2007/06/08 by Sara Ahmed · 1 voice · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Gender Diversity and Inequality #Labor Movements and Unions
paper · doi:10.1080/01419870701356015
openalex publication_date 2007/06/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article examines how the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) has shaped a new politics of documentation, which takes diversity and equality as measures of institutional performance. Writing documents that express a commitment to promoting race equality is now a central part of equality work. Rather than assuming such documents do what they say, this article suggests we need to follow such documents around, examining how they get taken up. This article will interrogate the politics of documentation, by drawing on interviews with diversity and equal opportunities officers from ten universities in the UK. It focuses on how documents are taken up as signs of good performance, as expressions of commitment and as descriptions of organizations as “being” diverse. It concludes that such documents work to conceal forms of racism when they get taken up in this way. And yet, by allowing practitioners to expose the gaps between words and deeds, these documents can be used strategically within organizations.