On Being Included
Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life
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.
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Publishing has a diversity problem. There are less 'diverse' books being published which limits the discoverability and reach of those authors.
Representation is important. Read more about why we exist here.
An anti-racist social enterprise bookstore specialising in BIPOC books.
Only about 11% of books published are by BIPOC authors — so unless you specifically seek out books by BIPOC authors, you aren't likely to find very many of them organically. At Amplify, BIPOC authors are highlighted and celebrated. Here, they don't have to fight to be seen, and you don't have to fight to find them.
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