 |
Diversity in Question
Sessions 4 & 5
This event took place on 17th November 2005 at 2:00pm (14:00 GMT)
Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Diversity: A Politics of Difference or a Management Strategy?
Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory in the Politics Department, University of Bristol. Her publications include: Women in Parliament: A Comparative Analysis, (2001); Gender in Political Theory (1999); Feminisms (co-ed.) (1997). Her current research focuses on: the Politics of Gender Equality, which interrogates the emergence and impact of gender quotas, women?s policy agencies and gender mainstreaming; Developing Positive Action Policies, which explores the lessons to be learnt from North American ethnic minority positive action policies for Britain; and Equality and Diversity, which assesses the implications of the emergence of diversity management and the creation of a single equality body for the pursuit of gender equality in the UK.
There has been a shift in policy discourses from the pursuit of equality to the pursuit of ?equalities? and, increasingly ?equality and diversity?. The promotion of diversity has emerged as a central political priority, within both the UK and Europe. One reading of this emergent concern with diverse equality strands entails tracing the shift amongst political and legal theorists from liberal egalitarianism to a ?politics of difference?. By contrast, a second reading of the growing concern with diversity entails tracing the emergence of ?diversity management? amongst corporate human resource managers. Drawing on some aspects of this ?difference? theory, human resource professionals have become increasingly committed to ?diversity management?.
This paper asks whether one should view the emergence of ?diversity? as a positive development, reflecting the claims of marginalized cultural groups, social movements, and difference theorists; or whether, on the other hand, one should view diversity as a managerial policy, devised as a means to pursue economy productivity with greater efficiency. It suggests that both narratives have some merit. If one conceives of neo-liberalism as a ?post facto rationalization in which connections are made across political projects that were initially quite discrete and even contradictory? rather than as a totalising process or coherent programme it becomes possible to view the pursuit of diversity as a product of both a politics of difference and diversity management. This paper aims to explore the possibilities that are opened up by focusing on the contestation that is an ineluctable feature of the simultaneous working out of these projects.
Islam in Europe and the Question of ?Alternative Modernities?
Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College. London, and Research Associate of the London Middle East Institute at SOAS. He has held visiting posts in Cairo, Istanbul, Aix-en-Provence, Berkely CA and Paris, and lectured widely in Europe, America and the Middle East. His research and writing are on religion, culture, law and politics in the Middle East, with special interests in Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. He also works on Food and Culture, in Europe and the Middle East.
Publications include the following books: Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East, London 1993; A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, ed. with R.Tapper, London 2000; Law and Power in the Islamic World, London 2003. His work has covered a wide area of sociological and political theory including law and power in the Islamic world and the politics of Islam and he has published many papers and articles on religion, nationalism, civil society and political regimes in the region, and more recently on Iraq and on Muslims in Europe. |
| Return to main event page |
The webcast was open to 800 users
|
 Click below to play the event (90 minutes) |
|
|
