Moments: Diversity Work, Exhaustion, and the Remaking of Anthropology

Abstract

In recent years, diversity has become a buzzword in anthropology and wider academia but what does it mean to really do “diversity work”? Who does diversity work? And what does diversity work have to do with reimagining anthropology? Drawing on the rich and nourishing work of women of colour across disciplines, this article offers a personal intervention on the topic of diversity and reimagining anthropology, calling not just for a passive reimagining of the discipline but a radical remaking of it. Diversity is exhausting work, work that marginalized people are frequently expected to do. Rather than repeating the answers and solutions already offered by feminists of colour, readers are provided a set of exercises which creatively capture personal moments of a student of anthropology and are asked to “work” with these moments: to think about them, sit with the discomfort, use them to pay attention to how diversity is at play within their departments and institutions, to do something with them. Such moments call for action to radically remake anthropology whilst also calls out to other marginalised people within the discipline.