Race and ethnicity III

I Diversity: Tofu-term or truly timely?

Diversity is a concept that is both vitally important to the health of geographic scholarship as well as to the discipline of geography, yet it manages to be utterly bland at the same time. Diversity is one of what I refer to as the ‘tofu-terms’ in higher education. Like ‘global’, ‘sustainable’, ‘engaged’ and other pithy notions, ‘diversity’ has no real flavor until it marinates in institution-specific sauce. In other words, the trick is for these inherently vague ideas to gain local traction such that they can become meaningful and enduring. Yet this is itself a tricky process: because of the inherently vague nature of ‘diversity’ and its cognate tofu-terms, one can read almost anything one wants into its contents.

I am spending this year as an American Council on Education Fellow. My fellowship year project focuses on institutional initiatives to diversify university faculties and student bodies. These initiatives are typically set forth in ‘diversity action plans’ put together by administrators, too often at the behest of accrediting bodies that have identified a lack of diversity as a stumbling block for reaccreditation. My host institutions for this year – a consortium of small, private, liberal arts colleges in southern California – are about as different from my home institution – a large public minority-serving state university in southern Florida – as possible. This experience, coupled with the many national and international institutional site visits that ACE fellows engage in over the course of the fellowship period, has given me a sense of the variation – as well as the sameness – of diversity in practice and in policy, across the rich landscape of higher education in the United States.

The Obama administration is concerned with educational access, progress, and success of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, evidenced most recently by the White House summit held on 16 January 2014 which gathered presidents of colleges and universities, along with nonprofits and business sector representatives (but largely excluded leaders of community colleges and lower-profile educational institutions that have long served this sector of the student population). National educational research and advocacy bodies, such as the American Council on Education and the Lumina Foundation, provide data on the gaps in degree attainment by socioeconomic class and racial-ethnic classification. Along with federal policymakers and funding agencies, such bodies admonish educational institutions to close these gaps and to significantly increase degree attainment at the national level. Diversity is a notion in heavy rotation.

Ironically, these pushes come at the same time that a growing number of states are restricting or prohibiting the use of racially-specific criteria in student admissions and hiring. Rather, states are ostensibly focused on meeting workforce needs. For their parts, while governing boards and individual presidents may well include ‘diversity’ in their rhetorical mix, too many are driven mainly by career advancement or are simply not willing to make diversity the hill they’re willing to die on. Accreditors make note of a lack of diversity, but will not refuse to reaccredit an institution because of it. Deans and others charged with implementing diversity have so many other must-dos on their list that diversity becomes reduced to the most readily-implemented common denominator. And though the diversity statement has, over the course of just the past year or so, become a required component of the academic job applicant’s dossier, ‘nobody has the foggiest idea of what it’s supposed to do’ (Kelsky, 2014). Diversity thus becomes just another box to check, reverting back to its tofu status.

Though some are broader in their conception, at their core most diversity initiatives tacitly (if not directly) attempt to redress the lack of inclusion and support for racialized minority populations in higher education. To be sure, at most institutions the impetus for the diversity initiative is compulsion by a higher authority, and for some there is an element of recognition by leadership that correcting this failure to include and support is an ethical imperative. And whether it is explicitly recognized or not, there is the inexorable march of demographic change which will inevitably dictate, through the bottom line and fulfillment of mission, a shift in who and what is represented among the ranks of students, faculty, and staff, as well as research and curriculum.

It is important to note that geography as a discipline and geographers as practitioners have long prioritized diversity programmatically and intellectually on its own terms rather than merely as an accommodation of or reaction to broader currents. Ethnic geography, for instance, has since the early decades of the 20th century been concerned with the material and cultural landscapes of racialized minority and immigrant populations. In a previous Progress Report (Price, 2013) I discussed the efflorescence of contemporary scholarship gathered under the umbrella of critical geographies of race. Nationally, the Association of American Geographers as well as the National Science Foundation (sometimes in tandem) have engaged in research, assembled task forces, and developed resources to provide multi-scalar data and assist programs in diversifying their faculty, students, and curriculum (Solís and Miyares, 2014; Solem and Foote, 2009). A growing number of institutions have initiated programs directed at underrepresented minority graduate students who are near or at the end of their PhDs, with the ultimate goal of hiring these young scholars of color onto their faculties. And individual geography programs have developed specific initiatives geared to enhancing the diversity of their faculty, students, and curriculum (Solís et al., 2014; Schlemper and Monk, 2011; Rodrigue, 2007).

Yet despite these efforts, and the broader fact that geography as a discipline is inherently concerned with diversity understood as variation across the Earth’s surface in all of its possible iterations, geography has been bedeviled by a stubborn lack of meaningful diversity in terms of who we are and what we do (Winders and Schein, 2014; AAG Diversity Task Force, 2006). Moreover, the post-2008 period of protracted economic recession, neoliberal pressures to reform higher education, and a rising tide of reactionary and racist political sentiment – what Kobayashi et al. (2014: 230) call a ‘perfect storm’ – provide anything but a supportive environment for diversity efforts going forward. And, as Adams et al. note, ‘much of this work [research on diversity and efforts to diversify geography] has not explicitly engaged with the national discourse’ (2014: 184). Thus geographers and geography still have some work to do where diversity is concerned.

This third and final Progress Report on race and ethnicity explores recent contributions by geographers to diversity – specifically, geographic scholarship that engages with policy shifts that diversify the understanding of diversity and that explore where diversity might be heading in the future.

II The demise of diversity?

To be fair, it’s not just geography that has a problem with diversity. Indeed (albeit at an unhelpful level of abstraction), the question of how to negotiate difference is intrinsic to human societies. Modern liberal democracies have used policy to attempt to articulate what counts as diversity, and to set the rules for inclusion and exclusion of diverse individuals and groups. ‘Diversity’ in this arena typically centers on racialized and ethnic difference from a (white, Christian) majority. Most modern liberal democracies – including Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand – have adopted multicultural policies. In general, multiculturalism involves ‘ideas about the legal and political accommodation of diversity’ (Kymlicka, 2012: 1), while in practice multiculturalism encompasses a collection of policy approaches that ‘never coalesced around a unified policy – there was no single manifesto of multiculturalism; instead, multiculturalism from the start was a diverse and highly contested collection of ideas and policies revolving around representation, recognition and minority political inclusion’ (Nagel and Hopkins, 2010: 5).

The United States never adopted multiculturalism as an official state policy; rather, the Civil Rights movement with its resultant affirmative action legislations and other anti-discrimination measures constitutes a unique history with respect to racial and ethnic (and later, gender) diversity. Rather than recognizing, tolerating, or celebrating diversity, the US (again, at the level of national policy) has focused on erasing differences in outcomes through differences in treatment of disadvantaged groups – so-called ‘positive discrimination’.

Where are we now, a half-century into these policy-mediated negotiations of diversity? While on the one hand the election and re-election of Barack Obama to the US presidency stands as an important milestone, on the other hand general indicators as well as the nightly news show a dismal continuation, or worsening, of racialized violence, segregation, and growing socioeconomic, employment, health, incarceration, mortality, and education gaps (Alexander, 2010); alongside this is the rise of neo-fascism, incivility, and hate. The ways that these events are interpreted are telling with respect to where we stand on diversity, and speak to diversity’s tofu-like plasticity in the Western imaginary.

Both multiculturalism and affirmative action have generally been deemed failed policies (but see Kymlicka, 2012, who maintains that claims of the failure of multiculturalism across Western liberal democracies are precipitous and inaccurate). Popular sentiment in some sectors of society has become militantly opposed to granting what is perceived to be unfair institutional advantages to certain groups versus to others. As I discussed in my first Progress Report (Price, 2011), these sentiments have been of late directed at immigrant populations and constitute an aspect of the new racialization, particularly of Latino/a and Muslim immigrants (see also Amin, 2010; Swanton, 2010; Noble, 2005). Rattansi (2007) notes the long association of nation with race such that a sense of the ‘loss’ of the nation – largely, through immigration – is often framed in racial terms (see also Valentine, 2013; Zournazi, 2002). In addition, the neoliberal era, with its focus on individualism and competition on a hypothetical ‘level playing field’ – alongside deep cuts to social service and education budgets – has seen the reversal of decades of gains, albeit small, for racialized populations. Affirmative action itself has been the subject of debate, legal action, and state-level legislation, resulting in a growing number of states implementing bans on the use of racially-specific language or quotas in the education sector, particularly with respect to student admissions and faculty hiring. Finally, the neoliberal era holds merit to be the primary criterion for success in a world that is somehow ‘beyond race’, wherein racism and racists are aberrational vestiges of the past.

III Hope and the future of diversity

There has, however, been something of a plea for wishful thinking on behalf of diversity – not as a misguided strategy, but as a form of hopefulness. For hopefulness provides a sort of aspirational horizon towards which we can incline (Anderson, 2006). In its proliferation, mutability, durability, tendency to intersect, and general slipperiness, diversity too presents an aspirational horizon of sorts. Hope in this context is found

in the act of living, the ordinary elements of everyday life. This requires a ‘spark’ of hope – a hope that does not narrow our visions of the world but instead allows different histories, memories and experiences to enter into present conversations on revolution, freedom and our cultural senses of belonging. It can allow for the narratives, dreams and hopes both of people within a country and those who travel from afar to belong to it. (Zournazi, 2002: 16)

Encounters across diversity figure prominently in this research. These encounters can be random and fleeting, setting into motion subtle, visceral exchanges – ‘the flicker of an eyelid, the hint of a smell, the trace of an utterance’ (Amin, 2010: 7). Such encounters, particularly if emplaced and repeated, can come to constitute ‘convivality’, a term used by Nayak (2011), Fincher and Iveson (2008), and Ricourt and Danta (‘convivencia diaria’, 2003). Convivality points to the daily and emplaced dynamics of living together in a place: to what Wise (2005) has called ‘multiculturalism as a form of place-sharing’ that can lead to ‘hopeful intercultural encounters’ (p. 172). Neighborliness and a sense of welcome are important components of this daily place-sharing across difference. As Wise notes in her research on the engagement between long-time elderly Anglo-Celtic residents of a Sydney suburb and newly-arrived Chinese immigrants, small acts of reciprocal care – checking up on an elderly neighbor, attending a funeral, watering a plant, sharing food, giving gifts, dancing together – have the potential to kindle curiosity and understanding across difference.

Yet scholars caution against a tendency to over-romanticize such encounters or to read too much into them. As Valentine (2013: 9) notes, ‘we must be careful not to be too quick to celebrate everyday encounters and their power to achieve social transformation given that proximity in the city does not necessarily equate with meaningful contact or positive change’. Indeed, ‘these interactions can be marked by prejudice, tolerance, empathy, hospitality and incivility – and sometimes all of these simultaneously’ (Nagel and Hopkins, 2010: 7). As Wise’s (2005) case study of a Sydney suburb uncovers, while ‘moments of micro-hope’ (p. 177) do emerge in emplaced interactions, these are interspersed with feelings of defensiveness, distrust, and misunderstandings. Wise notes that ‘it is important…to recognise that there is no neat division between “good multiculturalists” and “bad racists”’ (p. 183). This point is reiterated by Valentine and Sadgrove (2013) who, in their biographical approach to understanding prejudice, note that personal transformations in response to encounters with different individuals do not follow ‘a simple linear narrative from holding prejudiced views to a more progressive or cosmopolitan disposition’ (p. 8); indeed, a single individual can variously express both prejudice and acceptance depending on the context (see also Leitner, 2012).

Encounters across diversity can be structured and managed in more deliberate ways. Indeed, diversity is embraced as a strength, an identity, and a selling point of some cities, neighborhoods, schools, and even departments of geography. Some communities, for instance, make a point of actively shaping a municipal image, local policies, and cultural events that emphasize welcoming newcomers (UNESCO, 2013). Others, such as Tucson, Arizona, have used welcoming strategies to counter negative images – and practices – that suggest Tucson is hostile to diversity. Loyd (2012) documents Tucson’s ‘We Reject Racism’ campaign, wherein efforts to build an anti-racist city involved building spaces for outreach, dialogue, and networking across diverse communities, and marking individual businesses and residences as supportive of human rights.

The performing arts are frequently used as a platform for managed encounters across difference. The play Nanay, staged in Vancouver with leadership by geographer Geraldine Pratt (2012), provides a case study from the performing arts. Nanay endeavors to connect audience, actors, and community in ways that involve bodies and movement – intimate strategies of encounter – in order to encourage openness, dialogue, and understanding with respect to the complexities of Canada’s live-in caregiver program. Audience, actors, and Vancouverites at large are literally and affectively moved to consider the connections amongst Filipina caregivers, their family members, and those who employ them. The work done by such performances can be seen as providing a hopeful directionality to these encounters. Pratt describes the narrative intent of Nanay in these terms: ‘to pull audiences to the issue…and to affect them through speech, bodily sensation, objects, movement, and touching details from individuals’ lives’ (2012: 100; emphasis added).

IV Conclusion

Bound up in the research examining diversity through a hopeful lens are themes of ethics and care work. While space limitations prohibit me from going more deeply into this important aspect, it is worth reiterating Ahmed’s simple definition of ethics as ‘ways of encountering others that are better’ (2002: 568, emphasis in original). In searching for better ways of encountering others, we create ‘possibilities of human reconciliation through new empathies and ethical practices’ that rest on ‘the ethics of personhood and living together’ (Amin, 2010: 15; see also Saldanha, 2009; Tolia-Kelly and Crang, 2010; Gibson-Graham, 2006). To be sure, the scholars cited here have important questions about the power of policies, not to mention global humanism, to overcome prejudice, racism, and incivility. To wit, ‘The historical fact of race, and the power of whiteness, are far more complex than any vision of united colors, global diversity, or cosmopolitanism can hope to budge’ (Kobayashi, 2009: 505). Yet without policies – and certainly, without hope – what’s to hold our feet to the fire and keep our eyes and our efforts on the horizon? As we geographers think about our various engagements with diversity, as scholars but also as administrators, teachers, and colleagues, we do well to keep hope at the forefront.