Sara Ahmed, Professor in Race and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths
A Public Lecture co-hosted by the Gender Institute and the Department of Media and Communications
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Wednesday, 9 February 2011
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6.30pm
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Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE
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Chair: Terhi Rantanen, Professor of Global Media and Communications, LSE
Open to all - no booking required. Followed by an informal drinks reception from 8.00pm in the Gender Institute Open Space, Columbia House.
Abstract
This paper will offer a reflection on diversity work as phenomenologicalpractice: a way of attending to what gets passed over as routine or ordinary feature of institutional life. Diversity practitioners do not simply work at or in institutions, they also work on them, given that their explicit remit is to redress existing institutional goals or priorities. An explicit attention to institutions can teach us about their implicit significance and meaning. The paper will reflect on how diversity becomes incorporated into institutional language as a problem, with specific reference to racism and the experience of Black and Ethnic minority staff.
Biography
Sara Ahmed is Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College. She was previously based in Women's Studies at Lancaster. Her research is concerned with how bodies and worlds take shape; and how power is secured and challenged in everyday life worlds, as well as institutional cultures. Her publications include: Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism (1998); Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Postcoloniality (2000); The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2004), Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006) and The Promise of Happiness (2010). Her paper draws from her forthcoming book, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life.