Choosing different: Het Toeslagenschandaal, ethnodrama and organisational ethnography

Purpose – This paper argues a for different methodological approach in organisational ethnography: Ethnodrama – a fusion of ethnography and performance. It shows how ethnodrama is uniquely equipped to expose injustices such as institutional racism via the case of the Dutch Childcare Benefit Scandal (Het Toeslagenschandaal). While traditional organisational research (and the public at large) often reduces such scandals to managerial failures, ethnodrama can better perform the affective, historical and systemic dimensions of racial injustice, making them visible and tangible to audiences. The paper argues how artistic methodologies can complement scholarly analysis in Management and Organisation Studies (MOS) to challenge colonial legacies and racialised governance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative, practice-based approach, drawing on the author’s experience as a playwright and ethnodramatist. It integrates archival and documentary analysis, interviews and testimonies, theoretical frameworks and artistic practice. Findings – Het Toeslagenschandaal shows how racialised groups bear the burden of proof and systemic discrimination, obscured by bureaucratic neutrality and under researched concepts like race in MOS. Ethnodrama disrupts this by performing the emotional and relational impacts of institutional racism, centring marginalised voices without reducing them to trauma narratives and creating spaces for public reflection on racial justice, beyond academic or policy silos. This makes it an important methodological addition in MOS. Originality/value – This paper advances decolonial methodology in MOS by positioning ethnodrama as a tool for embodied knowledge production, critiquing the epistemological limitations of traditional organisational research in addressing racism and offering a practical, artistic framework to engage diverse audiences in systemic critique.