Diversity Affects | Troubling Institutions

Can diversity galvanize established institutions? “Diversity enhancement” has become a buzzword of institutional change today. Activists, migrant groups, associations for the dis_abled, but also politicians and employees of institutions themselves are urging that diversity be taken into account in the structures of agencies, educational institutions, in health care and in the cultural sector.

At the same time, critics bemoan that diversity has become a neoliberal management and marketing strategy that neither explicitly recognizes nor overcomes social inequalities.

Around 40 speakers from the humanities and social sciences examine processes of institutional diversification and consider their affective repercussions: What reactions and emotions do these processes cause? What does it mean for journalists in newsrooms or employees in universities when institutions (don’t) become more diverse – what for museum visitors or hospital staff? How can inclusive practices be institutionalized without reducing people to traits? How do those affected experience the process of their “inclusion” or its failure?

With Sara Ahmed, Bilgin Ayata, Alexandra Borchardt, Sanni Est, Angela Failler, Kenny Fries, Mar Griera, Serhat Karakayali, Neetu Khanna, Iva Krtalić, Sheila Mysorekar, Monika Salzbrunn, Sasha Salzmann, Jeremy Wade and many more

Program on hkw.de

Fri, May 28, 6–7,30 pm
Complaint, Diversity and Other Hostile Environments
Keynote from Sara Ahmed
Livestream on hkw.de

In her keynote, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how raising complaints can become a form of diversity work – work done by those who do not embody the norm of an institution.

Available from Sat, May 29, 4pm
Puddles the Pelican and The Pregnant Oyster
Performance by Jeremy Wade & Friends