Final Reflection （1000 words）

21883-02-HistoryandPoliticsofDiversity.pdf

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D I V E R S I T Y A N D

I N C L U S I O N

Dr Helena Liu

2 1 8 8 3

Week 2 — History and Politics of Diversity

Photograph of the Civil Rights March on Washington, 28th August, 1963 courtesy of the National Archives.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ REVIEW

H I S T O R Y & P O L I T I C S O F D I V E R S I T Y

S E C T I O N

MULTICULTURALISM Diversity is not what we are, but what Australia has (Hage, 1998).

Lanterns of the Terracotta Warriors by Xia Nan (2014)

Although this term has become increasingly

widespread, it has no single definition.

Diversity management is understood in

diverse ways in different countries and in

different organisations (Kramar, 2012).

‘DIVERSITY’

WORKFORCE 2000 This report published in the United States in 1987 was one of

the first to establish the notion of “managing diversity”.

Predictions The report predicted that the proportion of white male entrants would

fall, while the numbers of women and people of colour would rise.

The Rise of Diversity Management Academics and practitioners began to ask and answer how to effectively

manage diversity in the wake of these predictions. A wide range of

diversity management programmes were subsequently developed, not

only across organisations in the United States, but also in other countries

like Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand that anticipated similar

demographic trends.

(Johnston and Packer, 1987)

Managing diversity is an idea whose time has come. More and more corporations and organisations are awakening to the fact that a diverse workforce is not a burden, but their greatest potential strength — when managed properly.” — R. Roosevelt Thomas (1991, p. viii)

DIFFERENCES 1. Characteristics (e.g., gender, race, sexuality, dis/ability, age,

family responsibilities, personality, dress styles, working styles

and leisure pursuits);

2. Outcomes (e.g., performance and corporate social

responsibility agenda).

(Bertone and Leahy, 2001; Kramar, 2012)

In Australia, diversity management

overwhelmingly targets women as a group.

Dominant approaches have overlooked

other (intersecting) forms of inequality

(Beck, 2021), while progress towards gender

equality has also been slow.

WOMEN

We will explore intersectionality

theory further next week

DIVERSITY POLICIES AND PRACTICES Mixed Results Due to the varied ways people understand diversity, the ‘success’ of these

policies and practices have been difficult to evaluate.

Resistance and Backlash Diversity management is rarely embedded into the management

processes or culture (Kramar, 2012). Senior management have a tendency

to see diversity and inclusion as issues to be ‘solved’ by the particular unit

(Ahmed, 2007). Resistance, and sometimes backlash, remain a persistent

feature alongside diversity initiatives.

DIVERSITY ON WHITE TERMS While whiteness remains the organisational norm, notions of

racial diversity have in some ways become more desirable and

(visible) non-whiteness has become a commodity for

organisations to acquire and exploit.

Under what legal scholar Nancy Leong (2012, p. 2152) calls

“racial capitalism”, people of colour are defined in terms of the

social and economic value they provide to white people and

institutions. Diversity policies and practices have degraded

non-whiteness into an object to be “pursued, captured,

possessed and used” (Leong, 2012, p. 2155).

Studies of corporate websites have shown that diversity is instrumentally adopted in organisations’ visual branding, where companies will often overrepresent the diversity of their workforce via photographs. By displaying numerous photographs of happy people of colour, companies can use their bodies to present itself as cosmopolitan, progressive and inclusive, irrespective of their actual policies and practices (Guerrier and Wilson, 2011).

T H E P O L I T I C S O F F E E L I N G G O O D

S E C T I O N

In contrast to gender and other categories of identity, which are often represented as sources of social inequality in organisations, ‘diversity’ does not so powerfully appeal to our sense of social justice.” — Yvonne Benschop (2001, p. 1166)

The assumption that diversity can be

managed as if it is a human resource is

rooted in our ideology of multiculturalism.

For scholars like Benschop (2001),

organisational preferences for ‘diversity’ can

be a sign of the lack of commitment to

change.

DIVERSITY AS A HUMAN RESOURCE

WARM AND FUZZY

Secures Rather Than Disrupts Diversity, in certain contexts, can be a feel-good concept. It

paints the picture of happy people who look different working

together in harmony. It contains the threat of dissent as

“everyone is presented as harmless, friendly and positive”

(Swan, 2010, p. 92).

What Does ‘Diversity’ Conceal? In individuating difference, the term diversity conceals

structural inequality born from systems of power.

POWER AND PRIVILEGE Before our class next week, a video will be made available to watch on

Canvas that dives deeper into the power structures that diversity management can conceal.

WEEK 3 Critical Approaches to Diversity

On body counts, rainbow-washing

and saviours

Read the required readings, work on your

reflexive journal, download the lecture slides

and attend class.

NEXT CLASS

REFERENCES Ahmed, S. (2007). The language of diversity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(2), 235–256.

* Ahmed, S., & Swan, E. (2006). Introduction: Doing diversity. Policy Futures in Education, 4(2), 96–100.

Benschop, Y. (2001). Pride, prejudice and performance: Relations between HRM, diversity and performance. International Journal of Human Resources Management, 12(7), 1166–1181.

Bertone, S. and Leahy, M. (2001). Social equity, multiculturalism and the productive diversity paradigm: Reflections on their role in corporate Australia. In S. Philips (ed.) Everyday Diversity: Australian Multiculturalism and Reconciliation (pp. 113–144). Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing.

Guerrier, Y., & Wilson, C. (2011). Representing diversity on UK company web sites. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 30(3), 183–195.

* Hage, G. (1998). Good white nationalists: The tolerant society as a white fantasy. In G. Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (pp. 79–104). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Johnston, W. and Packer, A. (1987). Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the 21st Century. Indianapolis: Hudson Institute.

Kramar, R. (2012). Diversity management in Australia: A mosaic of concepts, practice and rhetoric. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 50(2), 245–261.

* = the required readings of the topic

REFERENCES Leong, N. (2012). Racial capitalism. Harvard Law Review, 126(8), 2151–2224.

* Liu, H. (2017). Undoing whiteness: The Dao of anti-racist diversity practice. Gender, Work and Organization, 24(5), 457–471.

Swan, E. (2010). Commodity diversity: Smiling faces as a strategy of containment. Organization, 17(1), 77–100.

Thomas, R.R. (1990). From affirmative action to affirming diversity. Harvard Business Review, 68(2), 107–117.

Thomas, R.R. (1991). Beyond Race and Gender. New York: American Management Association.

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