Sara Ahmed to talk at UCC

1 May 2019

Closing the Door: Complaint as Diversity Work (WW6, 16th May, 5 p.m.)

This lecture draws on interviews conducted with staff and students who have made complaints within universities that relate to unfair, unjust or unequal working conditions and to abuses of power such as sexual and racial harassment. It approaches complaint as a form of diversity work: the work some have to do in order to be accommodated. Making a complaint requires becoming an institutional mechanic: you have to work out how to get a complaint through a system. It is because of the difficulty of getting through that complaints often end up being about the system. The lecture explores the significance of how complaints happen 'behind closed doors,' and shows how doors are often closed even when they appear to be opened.

Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar and writer. Her new book What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use is forthcoming with Duke University Press in the Fall, 2019. Her recent publications include Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014) and On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012). She also blogs at www.feministkilljoys.com.

Please register here to attend.

This event also ties in with a same-day symposium on Precarious Work and Gender Inequality in Higher Educiaton. (Details (and registration) here.)