“Diversity enhancement” has become a buzzword of institutional change today, and multiple actors push for the establishment of diverse (infra-)structures in public and organizational spaces. At the same time, critics bemoan that diversity has primarily become an economic asset of neo-liberal management and marketing practices that reify cultural difference and identity politics at the expense of acknowledging, and transcending, deep-rooted social inequalities. This conference considers the multiply intertwined processes of institutionalizing diversity, on the one hand, and their affective repercussions within and beyond institutional settings, on the other: What affects and emotions do processes of diversifying institutions arouse? How do these processes trouble or shape particular affective environments and scripts for everyday interactions, practices, and performances within and beyond institutional spaces? Around 40 speakers from the humanities and social sciences approach these questions with regard to diverse institutional settings such as education, the media, cultural institutions, and healthcare. The keynote is held by Sara Ahmed, an internationally renowned scholar of feminist theory.

Organized by: Hansjörg Dilger, Juliane Gorke, Omar Kasmani, Dominik Mattes, Hans Roth, Matthias Warstat (CRC Affective Societies: Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds)
Funded by: German Research Foundation