| dc.description.abstract |
The diversity domain seems currently in a struggle, having critical debates about the future
direction of diversity studies as well as diversity programs and actions. It seems to have
neglected theoretical reflections on notions of ‘diversity,’ ‘difference,’ or the ‘other.’ The
purpose of this paper is to think theoretically about diversity, arguing that it is the thinking
itself that has to become different and that a different thinking will make a difference in
addressing policies and actions. The main point we try to make is that diversity is not a
matter of constructing identities but of a moving alterity.
We will depart from the current debates in diversity management, in which we identify
mainly four issues: a narrow or broad definition of diversity, a stable or dynamic conception
of identity, the role of power, and the importance of the socio-historical context. With the
discussion of these four issues, we will try to indicate the implicit ‘theoretical’ choices
prioritizing the concept of ‘identity’, turning the issues of diversity into a managing of
individuals and ‘their’ identities. Rather than pursuing the route of identity, we try to explore
another route, paving a possible way of conceiving the other from the position of the other
and not from fixed norms and possibilities. We therefor turn to the concept of ‘alterity.’
The aim of the paper is then to develop an alterity-thinking by connecting and relating to
the philosophical work of Deleuze and Guattari, and Serres; the writings of Collins on the
Black-feminist standpoint, and recent political studies on democracy. The qualifications that
we connect and associate to alterity, are: its relation to an ontology of becoming, its crossing
out of the identifiable into becoming anonymous, its dependence on safe, social-cultural
spaces, and on open, empty public spaces. To conclude, we reflect on the different ways in
which this alterity-thinking is related to the four critical issues of the diversity literature and
discuss its qualifications as possible conditions for what we might sum up as an ‘alterity
politics.’ |
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