Date
Seminar Details
Thursday 17th
November
Diversity in Question
Thursday 17th November 2005
Berrill Lecture Theatre,
Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
2.00 pm start of sessions 1,2 & 3
3.45 pm tea
4.15 -5.30 pm Sessions 4 & 5
5.30 pm Reception
The politics of diversity foregrounds current concerns with
equality and social inclusion and diversity is a key issue in
contemporary intellectual and political debates reconfiguring the
politics of ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’, sexuality and disability. This
symposium organised by CRESC and openDemocracy brings
together scholars whose work focuses upon different aspects of
diversity in relation to its theoretical and policy implications,
questioning the routes through which such practices and
interventions have been developed and challenging both the
theoretical underpinnings of what constitutes diversity and the
strategies that have been adopted.
Tackling the Roots of Racism: New Directions for social policy
and ‘race’ equality
Reena Bhavnani is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Racial
Equality Studies Middlesex University and has published
extensively on ‘race’ ‘ethnicity’ and organisational culture.
Active citizenship and local government’s irrational sexual
politics: fire-walls and new affectivities
Davina Cooper is Professor of Law and Political Theory and
Director of AHRC Research Centre for Law, Gender and
Sexuality, University of Kent.
When alienation turns to nihilism: the dilemmas posed for
‘diversity’ post 7/7
Max Farrar teaches at, researches and heads the Community
Partnerships and Volunteering office at Leeds Metropolitan
University.
Diversity: A Politics of Difference or a Management Strategy?
Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory at Bristol
University and has published widely on the equality and
difference debate with particular emphasis on UK policy issues.
Islam in Europe and the Question of ‘Alternative
Modernities’
Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at
Birkbeck. His work has covered a wide area of sociological and
political theory including law and power in the Islamic world and
the politics of Islam.
There will be a webcast of this event available via the CRESC and
Open Democracy websites
www.cresc.ac.uk and www.opendemocracy.net
The ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change
(CRESC) is a University of Manchester- Open University
collaboration.
For any further information regarding this event please contact
Karen Ho at K.D.Ho@open.ac.uk
Karen Ho
Sociology Events & Research Secretary
OU Secretary for
Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC)
01908 654458 (x54458)
Thursday 24
November
Public Interest and Non-Profit Management Research Unit PiN Seminar
Thursday 24 November 2005, 12:30 – 14:00 pm
Library Seminar 2, 2nd Floor, OU Library
Presented by Ingo Bode (Institute of Sociology, University of
Duisburg-Essen. Currently visiting lecturer at the SSPSSR,
University of Kent at Canterbury)
Sacred Model or Profane Muddling Through?
Social enterprises in evolving cultural environments: the
example of "organised" work integration in Britain and
Germany.
How to think about the academic upswing of the concept of
social enterprise in the light of empirical evidence? And
what about the role of cultural factors when it comes to
conceptual issues in nonprofit organisation studies? These
are the two questions the talk will deal with. Starting with a
preliminary reflection on dilemmas of nonprofit
organisations involved into the production of welfare, it
considers the case of "work integration social enterprises"
(WISE) which have emerged in fields such as proximity
services, recycling or public transport and with the aim of
merging economic activities of public value with "positive
discrimination" in their occupational strategy. Taking
Germany and Britain as an example, the talk will then
explore how the development of these organisations echoes
changes in their environment, that is, in civil society, in the
welfare state, and in the "politico-academic" community
linked to these two spheres. It will be argued that the real
development of WISE, but – more generally – of many other
nonprofit organisations too, is shaped by their tension-led
embeddedness in these environments so that it hardly
makes sense to elaborate a sound concept guiding these
organisations’ striving for social excellence. The quest for a
"sacred" model on which to build a new generation of
nonprofit agencies ignores that hybrid organisations busy in
hybrid environments are condemned to an ever "profane"
muddling through. Moreover, identical organisational
problems related to this muddling through are treated
differently depending on "cultural" factors, and this holds for
both diachronic-historical and international comparisons. To
put it otherwise: Conceptual issues are often much more
symbolic than substantive so that the debate on social
enterprises should deal with complex realities rather than
with idealistic organisational designs.
Please contact Mina Panchal, mailto:m.panchal or
telephone 01908 (6)55987 if you would like to attend.