Welcome to Diversity, Empowerment & intersectional Antidiscrimination

Since February 2022, UdK Berlin has a diversity officer with a focus on anti-racism. The diversity officer’s task is to create more awareness for anti-racism and intersectional anti-discrimination at UdK Berlin so that it becomes more aware of structural discrimination and a more inclusive learning environment. Their tasks include:

• Providing advice and guidance in cases of conflict and support for those affected by racialized (and also other forms of) discrimination and violence
• Monitoring and documenting cases of racialized (and also other forms of) discrimination and violence
• Preparing and delivering workshops on racism-critical awareness and (BIPOC) empowerment for students, teachers and employees
• Advice on implementing racism- and discrimination-sensitive action and speech
• Advice and support for the Executive Committee and the other bodies and institutions of the UdK Berlin on diversity policy issues and the implementation of socially just solutions
• Accompanying the conception and implementation of the diversity policy of the UdK Berlin
• Participation in selection processes, recruitment and appointment procedures
   

What is diversity?

Diversity means variety. And many would say about themselves that they think diversity is great. But do we really live in a society in which diversity, differences and “being different” are accepted and valued? From earliest childhood we learn to perceive differences - we also learn to give these differences certain values. As adults, we are often no longer aware of these notions and assumptions, they become our second nature, which sometimes unconsciously influences our perception, our thinking and our actions. We are all different. So who do we mean when we talk about “diversity”? Who are the “others” who are different, the so-called “carriers” of diversity? Or even more importantly, who actually determines who belongs to the dominant norm and who doesn’t? Social research shows that individuals positioned as male, white, of German (or EU) citizenship, heterosexual, of medium to high social status, cis-gender, able-bodied, middle-aged are above average close to the social power centre. In other words, they have advantages when it comes to accessing social resources such as the labour, education or housing markets. If a person does not correspond to one or more of these identities, depending on the interplay of these positions, their life experience can be completely different. The person can then be massively disadvantaged in terms of access to social resources.

Why diversity, empowerment and intersectional anti-discrimination?

The concept of “diversity” can quickly run the risk of leading to an uncritical celebration of diversity, which then allows diversity to become a token for the dominant society with which it can present itself as particularly liberal and progressive. It can quickly be forgotten to critically question how diversity is positioned in society or in institutions, which (group of) persons are privileged or de-privileged. That is why there is the concept of critical diversity, which distinguishes itself from diversity as a token and fundamentally understands diversity as critical of power.

This power-critical understanding of diversity (which is also similar to that of the AG Critical Diversity of the UdK and which is also reflected in the Critical Diversity Policy of the UdK) guides my work as diversity officer of the UdK Berlin. The critique of power structures must be a very important part on the way to an educational institution that is more sensitive to diversity and critical of racism. I work with the empowerment approach, which focuses on the experiences and analyzes of those (groups of) people who are structurally disadvantaged, particularly due to racism. Empowerment means those processes which “understood as the increasing of political, social, economic and spiritual strength of communities or persons structurally disadvantaged through social constructs such as »Race«, religion, gender, sexuality, class, disability and age” (Boell -Dossier 2013). Personally, these (groups of) persons are empowered by their experiences being accepted and acknowledged, but they can also be empowered by learning to better deal with their experiences of discrimination. At the same time, the structural empowerment of these (groups of) persons means that the structural discrimination against these persons is reduced or eliminated. Intersectional anti-discrimination means paying attention to the diversity of experiences of discrimination. For example, Black women* have very different experiences of sexism than White women*. Similarly, racism is gendered, an intersectional analysis concluded that structural gendered racism is one of the main causes of health problems in Women of Colour and has therefore directly impacted their risk of harmful COVID-19 outcomes in the pandemic. Intersectional anti-discrimination enables persons providing advice and guidance in their legal (BerlHG), ethical duty, code of conduct and legal responsibility to recognize differences between different communities, to question the effects of disadvantage and discrimination on people, families and communities, to promote social justice, addressing and, where necessary, solving problems of inequality.