corporate Graduate Recruitment: Revealing a Hidden Mechanism of Labour Market Exclusion for Black African Youth in South Africa
British Journal of Sociology, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1111/1468-4446.70128
- Dergi Adı: British Journal of Sociology
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, ABI/INFORM, American History and Life, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, Criminal Justice Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), Gender Studies Database, Historical Abstracts, Index Islamicus, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Political Science Complete, Psycinfo, Public Affairs Index, Social Sciences Abstracts
- Anahtar Kelimeler: critical race theory, employer decision-making, labour market inequality, racialised employability, relatability, social closure, youth unemployment
- Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
In corporate graduate recruitment worldwide, candidates are often assessed not only on competence but on whether they are deemed relatable. This study theorises relatability as a racialised cultural–affective filter that covertly sustains inequality. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we identify five interlinked processes of self-presentation, confidence, bias, choice, and affinity, through which whiteness operates as a normative anchor in hiring. We extend theories of social closure into aesthetic and affective domains, conceptualising relatability as a meso-level mechanism linking micro-interactional judgements to macro-level racial hierarchies. This framework offers a transferable analytic lens for understanding how cultural capital is operationalised in exclusionary ways across contexts, even in formally and supposedly deracialised systems. The findings call for demand-side reforms that reconfigure organisational norms, broaden definitions of professionalism, and reduce reliance on cultural familiarity as a proxy for merit. Relatability operates as an institutionalised mechanism through which classed and racialised dispositions are recognised and reproduced, even within racially diverse hiring structures.