Teaching Diversity as Teaching Intersectionality at the

White Dutch Academy

Ellis Jonker

Mix-in, Diversity 2010 / Making a Difference

2Moving beyond “happy” and harmonious view of multiculturalism

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Strong women

know the taste

of their own hatred

I must always be

building nests

in a windy place

‘Portrait’, opening lines, Audrey Lorde, Black Unicorn, in oratie Wekker (2002)

Prof.dr. Gloria Wekker, Utrecht University

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Marieke van den Brink, postdoc Radboud U.; male bias in the construction of excellence

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Kathy Davis Philomena Essed(Utrecht U.) (Antioch U., USA)

Gloria Wekker Frances Gouda(Utrecht U.) (U. of Amsterdam)

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intersectionality intersectional thinking

The Big Three: race, gender, class

multiple disadvantages (& privileges!)triple jeopardy, triple oppression

Prof.dr. Kimberle Crenshaw, UCLA

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multiple intersections of difference,

meaning-making and (in)equality

The Big 3The Big 4

The New 614 Axes…

intersectionality

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What to teach our students in order to enable

them to compose and live “happy” (Ahmed

2009), productive, sensible lives, sensitive to

the intersections and processes of inclusion

and exclusion in people’s lives as well as their

own, fighting social injustices, colonial echoes

and acts of “imperial paranoia” (McClintock,

2009) in our increasingly multicultural societies

in this globalizing world, and how best to teach

them? Ellis Jonker, 7th Feminist Research Conference, Utrecht, June 2009

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“If we can deal with ‘TheBig Four’: race, gender,class and sexuality, we are already in business”

(Gloria Wekker)

quote from guest lecture Women with Women, Experiencing Differences, MA course in Gender,

Sexuality and Society (Hekma & Janssen), University of Amsterdam, March 2009

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unearned White,

class, etc.

privileges &

inescapable

disadvantages

(Peggy McIntosh,

White Privilege, 1991)

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students’ evaluation of learning outcome of group assignment & course on intercultural dilemmas:I was shocked by so many different perspectives;I learned people have reasons to do what they do the way that they do it;I took a step outside my own frame of mind to look atthings from a different perspective;Now I know why muslim girls actually like to wear aheadscarf;Differences in culture do not necessarily entaildifferent opinions on things;Why did we need to talk so much about prejudice and stereotypes? Do you want me to start feeling sorry for those poor foreigners?

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So much work remains to be done in this country on this score… (Gouda, 2001)

e.g.:

create safe havens in windy places;

bridge the space between different nests ;

learn how to teach to transgress and connect;

practice feminist pedagogies, provocative

pedagogies, and pedagogies of hope

(ref. bell hooks 2003)

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The only way to equip students for effective professionalism in multicultural society is to urge

them to develop a diversity perspective

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Mix-in, Diversity 2010 / Making a Difference

To enhance a diversity perspective among students

in higher education which allows for sensible and

effective professionalism in multicultural society we

need:

a. more teachers of colour

b. curriculum change

c. anti-bias education

d. provocative pedagogy

e. all of the above (a, b, c, d)

f. something else, ………