Centering our multiplicity and relationships: rethinking DEI through an Ubuntu lens
Dr. Moyo Rainos Mutamba
The case for rethinking DEI
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is having a dual experience — it is both in incredible demand and getting a bit of flak as many people argue the framework is not achieving its intended outcomes. According to a 2016 report by the Harvard Business Review, most diversity programs are not increasing diversity. Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev corroborated HBR research when they found little evidence that racial sensitivity training functioned to reduce racist bias. While the data is not yet providing the solutions we hope for, we know there is great potential in this work and an opportunity to rethink some of the foundational basis for DEI action plans.
I believe that DEI initiatives in private and public institutions are not as effective because of weak theoretical foundations from which institutions conceptualize and implement DEI action plans. Before institutions announce their commitment to DEI and embark on easy to do and more surface layer engagement, things like unconscious bias webinars/workshops, there is a need for internal foundational work that builds collective clarity on three critical DEI elements:
1. Definitions of concepts constituting DEI
2. Aims and purposes of DEI work within your institution
3. Implementation of DEI action plans
In this article, I will focus on deepening DEI by inviting leaders and teams to:
Re-define DEI concepts to center equity and connection
Rethink assumptions that guide our implementation of DEI action plans
And ultimately, to shift the way you think about DEI to allow for more profound and consequential actions that lead to equitable systems change.
From Equity to Liberation
Equity is fundamental to thinking about and implementing DEI action plans, it holds a central position, and therefore, diversity and inclusion ought to flow from equity. What is equity? Most institutions define equity as a more advanced derivative of equality. Whereas equality is defined as treating people the same and leads to equal opportunity, equity is a needs-based approach to achieve equality. From this perspective, equity is the redistribution of material resources to those who do not have them. This definition’s grounding assumption is that those receiving the distributed resources are not equal to others because of a resource gap. For example, in educational institutions, initiatives from this perspective might include launching a scholarship for women or Indigenous Peoples to close the resource gap.
However, this model relies on the notion of a deficit. As such, it fails to address the root cause of inequity — a deficit model of equity results in reactive approaches that only address the barest amount of symptoms. Additionally, a deficit model reinforces structures of oppression by placing marginalized communities into relationships of dependency. With a deficit model, some of the activities institutions engage in (and spend a lot of money and resources on) do not lead to equitable systems change. These include:
1. Writing a letter of solidarity addressed to a phantom audience that cannot hold your institutions accountable to your declarations;
2. Hosting an isolated webinar or workshop series that are not part of an intentional/long-term anti-oppressive change effort strategy;
3. Giving oppressed individuals the responsibility to change organizational cultures;
4. Signaling a commitment to DEI through advertising and branding to increase name recognition without doing the actual work of equitable systems change;
5. Individualized interventions that do not address the collective impact of oppression.
On the other hand, an equity approach that foregrounds liberation considers historical, cultural, economic, and political systems and how they marginalize. It also assumes our collective responsibility towards addressing inequity and creating an egalitarian society.
In this case, when considering equity as a pathway to liberation institutions will:
1. Address the structural, systemic, and institutional basis of oppression and disadvantage;
2. Muster the courage to name liberation as the desired destination for DEI work and commit the resources to work towards its achievement;
3. Work in solidarity with people affected by oppression to achieve equality of opportunity, equality of outcome, and equality of treatment to build a fair and healthy society.
When we conceptualize equity as a practice for co-liberation, diversity and inclusion will require redefining to align with this lens. Specifically, to account for the truth that we are always in a relationship with each other, our co-liberation is contingent upon deepening these relationships.
From Diversity to Multiplicity
Diversity happens to ground the actions of many organizations doing DEI and tends to provoke the most controversy for the following reasons:
1. Many institutions frame it as a quality that identifies the marginalized;
2. It tends to be confused with equality because visibility is perceived as a metric for having achieved equality;
3. People are thought of as potential ingredients for a human resources salad bowl;
4. There is always a risk of throwing marginalized people into spaces that are not ready for them;
5. Diversity does not tell us about the quality of experience of people in an institution;
6. It is low hanging fruit for most organizations because it does not require organizations to engage in equitable systems change.
For this reason, reconsidering the foundational assumptions around the notion of diversity is critical. The concept of diversity acknowledges the multiple categories in which people are placed. The categories practically act as the numerous ways people describe others and themselves. The descriptors are called dimensions of diversity/identity factors. Examples include age, sex, sexual orientation, race, gender, immigration status, occupation, educational attainment, and linguistic community.
These identifiers are understood as differences, leading to privileging of particular ‘differences’ and consolidation of power around those differences. I suggest that we think of these markers as signifying our multiplicities, not as boundaries to divide us. With this shift, we can address historical and contemporary oppressions while centering our connection and interdependence.
Closing Relational Distance
Diversity practices derive their practical assumptions from the widely accepted but socially-constructed idea that we are different. Because we are different, we require that difference to be categorized and managed through diversity management. An example of diversity management is when the human resources portfolio strives to hire, retain, and not fire more people from ‘diverse’ backgrounds to meet legal quotas or look inclusive.
I suggest that we shift from centering difference to understanding the concept of diversity as signifying a relational dynamic among people in a particular institutional context. With this understanding, diversity is operationalized as a relational orientation that accounts for both invisible and visible aspects of people and how we relate. In practice, diversity then translates to acceptance, celebration, wholeness and valuing, and honoring each person’s multiplicity and all beings.
With this lens, marginalization, whether historical or contemporary, can be understood as emanating from a relational distance between people. Relational distance is when people fail to consider ‘Othered’ people: Indigenous, Black, POC, disabled, 2SLGBT2QA, women, working-class, etc., as their relations deserving of care, empathy, and material entitlement. The relational distance is a result of individual and systemic issues. In other words, a long history of colonialism and oppression, based on a culture of arbitrary differentiation and alienation that led to othering and separation of people from themselves, each other, and the earth. As the HBR research demonstrates, diversity management plays into this with undesirable consequences.
Therefore, achieving diversity actually means:
Ubuntu, a state where we see each other, our multiplicities, as contributing to the sustenance of the whole, to the extent that we reflexively know that we are always in relation and dependent on each other;
Having a full representation of our multiplicity in our organizations relating to each other with care, compassion, and fairness;
Co-liberation, we are inextricably interconnected social beings and are responsible for each other’s well-being and liberation.
If we use the concept of diversity to reflect on our human to human relational experiences collectively, we will reduce the relational distance. We will understand that diversity does not tell us we are different. But instead, it behooves us to honor that we are always multiple and in relation in the service of Ubuntu. With Ubuntu, our ‘differences’ are the pieces with which we solve the jigsaw puzzle that is community wellbeing. Each individual and their multiplicity contributes to community sustenance and the community in return contributes to their wellbeing. With this understanding, we can rethink inclusion to create sustainable cultures of belonging.
From Inclusion to Belonging
Inclusion tends to be defined as the act of inviting people and their multiplicities into spaces ( institution, group, team, organization) from which they were previously excluded. In practice, it is intimately tied to the diversification of membership in institutions. Its opposite is exclusion, which refers to not having access to specific spaces and opportunities. Many organizations employ inclusion and diversity interchangeably. Inclusion initiatives end up mimicking the same assumptions of diversity management I highlighted above. At Bloom, we forefront belonging as the more straightforward concept to guide inclusion efforts for the following reasons:
1. Belonging is a feeling that is known by the person experiencing it. You either feel it or not. It can shift from moment to moment. We are feeling-sensing beings, and our emotions are sites of knowledge. Taking care of how we feel supports mental health in workplaces;
2. Belonging asks organizations to design and curate energetic, physical, and relational spaces, to ensure that people show up in ways that reflect who they are. This strengthens the capacity for collaboration and creativity. When we feel able to bring our full selves to our work, we are more likely to share our ideas without fear of backlash and understand issues from multiple perspectives. This allows us to move beyond the confines of our own experiences and imagination to include a broader lens that can generate more inclusive and resilient ideas to complex questions by doing it together;
3. Belonging creates the condition for people to exercise their agency, strengthening the creative pulse of organizations. When people feel more comfortable expressing themselves, we make the conditions for collaboration and creativity to flow;
4. Belonging asks organizations to change their informal (the unwritten/unsaid practices and ways things ‘go around here’) and formal cultures (written policies and procedures) for those already in the organization and new members. Creating both a safe enough and brave space for members to contribute to the success of the organization.
Therefore, when we center belonging, inclusion measures the extent to which relational distance has been closed. Belonging invites leaders and teams to work at the organization’s cultural level to address why people feel a particular way, paying particular attention to collective norms, beliefs, values, and practices in an organization’s entire ecosystem. When we prioritize belonging, all stakeholders are invited to create institutional cultures that are conducive to multiplicity. This is critical because cultures of belonging are sustained by the collective with the active and material support of the leadership team.
When the assumptions guiding DEI practices are collectively examined and shifted to center equity, co-liberation, belonging and connection, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can be a useful framework for creating and sustaining equitable systems.