Diversity in Crisis: Reshaping Contemporary Ireland

Abstract

“The current period is pervaded with discourses about diversity”: in policies and practices, located in state, civil, corporate and educational institutions (Vertovec, 2012, p. 287). As a consequence of this proliferation, Vertovec (2012, p. 288) argues, the concept of diversity has become banal, predictable and clichéd, while at the same time having a growing social impact. This is clear from the example of Europe, where the period following the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam saw the agreement of a range of EU Directives on Equality, now implemented in a variety of ways across European states (Vertovec 2012, pp. 292–293). A focus on the pervasiveness of diversity as a normative discourse and as a set of practices may, indeed, suggest that the concept has been hollowed out. Yet, as Lentin and Titley (2011, p. 176) insist, diversity continues to have very real consequences as a form of governmentality. Examining how diversity is grounded in place allows us to see its political applications and implications in specific contexts. Diversity is always “politically and ideologically inflected” (Anthias, 2013, p. 323), but a focus on its variegated spatialities allows us to move beyond the restrictions implicit in constructing diversity as a “meta-narrative” (in Vertovec, 2012, p. 287).