HC 1 Introduction
- Diversity always entails inclusion and exclusion: similarities include and exclude
- Acceptance can be hard-> causes conflict, which is bad for social cohesion
- Can be good, several perspectives, but also bad, inequality.-> is reality
- Axes of differentiation
- Diversity:
…both objective and subjective
…visible and invisible
…individual and collective
…relational, contextual, and socially constructed
Requires a degree of awareness and choice (only a select number of axes of differentiation/ characteristics
matter)
Inborn and acquired
Diversity is always about inclusion (constructing an ingroup / SELF) and OTHER
Differences are the basis for identification, but not all differences matter -> the role of POWER
HC 2 The Epistemological and interdisciplinary nature of Diversity
- Why is diversity so hard to achieve?
- What is diversity?
Cultural diversity: about matters in which individuals visibly (appearance, clothing) and invisibly (norms,
values, beliefs) differ from each other. .. Differences are noticeable in attitude, language, values,
behaviours, experience, background and education. Cultural diversity is defined by differences in
regional, religious or ethnic background being present. The definition is broadened by adding differences
in age, gender, sexual preference and ableness.
- Double edge of diversity
Certain exclusionary elements are present even though there is an intention to include. The authors
conclude that exclusionary practices can exist simultaneously with inclusionary practices
- Four approaches:
1. Deficit or deficiency : focusses on minorities lack of qualifications
2. Difference : recognition of cultural diversity, causes conflict and enrichment.
3. Discrimination : focusses on structural sources of migrants’ exclusion.
4. Diversity approach: diversity incorporated as core value (in an organization) as added value.
- Belonging: a sense of belonging:
Belonging as a political concept, is multi- dimensional and multi-layered. Includes citizenship but goes
beyond.
Belonging as a personal, intimate, private sentiment of place attachment (‘sense of belonging) and grows
out of everyday practices (Davis and Nencel)
An affective bond
‘Being at home’ as an official, public-oriented formal structure of membership, as for instance manifested
in citizenship.
Davis and Nencel, Had official belonging but question their sense of belonging.
Articulated through language of rights and responsibilities
These two different forms of belonging interact with each other accorded an importance in difference
spheres.
- Relationship belonging and diversity:
Diversity is about difference. Sometimes these differences make a difference sometimes they do not.
Patriotism, nationalism: different from each other but a shared idea of membership.
Belonging: is processes of identification ( do I belong? Does she belong? Where does she belong? Where
do I belong?) Belonging is informed by axes of differentiation which are considered significant by a
particular group/ institution/members.
Self-ascribed identities or being categorized or identified by others.
- Epistemology:
What is it: how we learn about reality, how to know about the world
Important:
Choices that you make in research are limited or given potential according to your ontological and
epistemological stance.
Once you have more control over this subject it is easier to understand: why certain theories are used
above others, Why certain method are chosen., Easier to understand the research results.
PRODUCES DIFFERENT TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
, - Interpretivism: To develop an understanding of social life and discover how people construct meaning in
natural settings. Study meaning social action not just people’s visible external behaviour.
Researcher and social world influence each other.
Facts and value cannot be separated. Findings are influenced by
the perspective values of the researcher. There is no objectivity.
Social researcher wants to explore and understand the world
using the participants’ perspective. There is no room for the
natural science approach.
There is no research object only research subjects.
- Positivism: Is an organized method for combining deductive logic
with precise empirical observations of individual behaviour in order
to discover and confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be
used to predict general patterns of human activity.
Adopts a realist position
Reality is out there
Difficult to encounter but exists: Is patterned, Natural order
Science allows the discovery of this order and the laws of nature: The laws are waiting to be revealed
Things are what they appear
- Inter- and multi- disciplinarity: 1.What makes disciplines different from each other? 2.How is epistemology
positioned within the discussion of interdisciplinarity?
- Different types of questions are posed for research in different disciplines: Who are the individuals, entities,
being studied? What social level is normally being studied (macro, meso, micro) ?
Article: The Other Side of Belonging, M. Healy
- Connectedness
- Telling our story, changing narrative: connecting ourselves in this way to the fabric of our surroundings is to
see ourselves as an integral part of a system or community (and the rootedness and support offered therein) as
somehow ‘belonging’-> important in political community to accept laws and such
- Belonging two concepts: Political; multidimensional and multi-layered-> personal, intimate, private sentiment
of place attachment (‘sense of belonging’), which is built up and grows out of everyday practices, and
belonging as an official, public-oriented ‘formal structure’ of membership, as for instance manifested in
citizenship
Membership belonging marked by western democracies: citizenship status-> from state recognised to
understanding of social, political and civil ‘rights’ and ‘good’ citizenship practices
Sense of belonging: one’s flourishing linked to their flourishing-> identification with its aims, objectives,
values and achievements on a wide spectrum (though differs)
- Feeling yourself to be belonging different from others perceiving you as belonging-> just as important
- Not-belonging:
Political protest:
difference to sense of belonging to a polity and citizenry-> can see yourself as belonging to a polity
but not with citizenry (not belonging ‘here’, not belonging ‘anywhere’)
stance as their belonging only words not reality-> group may see her as belonging but she does not
feel this in life experience (‘say’ versus ‘treat’)-> institutional injustice
social identity attribute-> ascribed to ourselves or withheld from us-> ‘perceived’ as not belonging
‘here’-> always in relation to others and their actions
Subordinating an entire group in this way not only serves to dehumanise the individual members,
but can also have the practical effect of making their lives more precarious and to be ultimately
seen as ‘disposable’-> further polarised position
Schools: place to acquisition, development and expansion to each other, school and wider society->
however not talking about citizenship belonging can further marginalise (not hearing their multiple
identities in favour of state-sanctioned identity)
Unbelonging: undo ties of belonging-> removed membership usually without consent subject-> opposite
of home, rather exile (home is geographical place: it is also a set of reciprocal relationships, of everyday
events and practices, of accepting and being accepted as a legitimate part of a larger whole, involving both
membership and a sense of belonging)
when the self can no longer recognise itself within the normalised matrixes of belonging, the resultant
struggle then starts to partially erase important facets of normalised self-identity reducing us to
objects-> disconnect with future narrative
individuals certain about their roots, holds unbelonging at bay-> however under uncertainty we
become dependent on those who hold power over us for our survival
, New in history is that political belonging becomes conditional and open to retraction forcing into
unbelonging-> examples: Windrush Scandal (people believed themselves to be citizens but that
membership removed by government), S. Begum (kept ‘membership’ but no sense of belonging) and
leaving Europe (sense of belonging removed with membership) -> personal failure, did something
wrong so state did something, changes not only how they are perceived but also how they perceive
themselves
Schools: want to be neutral and thus reluctant to address political questions critically -> losing
location of nurturing ‘integrated self’-> children no longer at start of belonging but carrying a past
(immigration etc.)
- Belonging part of policy and social live
Article: Border skirmishes and the question of belonging: An autoethnographic account of everyday exclusion
in multicultural society, K. Davis & L. Nencel
- Integration in EU, particular NL-> many immigrants or with immigrant backgrounds feel they will never truly
belong: not-quite Dutch
- Netherlands liberal society-> however hard to maintain image with their attitude towards immigration-> used
have multicultural image but now erasure of all differences between an ethnic white Dutch majority and a
wide spectrum of newcomers who are expected to do all of the assimilating-> created boundaries: us versus
them-> politics of belonging shapes newcomers experience of being accepted or feeling welcome, true
integration
- White migrants: unmarked identity-> privileged-> article describes experience two of those privileged that
‘fit’ Dutch integration picture (Dutch-ness), how even them don’t always belong -> autoethnography,
ethnography by writing about experiences: evocative performance approach and analytical approach
- Tug of war wanting to be recognized as different whilst wanting to belong -> beginning assumed to eventually
‘fit in’-> however after 30 years still reminded of not belonging (comments and such)
- Unreflexively stance (White privileged and Eurocentrism, easy to slip in)-> creating sense of belonging->
however in Dutch culture differences are highlighted thus never really belonging
“Where are you from” question-> friendly way of showing interest? Immigrants always expected to
discuss their identity or expose parts of biographies to perfect strangers (intrusive and difficult to come up
with quick response)-> ‘just’ friendly-> ‘otherness’-> white immigrant vs. not white used to exclusion
and racialization (not limited to racialized minorities) -> part of social fabric of Dutch society
“speaking good Dutch for a foreigner”-> only Dutch if flawless, accent less Dutch-> where are you from
disrupts social interaction and hard to problematize, feeling of problem reduced to opinion or personal
sensitivity-> boundary; not belong
- Allochthone: way to exclude/ define minorities because not perfectly integrated-> instead of removal now
‘non-western’ and ‘western’ categories
- Dutch: being white-> however not seen as such by the white Dutch person -> denial of exclusion
- Pillarization-> categorizing groups -> however today Muslims excluded
- Culture of ignorance-> Dutch prize themselves as being ‘tolerant’; white privilege
- Netherlands immigration country-> but not wanting to accept that
- Belonging is a combination of the subjective sense of feeling ‘at home’ in a particular place as well as the
social divisions that shape people’s sense of membership within specific communities and locations-> creates
imagination boundaries
- Belonging in Netherlands from newcomers as disadvantages and in need of help, or diversity positive feature
society or not perfect Dutch people as threat-> almost ‘Dutch’ immigrant hard to grasp so withdraw in
boundaries
- The recognition of who we are is the prerequisite for inclusion, while the reminder of what we are not is the
condition of exclusion
- Netherlands if opening itself to the possibility of hybridity, ‘Dutch-ness’ would need less ‘policing’
Article: The Epistemology of Qualitative Research, H.S. Becker
- Interesting overlap general laws versus cases-> general law can be shown in case
- Epistemology concerns itself with ‘oughts’ rather than ‘is’s’, empirical disciplines other way around
- Quantitative concern with explanation and qualitative concerned with understanding
- Quantitative know the possible answers and qualitative see new things all the time
- What we do affects credibility of the propositions we advance
- Actor point of view: qualitative/ ethnographers can get into the role of the actor for better understanding->
their words-> scientists always get some pieces of the interpretation of the actors in their study-> can be hard,
sometimes have to guess which is difficult-> yet it is more rigorous and complete because it entails all
viewpoints
However actors can give unstable or inconsistent meanings, change their minds, vague/ woolly
interpretations-> Latours: we should adhere to the actors insecurity
, Qualitative methods should not invent viewpoint actor, only attribute to actors ideas about the world they
actually hold if we want to understand their actions, reasons and motives
- Emphasis on everyday world/ life: everyone has same understanding, assumption we never inspect but just act
on and secure belief that other will react as we expect-> everyone understands the same world-> ethnographer
adds to the world of study because it is never exactly as it would be without it-> degrees of interference and
influence (anonymity)-> people manipulate studies because they think about how they ought to act-> yet it is
real world (how it is usually done, not in a different setting) thus more accurate
- Ethnographers give ‘thick’ descriptions-> more detail, can reproduce real lived experiences and thus take
more viewpoints into account
- Broader goal than thick is breadth: finding something every topic the research touches upon
- Data of ethnographers usually comes from the people (police, schools etc.) they observe thus are gathered for
their purposes not theirs-> they don’t want to be an object of study but rather believed, so the nuance can be
irreverent to them
- Quantitative researchers: reliability and validity versus qualitative (accurate, precise, close to thing discusses,
unanticipated accounts, full/ board analysis etc.)-> different languages
- Good qualitative work is careful, close-up observations of a wide variety of matters that bear on the question
under investigation is better than work which relies on interference and more remote kinds of observations ->
also has to do with creativity and imagination
Chapter: Talk About Theory, E. Griffin et. al.
- Superbowl ad on beer
- Objective approach: truth is singular and accessible through unbiased sensory observation, committed to
uncovering cause- and-effect relationships
Ad: past memories trigger positive message-> in objective approach this must be tested
- Interpretive approach: linguistic work of assigning meaning or value to communicative texts, assumes that
multiple meanings or truths are possible -> looking for meaning
Ad: archetype pattern of birth-death-rebirth-> underlying motive
- Objective scientists versus rhetorical critic/ humanistic scholarship (study what it is like to be another person
in a specific time and place; assumes there are few important panhuman similarities)-> no common term for
interpretive scientist because different assumptions about how to do research
- Epistemology: the study of the origin, nature, method and limits of knowledge
Objective: single reality of what is out there-> observation-> good theories reality of the world
Interpretative: truth as socially constructed through communication-> language-> knowledge particular
standpoint-> can not sperate the knower from the known -> multiple meanings of text
- Human choice: determinism (behaviour caused by heredity and environment) versus free-will purism
(voluntary) -> creeps in language: objective ascribe human choice to forces outside whereas interpretive
explain it via conscious intent (people respond differently in same circumstances)-> problem: when freedom
goes up, predictability goes down-> value laden
- Values must not distort reality-> objectivity not biased by ideological commitment-> need for empirical
evidence
Critical interpretive use research to liberate (emancipation) not objective
Deetz: a theory two priorities effectiveness and participation-> which has higher concern: for objective
effectiveness and interpretive participation
- Need to know difference to understand theory better, get them straight, pick own direction and decide which is
best
- Not all theorist fall in one of the category, some a foot in both camps
Guest lecture Rikko Voorberg
- Can anything be 100% inclusive?
What in common? Humanity-> but refugees different past in war versus person in welfare state not
wanting to share
- In times of polarisation, people seem to want to include everyone. Problem is in real life: if you choose to
include one, somebody else might feel excluded. So we get back to the big questions of right and wrong. Is it
okay that somebody feels excluded? It is right to try to include someone who other people feel that they
shouldn't be included?
- Rikko Voorberg, theologian and part-time activist or artist or both, will share his thoughts and core-values on
this theme, by introducing some of his initiatives that made big headlines in even international newspapers.
Christian raised-> noticed people outside church more connected with world than inside the church
- The inclusion of a sex offender, released from prison. initiatives concerning migrants and refugees and the
connection between religions, it was all part of the journey and it brought about lots of positive and negative
feedback - but feedback can't be your moral guiding light when it comes to inclusion, he says. There must be
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