City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

On being included, racism and diversity in institutional life, Sara Ahmed

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

On being included

electronic resource

Sara Ahmed

racism and diversity in institutional life

Sara Ahmed argues that a commitment to diversity is frequently substituted for a commitment to actual change. Ahmed traces the work that diversity does, examining how the term is used and the way it serves to make questions about racism seem impertinent., What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity? Sara Ahmed offers an account of the diversity world based on interviews with diversity practitioners in higher education, as well as her own experience of doing diversity work. Diversity is an ordinary, even unremarkable, feature of institutional life. Yet diversity practitioners often experience institutions as resistant to their work, as captured through their use of the metaphor of the "brick wall." On Being Included offers an explanation of this apparent paradox. It explores the gap between symbolic commitments to diversity and the experience of those who embody diversity. Commitments to diversity are understood as "non-performatives" that do not bring about what they name. The book provides an account of institutional whiteness and shows how racism can be obscured by the institutionalization of diversity. Diversity is used as evidence that institutions do not have a problem with racism. On Being Included offers a critique of what happens when diversity is offered as a solution. It also shows how diversity workers generate knowledge of institutions in attempting to transform them

specialized