La inclusión relacional: examining neoliberal tensions, relational opportunities, and fixed understandings in diversity, equity, and inclusion work in the Global South

Abstract

This study explored efforts of staff, faculty, and students at a Colombian university to materialize diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) programs in its institutional practices. Using Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO) as an informing paradigm, this study proposed to understand institutional DEI as interconnected communicative practices of relational ontology. In addition, this study constituted an effort to recognize novel contours that delink knowledge from hegemonic North Atlantic and Eurocentric paradigms and interrogate epistemologies “embedded in capitalist networks of power” (Dutta & Pal, 2020).Through ethnographic work and in-depth interviews with 23 organizational members, this qualitative study unearthed two tension-laden themes that described (a) the (dis)ordering nature of DEI meanings and (b) the sociality/materiality entanglement of DEI efforts at a Colombia institution of higher education. Combined, our results highlight an inseparable interplay of sociomaterial discourses in DEI and the imperative need to question and contest transnational discourses from North Atlantic and Eurocentric contexts.