Introductory paragraph: This chapter aims to illuminate issues related to justice and to what gets glossed as participation and marginalization processes by going beyond both monodisciplinary and multi/inter/cross/trans-disciplinary scholarship; instead, it calls for taking on board undisciplinary and undisciplined stances. The prefix ‘un’ takes issue with the continuing reproduction of scholarship that serves empire (Cushing-Leubner et al. 2021) despite concerted efforts to dislodge disciplines and other academic silos. Connecting with the idea of languaging or articulation as solidarity in a Gandhian sense of mundane ways of achieving “justice by non-violent means”, i.e., through satyagraha, this chapter aims to trouble main-stream understandings of terms like language, identity and policy. It does so by calling attention to the need for reclaiming people’s and scholars’ agency from the clutches of cognitivism, universalisms, disciplinary and disciplined scholarship. These ideas underscore the need for expanding the scope of the term solidarity by going beyond issues of sympathy and support for marginalized entities; instead, solidarity includes the scholarly task of what is focused upon and from what perspectives or gaze.

Ingress: Anställda som misstänks ha autism eller adhd förväntas, på sin arbetsgivares initiativ, redogöra för hur de sköter sin kroppshygien, skriver forskare som läst Arbetsmiljöverkets nya riktlinjer.

This study focuses on the dynamics of power and (in)equality within Swedish higher education institutions (HEI), by looking at how discrimination is described and monitored in governing policy documents. By critically analysing HEI official documents from four Swedish universities in relation to increasing diversity and internationalization-oriented strategies, the study scrutinizes the promotion of equal opportunities and guidelines related to discrimination. It engages with and troubles concepts like diversity, the political drive for widening participation, and increasing internationalization. Notably, the study draws attention to the conspicuous absence of terms like race and racism in the governing policies that are ostensibly tasked with monitoring discrimination in HEIs. The reasons for these omissions are engaged with through an alignment with a Second Wave of Southern Perspectives (SWaSP) framework. The findings raise important questions about the efficacy of current anti-discrimination policies within HEI spaces, inviting reflections on the nature of monitoring of discrimination and the (re)production of inequities and racism. Our analysis highlights the need for unpacking issues related to whose gaze is privileged and who is (in)visibilized when discrimination is monitored. Additionally, the study raises questions regarding how discourses of equity within HEI become framed in relation to marginalization processes. 

Introductory paragraph: Some of the key issues that I engage with in this chapter can be understood as being sensitive, if not controversial, in the nation-state I live and work in. For instance, unlike in many other spaces of Europe and beyond, issues regarding race and naming positionalities are heavily censored. While I align with the idea that “there is only one race – the human race,” I also find reason to align with some fellow scholars in Sweden who have, more recently, voiced concerns regarding the official abolishment of the term race from policies like the 2008 national Discrimination Act, and how this (non-)naming stance compounds issues of discrimination and racism itself. I argue that the ensuing and continuing near-compact compliance to positionality (non-)naming stances contributes to the erasure of terms, enabling proxies to proliferate and circulate in the scholarship, in the media, and in mundane languaging in and across societal settings.

Utifrån våra “loci of enunciation” i sektorerna högre utbildning och scenkonst bjuder vi, i detta kapitel, in läsarna att reflektera över behovet att utmana de binära kunskapsregimer och den kolonialitet som är normaliserade i dagens kunskapsproduktion. Kapitlet utgår från grundsatserna i den andra vågen av sydliga perspektiv dvs. Second Wave of Southern Perspectives, SWaSP-inramning som med en mobil blick ger läsarna möjligheter att inta en tredje position i frågor om social rättvisa i nutida nordliga territorier. Vårt kapitel lägger fram argument för och illustrerar hur ett solidaritetsbaserat förhållningssätt till kunskap, kunskapande etc. kan skapas, det vill säga görandet av kunskap och livslångt lärande – tillsammans med andra medmänniskor. Utifrån vinjetter med praktiska exempel från externfinansierade scenkonstprojekt som vi engagerat oss i tillsammans, formulerar vi V-frågor till oss själva och till läsarna om vad, var, när, varför och av vem/vilka inom kunskapande. Vi ställer kritiska frågor till yrkesverksamma – oss själva inberäknade – involverade i kultur- och kunskapsproduktion i såväl nord/väst som syd/öst på vår sfäriska planet om vad vi gör med den frihet vi åtnjuter i våra rådande livsbelägenheter.