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Communities are generally diverse within their (often porous) boundaries - with dynamics of difference across many intersections played out through them and through community members realtionships with other adjacent and dispersed groups of people. These differences make these communities rather than debilitate them.
By obscuring the elements of community that tend towards liminality, hybridity, and mutability, there is a risk that reductive notions of difference as a problem to overcome, rather than a resource to build from reign; reifying otherness and invisiblising the work already undertaken building relationships across divides every bit as big as those between supposedly opposing 'sides', to fuel divisions that tend to serve the status quo.
There is merit in both acknowledging and reflecting the diversity among the so-called diverse, as a reminder of the possibility of forging new communities from the identities that are often framed (sometimes for gain) as 'too different' to share.
Localism and ethnic diversity
Localism and ethnic diversity
Reflecting upon proposals aimed at decentralisation, the briefing from the Runnymede Trust details the potential benefits, and the possible implications, of moves directed at strengthening local government. While it is acknowledged that the changes may be a welcome development for BME communities, questions remain about democratic accountability and the issues of equality and rights, particularly in relation to race equality
Generational change and changing means and drivers of connection
Generational change and changing means and drivers of connection
Imposing similarity as flawed as imposing difference
Imposing similarity as flawed as imposing difference
"I see certain pitfalls in defining Black as a political position. It takes the cultural identity of a widespread but definite group and makes it a generic identity for many culturally diverse peoples, all on the basis of a shared oppression. This runs the risk of providing a convenient blanket of apparent similarity under which our actual and unaccepted differences can be distorted or misused. This blanket would diminish our chances of forming genuine working coalitions built upon the recognition and creative use of acknowledged difference, rather than upon the shaky foundations of a false sense of similarity."
Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light'Lived' experience is one description but it may be a reductive one. In many ways, 'livid' experience is a better description, this perspective has the potential to turn the invovlement of those most effected into part of the process of healing and reparation. Here, a framework for the psychology of change makes the case that the sustainability of the change is dependent on activating the agency of the most marginal and enabling their leadership and motivation to build habits of civic activity.
Darnell Moore reminds us of the legacy of transformative action that has been led by those on the margins, and advocates for this to become an intentional approach of movements seeking real and significant change.
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