Dehumanization-understood as the denial of full humanity (Dvir & Nagar, 2025)-continues to pose a significant challenge across contemporary organizations. It takes two primary forms: animalistic dehumanization (infrahumanization; denial of uniquely human attributes) and mechanistic dehumanization (denial of characteristics constituting human nature) (Landry & Seli, 2024). Although prior scholarship has illuminated core processes that operate in traditional workplace settings, important questions remain about how dehumanization emerges and operates across varied sectors, occupational groups, and work arrangements, including remote and hybrid contexts and other underexamined professional domains.
This symposium invites contributions that clarify antecedents, mechanisms, and outcomes of dehumanization across the spectrum of work; identify boundary conditions; and outline evidence‑based pathways to rehumanize work. We welcome conceptual, qualitative, quantitative, experimental, multi‑method, and comparative studies, as well as cross‑cultural perspectives.
Submission and timeline
- Please email a 1–2 page proposal (research question, theoretical framing, methods or planned approach, anticipated contribution, and fit with the symposium) by 31 October.
- For accepted proposals, final long abstracts (maximum 5 pages) are due by 15 November.
Contact
For submissions and inquiries, please contact Lu Yu (LuYu@MissouriState.edu) or Aï Ito (ai.ito@xjtlu.edu.cn).
We look forward to your contributions and to a constructive discussion that advances research and practice on rehumanizing work.
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Lu Yu
Assistant Professor
Missouri State University
Springfield MO
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