This book challenges the notion that static principles of inclusive practice can be embedded and measured in Higher Education. It introduces the original concept of postdigital positionality as a dynamic lens through which inclusivity policies in universities might be reimagined. Much is written about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) based on an assumption that such principles are already ‘established’ in educational institutions, to ensure fairness and opportunity for all. In this book, readers are asked: what does an airing cupboard have in common with ‘cancel culture’? This opens a provocative debate concerning the disconnect between EDI policy agendas and the widespread digitalisation of society. Written as Covid-19 has converged with existing political economic spaces of technology, culture, data and digital poverty, Postdigital Positionality calls for more ecologically sustainable inclusivity policies.
Sarah Hayes, Ph.D. (2015), Aston University, Birmingham, is Professor of Higher Education Policy at University of Wolverhampton. She has published articles, edited collections and is the author of The Labour of Words in Higher Education: Is it Time to Reoccupy Policy? (Brill Sense, 2019).
AcknowledgementsList of FiguresAuthor’s Positionality StatementPrologue: Opening the Airing Cupboard from All Sides1 Virtual Airing Cupboards2 Postdigital Airing Cupboards3 Airing New Postdigital Policy Discourse4 Viral Discourse in the Virtual Airing Cupboard5 The Construction of Language6 Positionalities7 Cancel Culture8 Inclusivity9 Inclusion in Policy Discourse and a Need for Postdigital Dialogue10 Inclusion in Decisions about our Data Requires Some ‘Re-plumbing’11 McDonaldisation of a Virus12 Postdigital Inclusivity13 Can Universities Really ‘Capture’, ‘Measure’ or ‘Deliver’ Inclusivity?14 Inclusivity Is Not a Static Concept That Institutions Can Control15 New Ethics and Ownership QuestionsIntroduction1 Postdigital Positionality2 Covid-193 Covid-19 Positionalities4 A ‘New Normal’ for Institutions, Different ‘New Normals’ for Each of Us, or Both?5 HE Policies That Self-Isolate6 Precarity, Disadvantage and the Rationalisation of Academic Labour7 Politics, Ethics and Human Attributes in the Virtual Airing Cupboard8 Inclusive Practice for Algorithmic Identities9 Rationality or Positionality10 New Postdigital Understandings of Interpersonal Relations and Inclusivity11 The Debate to Come1 Positionality in a Postdigital Context1 Why Is Postdigital Positionality a Matter for Everyone?2 Positionality in a Traditional Sense3 Postdigital Positionality in a Pandemic2 Rationalisation of Higher Education and the Postdigital Context1 The Shared Political Economic Spaces of Technology and Culture2 Airing Debate on Postdigital Positionality3 Postdigital Positionality as a Learner1 Learning, Experience and Inclusion as Personal and Embodied, Not Rationally Audited2 Resisting the Iron Cage of ‘the Student Experience’4 Postdigital Positionality as a Teacher1 Measuring What Exactly, and Why?2 Finding New, Personal and Plural Starting Points from Which to Teach5 Postdigital Positionality as a Researcher1 The McPolicy of Research Excellence2 Scientific Research, Crises and Convergences6 Postdigital Positionality as a Leader and Policy Maker1 What Is Shaping the University and What Might the University Now Shape?2 Ecological Approaches towards Policy That Begin from Positionality Not Rationality7 Conclusions on Postdigital Futures1 When Biological Environments Change Social Arrangements Need to Alter TooGlossaryReferencesIndex
[...] "The impact on inclusivity policy has been overlooked in this recognition, and Hayes’ major contribution with this book is to draw our attention to the need to attend to inclusivity policies and to their current separation from policies on ‘technology enhanced learning’"."For Hayes, the pandemic has helped to reveal some of the injustices previously concealed in neoliberal policies and practices. Biology, technology and culture are inextricably linked in failures of social justice and the author is in a strong position at this time to point out how. [...] The pandemic has uncovered disturbing implications of this for both the humanities and computing and their related fields; the need to work together is paramount. There are other global imperatives ahead. We shall need to be clear about our individual and collective postdigital positionalities". Christine Sinclair in Postdigital Science and Education , May 28, 2021.
Tim Murray, Kristal Buckley, Sarah Hayes, Geoff Hewitt, Justin McCarthy, Richard Mackay, Barbara Minchinton, Charlotte Smith, Jeremy Smith, Bronwyn Woff
Tim Murray, Kristal Buckley, Sarah Hayes, Geoff Hewitt, Justin McCarthy, Richard Mackay, Barbara Minchinton, Charlotte Smith, Jeremy Smith, Bronwyn Woff