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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. And 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.
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2012
About the author
Sara Ahmed
33 books1,358 followersSara Ahmed is a British-Australian scholar whose area of study includes the intersection of feminist theory, lesbian feminism, queer theory, critical race theory and postcolonialism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
March 29, 2016
Not what I expected, but informative. From the title, I was hoping for a fine-grained narrative account of what it feels like to "belong" (or not) in a university. Instead, this is a theory-driven study of how pro-diversity policies do (and don't) produce changes in institutional behavior. Basically an analytical account of how bureaucracy limits, stifles, and co-opts lofty ideals.
The author opens with a theory of institutions and how they evolve; then she analyzes interview data to explore why the trendy goal of diversity isn't working to produce desired changes in institutional practices. She reveals how happy "diversity discourse" has displaced blunt talk about race/racism, thereby diluting and obscuring the real culture-changing work to be done.
Overall, it's a well-written, but very academic, sociological critique of universities as bureaucracies. Less about inclusion per se, and more about bureaucratic obstacles to creating an inclusive institution.
The author opens with a theory of institutions and how they evolve; then she analyzes interview data to explore why the trendy goal of diversity isn't working to produce desired changes in institutional practices. She reveals how happy "diversity discourse" has displaced blunt talk about race/racism, thereby diluting and obscuring the real culture-changing work to be done.
Overall, it's a well-written, but very academic, sociological critique of universities as bureaucracies. Less about inclusion per se, and more about bureaucratic obstacles to creating an inclusive institution.
January 15, 2022
This book evokes and unpacks the stifling experience of doing diversity work in institutions of higher education. A major theme is materializing through reference. Examples include 1) how bringing up racism opens one to the charge of invoking/creating it; 2) how diversity / equity / equality policies allow institutions to conflate the creation of documents with the practice of diversity, by referencing the existence of such a document as a credential; and 3) a pattern of repeatedly invoking commitment, as if referring to a person's or institution's commitment to diversity were [enough] to make it a new reality. Ahmed argues that the way institutions handle diversity work merely serves to reinforce and protect the institutional default, which is whiteness. I found the discussion of what it means to "institutionalize" to be especially helpful: normalizing something to the extent that it becomes background.
February 19, 2021
I am torn as I write the review for this book. I have been so looking forward to reading it. There are challenges that are both methodological and theoretical. This book was founded and based on interviews with diversity practitioners in higher education institutions in Australia and the United Kingdom. This is an absolutely fascinating project. Yet these interviews have left few fingerprints on the book. Testimony is cited, but in terms of using this rich interview material to create an argument and ontological disruption, this next stage of analysis did not emerge. In terms of methodological discussion of the interviews, this is placed in footnotes 6, 7, 8 and 9. Interviews were used as illustrations for an argument, rather than the foundational evidence to make an argument.
As we expect from Professor Ahmed, there are fascinating statements made about diversity as an apology, as public relations and as an excuse for higher educational institutions. She is absolutely right. While Homi Bhabha's theorization of diversity receives a paragraph the text, his powerful commentary about class, mobility and diversity could - indeed - have transformed the entire trajectory of the book. Perhaps 'diversity' is actually more a statement about class than race.
Considering the research was based on diversity practitioners in Australian and UK universities, a deep discussion of the profound differences between Indigenous citizens and other citizens of colour would have been welcome.
Similarly, a deep discussion exploring the different local and regional histories of race in the United Kingdom, such as probing the important and distinctive history of the Black citizens of Liverpool which arches a century before the arrival of the Windrush, would have reinforced statements about localism rather than nationalism. Instead of looping into a discussion of the narrative of Bend it like Beckham, it would have been powerful to reveal the rich texture of these rare, precise and important interviews.
This book is important. I note that intersectionality made an appearance through footnote 18. However the diversity explored in this book is with regard to race and racism, with secondary attention to gender, and some exploration of sexuality. Dis/ability is not a part of this study, although it is key to many institutional diversity policies.
As we expect from Professor Ahmed, there are fascinating statements made about diversity as an apology, as public relations and as an excuse for higher educational institutions. She is absolutely right. While Homi Bhabha's theorization of diversity receives a paragraph the text, his powerful commentary about class, mobility and diversity could - indeed - have transformed the entire trajectory of the book. Perhaps 'diversity' is actually more a statement about class than race.
Considering the research was based on diversity practitioners in Australian and UK universities, a deep discussion of the profound differences between Indigenous citizens and other citizens of colour would have been welcome.
Similarly, a deep discussion exploring the different local and regional histories of race in the United Kingdom, such as probing the important and distinctive history of the Black citizens of Liverpool which arches a century before the arrival of the Windrush, would have reinforced statements about localism rather than nationalism. Instead of looping into a discussion of the narrative of Bend it like Beckham, it would have been powerful to reveal the rich texture of these rare, precise and important interviews.
This book is important. I note that intersectionality made an appearance through footnote 18. However the diversity explored in this book is with regard to race and racism, with secondary attention to gender, and some exploration of sexuality. Dis/ability is not a part of this study, although it is key to many institutional diversity policies.
April 11, 2016
Excellent work for what it is - a sort of close reading exercise with a mix of polemic of institutional documents regarding racial equity.
Very well written and moves smoothly from point-to-informative-point, unlike Strange Encounters by the same author which was unnecessarily repetitive and in some parts very redundant. Extremely useful read for anyone vaguely interested in the rhetorics of diversity, and urgently necessary for those who are NOT interested, though of course, that's the problem isn't it.
I'm not giving it a 5 stars more so because I wish Ahmed went further with her analysis. This could have used a lot more documentary material. I get that she started with a vaguely sociological method and had to cease, but she took it halfway in her book without going for the touch down. I can't believe I'm saying this but more examples please! I also wish this had a lot more exposition about the history of words like equal opportunities, affirmative action, inclusion, diversity, etc. Just one chapter - or she could have very explicitly referred the reader to another book with such histories if there is one, but if there isn't, all the more reason to include it!
Very close to 5-star superbness but still very much recommended.
Very well written and moves smoothly from point-to-informative-point, unlike Strange Encounters by the same author which was unnecessarily repetitive and in some parts very redundant. Extremely useful read for anyone vaguely interested in the rhetorics of diversity, and urgently necessary for those who are NOT interested, though of course, that's the problem isn't it.
I'm not giving it a 5 stars more so because I wish Ahmed went further with her analysis. This could have used a lot more documentary material. I get that she started with a vaguely sociological method and had to cease, but she took it halfway in her book without going for the touch down. I can't believe I'm saying this but more examples please! I also wish this had a lot more exposition about the history of words like equal opportunities, affirmative action, inclusion, diversity, etc. Just one chapter - or she could have very explicitly referred the reader to another book with such histories if there is one, but if there isn't, all the more reason to include it!
Very close to 5-star superbness but still very much recommended.
January 3, 2015
A must read for anyone interested in how racism (and other prejudices) become systematized and institutionalized. Ahmed, a brilliant theorist, utilizes her administrative experience with diversity in higher learning (committee work and internal studies in the UK) to examine how racism, in particular, is maintained in university systems. Particularly insightful in the analysis of the language of diversity utilized in both UK and US universities (that leads absolutely nowhere, or back to the past). There is a penchant for repetitious phrasing that sometimes adds nothing to the analysis but otherwise a very good read.
August 2, 2019
I've been a fan of all Sara Ahmed's work and its been deeply influential during my school years, and now in my career. This is a book I've been wanting to read for a long time and I enjoyed the nuanced critiques of 'diversity discourse' that are presented. My only issue with it is that the language at times felt clunky and repetitive.
August 15, 2023
The result of meticulous theoretical and on-the-ground research (and, most specifically, the grounded theoretical interventions emergent in conversations among faculty of color across campus contexts), On Being Included is a much-needed takedown of University-level "DEI" policy that goes beyond typical left-critiques.
Rather than focusing only on the false promises of improved "representation" rested on the backs of administrative committees, Ahmed takes aim at the paradigm of DEI itself, and the glorification of inclusion in a violent university project whose goal is to eliminate the most disruptive, and most necessary, aspects of human difference. Within the university structure, Ahmed argues, to point out the continuous violations of one's personhood required to "fit" the narrow confines of white academic institutions, is to become the false embodiment of said violence, to call to mind unpleasant and ongoing histories the white powers-that-be choose, with nominal diversity efforts, to push out of view.
The formation of DEI committees, then, becomes a multifold project of assigning a scapegoat for the problem of (visible) racism at the university level, as well as the false promise of a solution (after all, the thinking goes, to establish a DEI committee must be tantamount to ending the discriminatory practices that warranted their creation). The material and affective labor of sustaining inquiries into institutional racism, as well as the burden of "being the problem" by having the problem, is once more isolated to those faculty of color selected for the often-unpaid position of diversity worker, and/or those who become ad hoc diversity workers due to their status as First / Only in their department.
With all of her trademark brilliance and dexterity, Ahmed paints a picture of the foibles and limited promises of diversity work within a white supremacist, colonialist university setting that I will undoubtedly keep returning to for years to come.
Rather than focusing only on the false promises of improved "representation" rested on the backs of administrative committees, Ahmed takes aim at the paradigm of DEI itself, and the glorification of inclusion in a violent university project whose goal is to eliminate the most disruptive, and most necessary, aspects of human difference. Within the university structure, Ahmed argues, to point out the continuous violations of one's personhood required to "fit" the narrow confines of white academic institutions, is to become the false embodiment of said violence, to call to mind unpleasant and ongoing histories the white powers-that-be choose, with nominal diversity efforts, to push out of view.
The formation of DEI committees, then, becomes a multifold project of assigning a scapegoat for the problem of (visible) racism at the university level, as well as the false promise of a solution (after all, the thinking goes, to establish a DEI committee must be tantamount to ending the discriminatory practices that warranted their creation). The material and affective labor of sustaining inquiries into institutional racism, as well as the burden of "being the problem" by having the problem, is once more isolated to those faculty of color selected for the often-unpaid position of diversity worker, and/or those who become ad hoc diversity workers due to their status as First / Only in their department.
With all of her trademark brilliance and dexterity, Ahmed paints a picture of the foibles and limited promises of diversity work within a white supremacist, colonialist university setting that I will undoubtedly keep returning to for years to come.
August 16, 2018
This is an academic (but very readable) look at the act of doing and being diversity in an institutional context. The foundation of Ahmed's book is a series of interviews with diversity professionals at universities in the UK and Australia, as well as her personal experience as a woman of color in the institutions where she's worked. Ahmed doesn't give the reader any easy steps to take, but instead brings us a clear look at how institutions work and what that means for the people or groups who are trying to change an institutional culture that reproduces and favors whiteness.
Much of what she talks about reflects concerns and experiences I've heard from friends and colleagues of color. Other topics shone a light on things I'd never thought about, but that I recognized as an obvious part of the institutional foundations I've experienced. Ahmed's narrative includes looking at the language we use to describe this work (including why "diversity" is such a beloved term), how whiteness as the norm impacts workers and students of color, what actually goes on in committee meetings, the way an institution can be personified, how documents can help and hinder communication, and she ultimately explores some philosophical approaches to thinking through these efforts in a fresh way.
Although there are aspects of the interviews and assertions that are unique to a UK context, most of what Ahmed discusses is just as applicable to institutions in the United States. And while her philosophy and academic background can sometimes make this a dense book, her clear writing style makes it an easy read (and one that made me want to underline every spot-on sentence). I'd really recommend this book for anyone interested in picking apart the successes and failures of institutional diversity efforts (particularly in higher education).
Much of what she talks about reflects concerns and experiences I've heard from friends and colleagues of color. Other topics shone a light on things I'd never thought about, but that I recognized as an obvious part of the institutional foundations I've experienced. Ahmed's narrative includes looking at the language we use to describe this work (including why "diversity" is such a beloved term), how whiteness as the norm impacts workers and students of color, what actually goes on in committee meetings, the way an institution can be personified, how documents can help and hinder communication, and she ultimately explores some philosophical approaches to thinking through these efforts in a fresh way.
Although there are aspects of the interviews and assertions that are unique to a UK context, most of what Ahmed discusses is just as applicable to institutions in the United States. And while her philosophy and academic background can sometimes make this a dense book, her clear writing style makes it an easy read (and one that made me want to underline every spot-on sentence). I'd really recommend this book for anyone interested in picking apart the successes and failures of institutional diversity efforts (particularly in higher education).
September 3, 2021
Sara Ahmed's On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life focuses on the 'doing' of equity and diversity work within universities: the ways this work can become image management work, can become performative, can put equity workers 'at odds' with the employers that hire them, can be held up as indicating 'diversity success' in ways that obscure racism and institutionalized whiteness. Ahmed demonstrates how equity workers come to have particular insights into the 'brick walls' they face in universities: walls that remain invisible to those who 'fit in' and who are not doing this work. I highly recommend this book, particularly to those interested in doing social justice work in university contexts but really to anyone who works in post-secondary education in any capacity. It is a much needed reminder in many respects: a reminder that producing documents gets conflated with "doing the work" in problematic ways, that diversity statements do not create what they name, and that the language we use matters tremendously given that 'diversity talk' can and does work against the naming and challenging of racism.
Context note: I read this book as part of a reading group I co-facilitate as a part of my union's equity committee; as a union made up of university contract faculty and academic workers we are selecting books that specifically address doing equity and anti-oppression work in the post-secondary context.
Context note: I read this book as part of a reading group I co-facilitate as a part of my union's equity committee; as a union made up of university contract faculty and academic workers we are selecting books that specifically address doing equity and anti-oppression work in the post-secondary context.
March 12, 2020
I read this one for one of my graduate courses, and it was very interesting! The book explores the way racism is reproduced within higher education institutions; with a focus on what is diversity and what is it doing. It is definitely written as a long academic journal, but the author made many attempts to explain the information in many different ways. I appreciated that she drew on personal experience and informal conversations to make her arguments.
January 22, 2021
Excellent ethnographic research. Well written. Excellent critique of diversity efforts. Functions as a map for the issue rather than a being structured around a narrative format making it feel pretty dense at time.
January 19, 2019
Don't look over it, if you can't get over it
March 7, 2021
I had to read this book for class and we all agreed this should be a Book Club pick for higher education! We all enjoyed it so much. It was deep, thought provoking and filled with research to validate the author's claims. Highly recommend!
September 16, 2021
Cutting, insightful, clear & accessible
July 30, 2018
We read this as a part of a book discussion group for the library with a campus-wide focus, open to anyone who wanted to join. It gave me a much better framework for what inclusion is and is not.
Read
July 15, 2020For my March book club I read On Being Included: Race and Diversity in Institutional Life by Sara Ahmed. In her book, Ahmed looks at the contradictory way that diversity work functions in higher education. The institutional context of higher education is fundamentally a white context that maintain itself by maintaining white supremacy. Ahmed’s main argument is that diversity work at universities serves to reinforce the institutional default of whiteness instead of actually working towards equity. Racism is framed as something that we can “get over,” erasing the way it continues to be institutionalized. She draws on her own experience as a diversity practitioner as well as interviews with other people in the field to highlight how diversity work can obscure the actual inequities at work. One way this happens is through the language of diversity; institutions create diversity documents and falsely equate using diversity language to practicing diversity. The practice of diversity would require an underlying shift in power, a painful process for those who benefit from the status quo and make decisions for the university. Performative commitments to diversity make those in positions of privilege comfortable while a reality of diversity is not experienced by those who are expected to embody diversity (students of color, disabled students, low-wealth student…). People who point out racism are accused of creating it and made into the problem as victimizers frame themselves as victims. The lack of institutional history, as students graduate every four years, allows continued inaction. Ahmed returns repeatedly to the image of a brick wall, as doing this work can often feel like running into a brick wall of institutional resistance, but she wrote this book because she believes a deep knowledge of the institutions is necessary to do transformative work.
I think this was an important book for me to read because it's important to recognize that these dynamics extend to institutions beyond higher education, although specific embodiment shifts with context. Even working in an institution with a clear commitment to equity and diversity, as I now do, it’s important to be critical of how our structures, practices, and language can work to normalize certain power dynamics. At an organization mostly made up of white women, what does talking about diversity do? Are we speaking in a way that aligns with transformative action, even if that action is uncomfortable for us and the organization. Or does our shared language allow us to feel as though we are “doing the work” without actually having engage with difficult dynamics.
I would recommend this book to any CTEPs looking for a theoretical framing to diversity work. It’s a fairly short but dense read that I enjoyed because it really provided context for my experiences in institutions. It also made me reflect on how adaptable white supremacy is and the way that I use diversity language or practices to protect my own whiteness which I think is valuable.
I think this was an important book for me to read because it's important to recognize that these dynamics extend to institutions beyond higher education, although specific embodiment shifts with context. Even working in an institution with a clear commitment to equity and diversity, as I now do, it’s important to be critical of how our structures, practices, and language can work to normalize certain power dynamics. At an organization mostly made up of white women, what does talking about diversity do? Are we speaking in a way that aligns with transformative action, even if that action is uncomfortable for us and the organization. Or does our shared language allow us to feel as though we are “doing the work” without actually having engage with difficult dynamics.
I would recommend this book to any CTEPs looking for a theoretical framing to diversity work. It’s a fairly short but dense read that I enjoyed because it really provided context for my experiences in institutions. It also made me reflect on how adaptable white supremacy is and the way that I use diversity language or practices to protect my own whiteness which I think is valuable.
July 17, 2023
I read this book to learn more from the wise and practical Sara K. Ahmed, after learning so much from her book, Being the Change. This one is very different in that it’s very academic and focused on the institutional level. She gave me language to name the frustrations I have with academic culture as a barrier for moving forward with identity and inclusion work in schools, as well as to identify ways that I myself act as a barrier to change and liberation.
November 7, 2022
In one of the more significant moments in recent British history, the McPherson report in 1999, investigating the police response to the murder in London of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, found the Metropolitan police to be institutionally racist. It wasn’t a new idea (institutional racism or that a police force might be so): the term first appeared in late 1960s – but the official imprimatur from its use in such a report was seen as a moment of hope for some meaningful change in the British state and many of its institutions. But as has been often noted, whiteness is a slippery, wily thing. Already, by the time this report was issued, many institutions had begun to find ways to address, or at least be seen to be responding to, the criticism that they remained places where white men ruled to roost in a system that reinforced their standing, simply by being a place of their comfort. Not surprisingly, one such system was the universities. This response was, and still is, the system that became labelled equality, diversity and inclusions (EDI).
In On Being Included Sara Ahmed explores the ways that EDI programme and policies are developed and instituted by working with EDI workers in British and Australian universities, and in doing so explores how institutional change is such a highly contested and contradictory site. In doing so she draws out ways that the language of diversity both provides an opportunity to change the system, to make it a more democratic space of belonging for a wider range of people, while also reinforcing the existing exclusionary power regime. This tension runs throughout the analysis – where EDI work offers both a potential for change and a reinforcement of the order it is supposed to be changing.
This tension, this contradiction, exists at multiple levels. There is a recurrent discussion of the ways that institutional performance cultures and the management regimes they produce sustain a situation where systemic and cultural factors are minimised, so racism for instance is reduced to a problem of individual attitudes and practices (as seen in the police forces’ responses to McPherson and subsequent cases, where they root out the ‘bad apples’). The contradiction may also be seen the paradoxes of EDI practice – Ahmed cites the case of the Vice Chancellor who cites the praise given to an EDI policy, developed to address an overwhelming lack of E, D or I, as evidence that the university was ‘good at diversity’, when the exact opposite is the case. She further draws out this strand of analysis to explore the ways that professed commitment to EDI becomes a way of not doing anything to enhance it.
This is not to say that Ahmed’s argument is that EDI work is a waste of time, or that the policy and approach is some kind of Machiavellian move to retain power, but more that she explores the ways that regimes of power protect their power. As an approach EDI without systemic transformation was probably always flawed – it is hard to see that the solution to a problem of an exclusionary system is a programme that draws into that system those excluded by it … unless, that is, the problem of systemic exclusion is not recognised. Throughout Ahmed makes the powerful point that a systemic response to its forms of exclusion being highlighted is often to make into the problem those who highlight the problem – it’s not racism that is the problem but calling out that racism: this is a potent and pervasive means of deflection.
While not in itself an analysis that points to the futility or otherwise of this EDI work, I can’t help but feel frustrated that although much of the field work for the book was done 15-20 years ago, and the book published 10 years ago, very little has changed. The level of the problem struck me forcefully in a university committee meeting not long after this book was published when we were looking at ‘diversity’ data by work unit, and I spotted that my overwhelmingly white work group was showing two ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ staff members. When I asked my co-worker who had prepared the data, in a slightly perplexed manner, who the ‘other’ one was (one was clear) I was told it was me – a comfortably middle aged white bloke. We had three ‘white’ options for the ethnicity listing – White British, White Irish (neither of which I am, although almost exclusively of white, British and Irish descent) and White Other (which I had ticked): it turned out that White Other was one of the categories classed as ‘BAME’ – so enhanced our diversity data. This struck me at the time as a great example of the slipperiness of whiteness, and the non-performance of diversity. I began marking myself as White British.
Ahmed’s analysis is rich, nuanced, elegantly dialectical and theoretically sophisticated without being exclusionary – it is an academic text, but of the kind we’d be better off with if more of us made the effort to make our cases this engaging. It remains a vital text not laying out not only how racism and diversity are contested issues and sites in university settings, but of how institutions operate to sustain themselves and shore up existing power regimes. That is to say, it remains essential reading.
In On Being Included Sara Ahmed explores the ways that EDI programme and policies are developed and instituted by working with EDI workers in British and Australian universities, and in doing so explores how institutional change is such a highly contested and contradictory site. In doing so she draws out ways that the language of diversity both provides an opportunity to change the system, to make it a more democratic space of belonging for a wider range of people, while also reinforcing the existing exclusionary power regime. This tension runs throughout the analysis – where EDI work offers both a potential for change and a reinforcement of the order it is supposed to be changing.
This tension, this contradiction, exists at multiple levels. There is a recurrent discussion of the ways that institutional performance cultures and the management regimes they produce sustain a situation where systemic and cultural factors are minimised, so racism for instance is reduced to a problem of individual attitudes and practices (as seen in the police forces’ responses to McPherson and subsequent cases, where they root out the ‘bad apples’). The contradiction may also be seen the paradoxes of EDI practice – Ahmed cites the case of the Vice Chancellor who cites the praise given to an EDI policy, developed to address an overwhelming lack of E, D or I, as evidence that the university was ‘good at diversity’, when the exact opposite is the case. She further draws out this strand of analysis to explore the ways that professed commitment to EDI becomes a way of not doing anything to enhance it.
This is not to say that Ahmed’s argument is that EDI work is a waste of time, or that the policy and approach is some kind of Machiavellian move to retain power, but more that she explores the ways that regimes of power protect their power. As an approach EDI without systemic transformation was probably always flawed – it is hard to see that the solution to a problem of an exclusionary system is a programme that draws into that system those excluded by it … unless, that is, the problem of systemic exclusion is not recognised. Throughout Ahmed makes the powerful point that a systemic response to its forms of exclusion being highlighted is often to make into the problem those who highlight the problem – it’s not racism that is the problem but calling out that racism: this is a potent and pervasive means of deflection.
While not in itself an analysis that points to the futility or otherwise of this EDI work, I can’t help but feel frustrated that although much of the field work for the book was done 15-20 years ago, and the book published 10 years ago, very little has changed. The level of the problem struck me forcefully in a university committee meeting not long after this book was published when we were looking at ‘diversity’ data by work unit, and I spotted that my overwhelmingly white work group was showing two ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ staff members. When I asked my co-worker who had prepared the data, in a slightly perplexed manner, who the ‘other’ one was (one was clear) I was told it was me – a comfortably middle aged white bloke. We had three ‘white’ options for the ethnicity listing – White British, White Irish (neither of which I am, although almost exclusively of white, British and Irish descent) and White Other (which I had ticked): it turned out that White Other was one of the categories classed as ‘BAME’ – so enhanced our diversity data. This struck me at the time as a great example of the slipperiness of whiteness, and the non-performance of diversity. I began marking myself as White British.
Ahmed’s analysis is rich, nuanced, elegantly dialectical and theoretically sophisticated without being exclusionary – it is an academic text, but of the kind we’d be better off with if more of us made the effort to make our cases this engaging. It remains a vital text not laying out not only how racism and diversity are contested issues and sites in university settings, but of how institutions operate to sustain themselves and shore up existing power regimes. That is to say, it remains essential reading.
August 14, 2018
A very compelling, clinical look at the way diversity work and discussions of racism in the university (U.K. universities, in this case, though very viable for U.S. universities) can either propagate the "flow" of institutional whiteness and solidify it further, or can be an exhausting pursuit which necessarily alienates the pursuer. Rich examinations of rhetoric and institutional identity abound, as well as a hard look at a widespread failure to truly dismantle racism from educational systems (and society at large).
The book is written in a very straightforward way, and though this did make it a bit dry at points, it was very useful for comprehension: Ahmed's logical descriptions/analyses are very deep, but she is careful to avoid synonyms and complex sentence structures.
My only complaint is that the book does not really offer a workable solution to racial inequality. I'm a practical person, and was aching for even a hypothetical set of practices to rewrite our educational practices. Sadly, I think the lack of clear, actionable items arose from the predicament the book itself establishes. Can we face racism without further alienating the discriminated? Can we pursue equality without embedding inequality in our pursuit?
These questions bother me deeply, and I hope some reflection will bring some resolution.
If anything, I took away that we should not stop talking, we should not stop moving, and we should not stop addressing the deep social binds that allow damaging perspectives and practices to reproduce and propagate themselves in the modern academy. To be discouraged and give up is to be a part of the problem.
The book is written in a very straightforward way, and though this did make it a bit dry at points, it was very useful for comprehension: Ahmed's logical descriptions/analyses are very deep, but she is careful to avoid synonyms and complex sentence structures.
My only complaint is that the book does not really offer a workable solution to racial inequality. I'm a practical person, and was aching for even a hypothetical set of practices to rewrite our educational practices. Sadly, I think the lack of clear, actionable items arose from the predicament the book itself establishes. Can we face racism without further alienating the discriminated? Can we pursue equality without embedding inequality in our pursuit?
These questions bother me deeply, and I hope some reflection will bring some resolution.
If anything, I took away that we should not stop talking, we should not stop moving, and we should not stop addressing the deep social binds that allow damaging perspectives and practices to reproduce and propagate themselves in the modern academy. To be discouraged and give up is to be a part of the problem.
August 4, 2018
Insightful but hard to read -- I couldn't have gotten through it if I hadn't been part of a book club at work. Ahmed essentially deconstructs the language and activity around diversity initiatives at colleges and universities, through interviews with diversity workers in Australia and England, and through her own experience doing that work as well. Her analysis is fantastic and thorough. My problem (and this is MY problem), is that the book is clearly written for a higher ed context, so there's loads of critical theory that Ahmed references to both buttress her arguments and to put forward her own ideas. Which makes sense -- she's a scholar. But it was tough going for a while. By the last full chapter though, I was "in the flow" so to speak, a little bit like reading Shakespeare, where it takes a while to understand but then when you get used to it, it's relatively fine. Of course, now that I've read this book, I can't be wholeheartedly optimistic about any sort of diversity work -- Ahmed shows that oftentimes the best intentions end up actually making situations worse for the very people that are intended to be helped, based in large part on power inequities and the inability of those with the power to understand how their situation and activities reinforce systemic issues. So ... sigh... that's a bummer... Nonetheless, I'm very glad I read the book.
June 9, 2020
incredibly articulate, clever, and thoughtful dissection of diversity work & racism in institutions. sara ahmed has a way of verbalizing challenging realities that are simultaneously obvious and hard to explain. more than that, though, she offers a voice for the realities that aren't obvious, especially for those who don't have to experience institutional obstacles when it comes to one's identity (i.e. white people) or work related to identity. her research offers a space for diversity practitioners to talk about their experiences, and this book creates a space to analyze these experiences and ahmed's in order to better understand how institutions work (or don't, when it comes to dismantling racism).
read this if you want to better understand how whiteness is reproduced in institutions; how institutions commit to diversity while blocking diversity work from affecting change; how diversity workers experience (and become exhausted from) their work; and how being included can very much be a way to preserve exclusion.
read this if you want to better understand how whiteness is reproduced in institutions; how institutions commit to diversity while blocking diversity work from affecting change; how diversity workers experience (and become exhausted from) their work; and how being included can very much be a way to preserve exclusion.
September 5, 2022
The bulk of the book is a comparative study of diversity work in higher education in the United Kingdom and Australia. That portion of the book is interesting and has clear and obvious analogies to diversity committees and projects in business and government agencies. For those without a specific interest in diversity work itself, the book really comes alive in chapters 5 and the conclusion.
Using the wordplay that Ahmed is known for, Ahmed highlights how, when done well, diversity work generates knowledge of institutional barriers (walls)- that "which you do not get over." Addressing challenges to move beyond "identity politics," Ahmed reminds us that "it is not time to be over it, if it is not over. It is not even the time to get over it." Rather, this call to "be over" racism is exactly how racism is reproduced. It is a wall through which some bodies cannot go through, cannot get over, cannot overcome. The work of diversity, the work of justice, is to not to deny the wall but to see the wall and then transform it.
Using the wordplay that Ahmed is known for, Ahmed highlights how, when done well, diversity work generates knowledge of institutional barriers (walls)- that "which you do not get over." Addressing challenges to move beyond "identity politics," Ahmed reminds us that "it is not time to be over it, if it is not over. It is not even the time to get over it." Rather, this call to "be over" racism is exactly how racism is reproduced. It is a wall through which some bodies cannot go through, cannot get over, cannot overcome. The work of diversity, the work of justice, is to not to deny the wall but to see the wall and then transform it.
April 8, 2024
couldve been 4. i liked its readablility and its behind the scenes bits. conclusion was weakest part of book. i didnt buy the phenomenological figuring of diversity officers. ahmed's description of their experience began to sound more and more like conventional bureaucracy, from the point of anyone (worker or public). at that point it seemed like reading kafka (studies) would be more worthwhile, or beckett. also weak when ascribing the experience of others, ie non-diversity officers, and in terms of what diversity pertains to more specifically, for anyone who doesnt work in academia, i.e. how it relates to hiring, treatment of staff, curriculum, student enrolment. mostly it seemed to do with staff only but it was not clear. nor was their any distinction b/w uk and aust institutiions, which i imagine do have differences as well as similarities.
March 23, 2024
Like some of the other reviewers, I feel torn about my review for this book.
I recognize the merits of what Sara Ahmed was trying to present within her theoretical phenomenological offering to the discourse of diversity. Many of the points she painstakingly details make sense to my own lived experience both in academia and more fully out in the world.
That being said, I found this such a slow read—I would find myself annoyed with repetition often within the same paragraph and sentence. It made it hard to sometimes understand and follow the point being made. The times where it was amazing were often combined with interview notes and points on the interviewees—the flow was better there and made the arguments more engaging.
I recognize the merits of what Sara Ahmed was trying to present within her theoretical phenomenological offering to the discourse of diversity. Many of the points she painstakingly details make sense to my own lived experience both in academia and more fully out in the world.
That being said, I found this such a slow read—I would find myself annoyed with repetition often within the same paragraph and sentence. It made it hard to sometimes understand and follow the point being made. The times where it was amazing were often combined with interview notes and points on the interviewees—the flow was better there and made the arguments more engaging.
September 11, 2020
Sara Ahmed is an incredible intellectual. This was the first book by this author that I have read. This book critically and theoretically analyzes the use and practice of diversity in academic institutions. It is very insightful but does require a strong foundational understanding of qualitative theory and the role of diversity in the institution to truly grasp the depth of the arguments the author discusses. In many instances, I found that the play on words and analyses went over my head, more so probably due to my own novice-ness in this field than anything else. It is a good read but not accessible to everyone just pulling it off the shelf to read based on the title.
August 15, 2023
It took me over a year to finish it, mainly because it isn't my usual escape reading. It does give great ideas about diversity, racism and how it is being addressed in colleges. It was very repetitive, but usually books on this subject are. I did enjoy the examples from her personal life and even bringing in the significance of the movie Bend It Like Beckham, but oh! I had a tendency to fall asleep while reading this. So, mainly my reaction to this book is on me. I didn't read it as I should have.
March 29, 2020
This is a powerful and challenging book. Ahmed writes cool clear prose on a very touchy subject. I wish she had “followed the documents around” a little more, and gone into more detail about what kinds of plans actually work or don’t work to increase diversity in places like universities. This quibble aside, there is no denying Ahmed’s observation and power of argument, and I will be thinking very hard about how to act more ethically in my workplace as a result of reading this book.
November 23, 2018
This is a dense, thick read and well worth it. Ahmed is thorough in her explanation of the paradoxical work of diversity workers in higher ed in the UK. It translates well to how CDOs work in the US. The descriptions and solutions are thoughtful, nuanced, and encouraging. If you are looking for keys to doing diversity work well, then this is a must read.
December 11, 2018
This book is not what I assumed it would be -- I was expecting just another book on "diversity" in institutions. Instead, Ahmed is theorizing about and against exactly what I was expecting. Certainly a dense text, but well worth engaging with for anyone inclined toward theoretical scholarship and working within or shaping institutions.
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