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On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life Sara Ahmed. Durham, NC & London, UK: Duke University Press, 2012; 256 pp; ISBN: 978-0-82235-221-1, cloth $79.95 USD; ISBN: 978-0-82235-236-5, paper $22.95 USD.
In most contexts diversity is seen as something positive and desirable, but Sara Ahmed complicates and problematizes such assumptions. In her recent and very interesting book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, she "follows diversity around," explores the term's genealogy, and interrogates policies and practices related to "diversity regimes."
Her findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with "diversity workers" and "diversity practitioners" in British and Australian universities wherein "institutional whiteness" is common. As her title implies, she looks at underlying issues of discrimination and racism in the institutional life of higher education. In fact, she argues that talk and policies of "diversity" often act as a mask for persistent problems of discrimination that need to be addressed.
Ahmed is professor of race and cultural studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and she has published extensively on questions of difference, otherness, strangeness and racism. She is therefore well qualified for reflection on diversity and race issues, although she acknowledges that it was interesting to be both an insider and an outsider as she took her research in various university settings. Ahmed has also been a "diversity practitioner" on equality and diversity committees in two universities and she seamlessly weaves her own experiences into her analysis.
On Being Included is well structured and presented, and at 187 pages...