What I have tried to do is to use the stories as my explanatory devise, so at one level it is about the use of policy to keep doing things as they always have been done. It is very hard to get organizations to change fundamental habits. Secondly what we, diversity workers, are trying to do is to redistribute social privileges. It is not only about organizational change, we are also thinking about how worlds become more open to some more than others. And any work that is challenging privileges is going to come up against a brick wall because privileges can be used to defend privileges. People do not want to hear about racism or inequality; they want to hear much happier stories and there is a whole emphasis on toolkits, policies and techniques rather than the description of the problem.
Interview with Sara Ahmed – University of Gothenburg, Sweden
I really like this statement about how institutions would rather focus on toolkits and techniques rather than descriptions of the problem (the problem being white supremacy and lack of diversity/ representation). Mostly because this narrative based on solutions rather than on “stories” (which is what problems are) also allows for a seemingly “neutral bureaucratization” that removes the human component. It’s like a whisper of “we are giving you solutions so why do you still have an issue?”.
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