Speaker
Tuva Ora Herenui Richert
(Lund University (SE))
Description
We have all chosen to work with science and research in large collaborations. Large collaborations are like small communities: there are many benefits that allow us to be creative by taking advantage of each others competences; ideas can be developed that would have been impossible for an individual to achieve. But we also have a responsibility towards each other in terms of respect and inclusion to create a healthy and functioning environment. Choosing science should imply choosing a good working environment: science laboratories have to be an attractive place for young researchers from a diverse background. CERN former Director General Rolf Heuer said that "the best teams to work in are those with the greatest diversity" [1]. But how should we create an inclusive work environment for everyone? We need to raise awareness about sexism, racism, patriarchy and homophobia. Silence about categorization is what makes the unfair distribution of power surviving.
With this contribution I want to present and discuss ideas that was first introduced by Philomena Essed and David Theo Goldberg [2], and later lead to a study at Lund University by Kerstin Sandell [3]. A central concept in the research is "insideness", which conceptualize positions of privilege and inclusion, in contrast to exclusion, as well as "cloning cultures" -- a concept describing how cultures are reproduced and promotes organizational similarity: a similar organizational structure as the consisting one tend to be preferred in front of what is different or abnormal. When academic positions are filled, or research money should be distributed, people (or projects) tend to be prioritized if they mirror the academic culture, i.e. sameness produce sameness, which gives privilege to the same kind of people over and over again.
In order to deal with this social injustice of sameness, we need to problematize and challenge the system that preserves it and (consciously or unconsciously) favors sameness. We can do this by breaking the (re)production of organizational insideness. This can be accomplished under an organized diversity work and examples will be given of how such work can be done.
[1] http://home.cern/cern-people/opinion/2014/03/celebrating-diversity-cern
[2] Philomena Essed and David Theo Goldberg,Cloning cultures: the social injustices of sameness, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2002)
[3] Kerstin Sandell, Att bryta innanförskapet: kritiska perspektiv på jämställdhet och mångfald i akademin,
Makadam förlag (2014)
Author
Tuva Ora Herenui Richert
(Lund University (SE))
