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Recognising Diversity?

6/19/2013

3 Comments

 
Now, we’re all looking forward to the Recognising Diversity conference with Dr Sally Hines, which starts tomorrow (yay!). But how about getting the party started a little earlier. There are some meaty discussions that will inevitably arise from the panels at the conference, so let’s get our brain juices going and share some ideas.

Perhaps one of the most interesting themes (and one that screams “DEBATE!” whichever way you look at it) can be summed up by the following line, taken from the conference introduction:

“Fuelled by ‘rights based’ claims for inclusion founded on notions of ‘sameness,’ findings from the project suggested that equality and diversity agendas fail to account for ‘difference.’

Let’s talk about that. Rights are often invoked by advocacy groups keen to eliminate the discrimination minorities may face. But if, in fact, these arguments lean towards emphasising sameness over difference, how can this be reconciled with gender and sexuality-related ‘queerness’, which acknowledges and even celebrates non-conformity?

Thoughts?? 

3 Comments
Merseymaid
6/19/2013 12:15:58 am

Surely you can have both? A rights-based approach that also recognises diversity. Right? Which would make the question more about why this hasn't happened when theoretically it's possible.

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Lu
6/19/2013 12:23:54 am

Great question! It's always difficult to discern where these kind of lines should be drawn. Does recognising diversity between groups have to mean suppressing diversity within groups? Obviously in an ideal world it wouldn't, but it's certainly the case that any identity-based politics is going to end up generating images of what a given group "is" - to the detriment of anyone falling outside of these frames. It's almost a side-effect of the way these debates take place.

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Fletch
6/19/2013 01:37:24 am

but what else can we use to show ppl that we deserve equality.rights is something every1 gets.we need it

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