Multi-dimensional discrimination: Justice for the whole person
Friday 23 November 2007, Barbican Centre, London
Abridged Note of conference
Re-thinking identity: an Irish perspective – Niall Crowley, Chief Executive Officer, the Equality Authority
Introduction
The area of multidimensional discrimination isimportant. This is captured in the title for the conference with its reference to the “whole person”. This is acomplex debate and one that we should advance with care so that we don't diminish progress made in relation to the promotion of equality across the various individual grounds. It is atopical debate. The European Commission has identified multiple discrimination as a focus for the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. Finally I think it is adebate that is underdeveloped.
I want to identify four different starting points for this debate. The first is that all individuals hold multiple identities and these multiple identities shape not only experiences of discrimination but also the needs and aspirations of people as well. So in looking at multiple discrimination or identity we are dealing with the diversity and reality of people’s lives.
The second starting point is that we need to consider not just the viewpoint of multidiscrimination but also the perspective of multiidentity. It is a debate that is not just about the elimination of discrimination but also about how we adapt employment and service provision processes to take account of multiple identities. We need to explore and address both these dimensions if we are to achieve full equality in practice for all.
The third starting point is that the debate on diversity can be posed too broadly. Diversity management and business perspectives on diversity can take avery broad perspective involving any or all characteristics of the individual. When we focus on the multiple discrimination debate, we focus on the grounds of gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion and membership of the Traveller community. Social class also needs to be taken into account but is not covered by our equality legislation.
A final starting point is the need to be careful about failing to acknowledge people within their group or social setting. Tailoring provision to the individual is important, but it is also crucial that our debate is located in a recognition of the continuing importance of social groups. These groups are important to the individuals who choose to be part of them, and also in terms of our understanding and analysis of equality in society. This focus on the group is important if we are to advance and achieve equality outcomes for these groups.
Equality and Diversity Forum
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Irish Context
The Equality Authority was established in 1999. We have a broad mandate to promote equality of opportunity and to combat discrimination in the areas covered by our equality legislation.
The Employment Equality Acts focus on the workplace and vocational training, and the Equal Status Acts focus on the provision of goods and services, accommodation and education. Both Acts prohibit discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment and victimization. Both Acts require areasonable accommodation of people with disabilities. Both Acts allow positive action across all nine grounds.
This multi-ground approach to equality legislation is a key starting point for amultiple identity perspective and amultiple discrimination perspective. A coherent approach in equality legislation to each of the nine grounds is necessary. There are however some hierarchies in our legislation, the most obvious being the requirement to make reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities but not on the other eight grounds.
This starting point of coherent multiground legislation has allowed us to put in place and pursue what we call an integrated approach to our mandate. Such an approach is central in responding to multiple identities. It is an approach that requires that we work at three inter-linked levels. Firstly, we work at amultiground level. This involves actions that bring forward all nine grounds simultaneously. We do a lot of work for example with the business sector, developing guidance for workplace equality policies, equality and diversity training and equality action plans. All that activity works on bringing forward all nine grounds simultaneously. Secondly there is aneed for afocus on individual single grounds in and of their own right. This can be very important in ensuring a visibility for all grounds within a multiground approach and in responding to issues that are specific to particular grounds. One of our first actions for example came from the concern that sexual orientation could end up being invisible in the context of a multiground approach. We did asingle ground action in convening acommittee to prepare areport setting out an equality agenda for LGB people. The final level is the one to focus on today, what we call the intersectional level, the least developed of the three levels in our work.
The intersectional level is evident in our casework where, last year, 9% of our casefiles were on mixed grounds. Our research work has tried to bring forward this intersectional level and mention has already been made of the ‘Rethinking Identity’ project that we developed in partnership with the equality and human rights bodies in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. This looked at arange of multiple identity groups - women with disabilities, young gay and lesbian people and Black people with disabilities for example. It explored their particular identity, situation and experiences. This established for us that there is this third inter sectional level in terms of multiple identities, and that we needed to develop thecapacity to address this level in our work.
Another area of our work is developmental. In this area of work we have sought to make links between the grounds so that the intersection can be explored and space can be created for people themselves to explore the issues of their multiple identities in an affirming and safe setting. An early example of this work was a seminar involving lesbian, gay and bisexual organisations and disability organisations.
Equality and Diversity Forum
207-221 Pentonville Road, London N1 9UZ
Tel: 020-7843 1597, Fax 020-7843 1599, email , website www.edf.org.uk
Diversity and Equality
The concepts of diversity and equality are intertwined. We cannot achieve full equality in practice for groups without an emphasis on the relevance of diversity. It is also, however, important to respond from an equality perspective to the challenges posed by diversity. Difference and diversity are important. However the societal response to difference can influence the conditions in which individuals and groups access and participate in economic and social resources. As such equality and diversity need to intertwined. We seek to reflect this is an holistic approach to equality that involves four interlinked objectives –redistribution, representation, respect and recognition.
Redistribution is the goal of achieving equality in access to resources. However we can’t advance effectively on this objective without achieving the other less tangible objectives, such as representation. This about equality in access to decision making and power for groups in terms of having a say in decisions that impact on them. It is also about groups that experience inequality being empowered as well in having access to resources to organise to have asay. Another objective is respect. This objective focus on equality in access to relationships of respect, care and solidarity. This includes challenging physical and verbal abuse, isolation and invisibility. Finally there is the objective of recognition. This is about equality in access for groups to status and standing in society. When we look at this objective of recognition, we can't claim agreat tradition in Ireland, or anywhere else.
Diversity
We have responded to diversity in a range of ways that undermine equality. In the Irish context we have sought to
· Criminalize diversity. Homosexuality was only decriminalized in the 1990s. Currently criminal trespass legislation has been criticised for criminalizing the nomadic way of life of the Traveller community.
· Deny diversity. A current example of this denial relates to the refusal by the Irish government to recognize the ethnic identity of the Traveller community – thus posing them as impoverished or inadequate settled people.
· Segregate diversity. This segregation is evident in the provision of care to older people and people with disabilities in a manner that institutionalizes them and separates them from their local communities.
· Assimilate diversity. This involves a demand on minority groups to change and to adapt to the dominant norms. This is currently evident in much of the debate on integration and minority ethnic groups.
· Tolerate diversity. Tolerance while widely preached is problematic. It involves no understanding of diversity and can all too easily co-exist with contempt for diversity.
Increasingly we have come to acknowledge diversity. This is most evident in the naming of nine different grounds in our equality legislation. However there is still some distance to travel before we could claim to value diversity. Evidence of valuing diversity is where the dominant norm is replaced by a diversity of norms, where the way organisations do business is changed and adapted to take account of the practical implications of a diversity of employees or clients/customers.
Equality and Diversity Forum
207-221 Pentonville Road, London N1 9UZ
Tel: 020-7843 1597, Fax 020-7843 1599, email , website www.edf.org.uk
In valuing difference we can't impose asingular identity on people because people hold multiple identities. We need to acknowledge diversity within groups and acknowledge the fact that people define themselves on the basis of multiple identities. Most importantly, we need to create acontext where people have achoice in determining which identity is relevant to them at any particular moment.
One of the significant challenges that came forward in an Irish context was the issue of Travellers with a disability and Travellers witha disability in care settings. They were defined by the core institutions as people with disabilities. No account was taken of their Traveller identity, culture and way of life. They were essentially put through aprocess of assimilation because they were seen as people with disabilities only and there was afailure to acknowledge that they were Travellers with disabilities. So they ended up being separated from their culture and being separated from their families and their community with difficult situations created for the individuals involved. This captures how we impose singular identities on people and how we diminish people in so doing.
Complexity of Diversity
We need to acknowledge that diversity is complex and the valuing of diversity is a complex process. We need to be wary of our starting assumptions around diversity. Firstly people hold multiple identities and we cannot impose singular identities on people. Then diversity is difficult because it changes over time. People adapt to changing circumstances, to changing context, to changing influences and changing opportunities. Also people react to attempts to oppress and stifle identity. Diversity is very fluid in terms of what identity people choose to bring forward in what particular setting. How people see themselves can vary depending on the context. Sometimes people have very little choice as to how they can put themselves forward in a context where, for safety reasons, they might suppress or make invisible one part of their identity. Then there is what is imposed externally, which is influential in terms of the choices people make and allowing people those choices.
Valuing diversity is not about an uncritical valuing, but about how aproper critical dialogue about diversity is facilitated and who gets to define what is to be valued and not valued. Who gets to define what is the norm or acceptable norms? On what basis do they do it and how do they do it?
In amore equal society some differences will disappear. Most obvious in this regard are differences in access to resources and economic circumstances. Some differences need to be challenged. An easy one to pick is caring and the fact that caring is predominantly done by women and not men. That difference has to disappear in a context of greater equality and has to be challenged now as part of our search for greater equality as well. Anne Phillips has written that differences that arise from historical inequalities or relationships of power and subordination (cannot) be treated as objects of veneration, differences one would seek to sustain. She puts forward the possibility of convergence and of equality involving transformation for both dominant and subordinated groups. She is careful to point out that that this is not aprocess of assimilation.
Other writers have stressed the important of creating spaces for inter-cultural dialogue where, they say, mutual respect is about engaging critically with each others’ beliefs.
Equality and Diversity Forum
207-221 Pentonville Road, London N1 9UZ
Tel: 020-7843 1597, Fax 020-7843 1599, email , website www.edf.org.uk
However it is difficult to create asituation where the dominant groups can hear and understand the voice of subordinated groups and – more importantly – where the dominant groups put their own ideas and beliefs on the table for critical examination as well.
Multiple Identity
Three key issues emerge in relation to multiple identity: institutional issues, associational issues and the interplay between identities and how they are viewed in society.
Institutional issues include the policies and procedures, practices in employment and service provision of key institutions and organisations in society. Who are these policies, procedures and practices designed by and who are they designed for? Generally the issue is that they are designed by the dominant group for the dominant group so they create exclusions and inequalities, some of which can be picked up in terms of indirect discrimination but by no means all. Design is based on assumptions of homogeneity.