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.
#562985 in Books Duke University Press Books 1995-06-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.30 x 1.02 x 6.20l; 1.33 #File Name: 0822316218352 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Could've Done Without the IntroBy Amanda GreathouseI would've given it 5 stars; but for the fact that I'm not a fan of all of the long introductions and such. It was very extraneous. Dashkova's words are why I bought the book though; and they do a good job of telling her story.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A woman of indomitable spiritBy John JonesThis memoir provides fascinating insight into the lives of Russian and European nobility in the mid and late 1700's; and serves as an early travelogue.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Love. Her.By jbearOne bad ass woman from history! Totally worth a read if you like women who ran the men around them without the men even realizing it.
