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9 - Diversity through equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Davina Cooper
Affiliation:
University of Kent, Canterbury
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Summary

Challenging Diversity offers an intervention in a set of debates carved out across and through that place where the politics of equality meets the politics of diversity. In the process, my argument has focused on two sets of issues. The first relates to diversity's boundaries; on what basis can distinctions be drawn between those differences to be encouraged and enabled and those to be discouraged and undone? The second set of issues concerns the wider normative context within which struggles for equality and diversity are placed. This normative context can be seen in two quite different lights. As a conservative configuration of principles, it can work to ‘hold back’ the pursuit of change. At the same time, progressive norms provide a thicker, richer texture to the question of what diversity through equality actually entails.

My starting point has been the celebration of diversity – the valorisation of social and, in particular, cultural differences by those on the poststructuralist left. Yet, as I explored in the book's early chapters, despite the praise heaped upon a flourishing pluralism, few diversity theorists have been prepared to discard completely notions of value. As a result, the claim to celebrate diversity quickly boiled down to a debate about where the limits of diversity should lie.

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Challenging Diversity
Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference
, pp. 191 - 207
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Diversity through equality
  • Davina Cooper, University of Kent, Canterbury
  • Book: Challenging Diversity
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488764.009
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  • Diversity through equality
  • Davina Cooper, University of Kent, Canterbury
  • Book: Challenging Diversity
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488764.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Diversity through equality
  • Davina Cooper, University of Kent, Canterbury
  • Book: Challenging Diversity
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488764.009
Available formats
×