Diversity: Fostering meaningful plurality of perspectives
With Valerie Pringle and Margarida Garcia
Resume
Valerie Pringle introduces the host of the Brave Spaces podcast, Dr. Margarida Garcia. Margarida Garcia is a 2004 scholar of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and Chair of the Advisory Committee on Diversity. Her research has led her to examine the topic of diversity through the lens of law, criminology, and sociology. They talk about the importance of bringing a variety of perspectives from the margins and about ways of making people feel that they belong.
Transcript
Valerie
Hello, I'm Valerie Pringle, and I am a 2017 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation mentor. And I'm very delighted to be presenting now what is the introductory episode for the Brave Spaces conversations on diversity. And I'm delighted to be joined by Margarida Garcia. Margarida Garcia is a 2004 scholar of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and is Chair of the Advisory Committee on Diversity. Margarida will be hosting the podcast series, Brave Spaces, on the theme of diversity. Hi, Margarida.
Margarida
Hi, Valerie. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you today.
Valerie
Well, it's good to be with you and this, you know, this is complicated. This is very interesting. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how your work has been influenced, particularly by the questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Margarida
Sure. I can tell you that I kind of organized my career around disciplinary diversity and really committed searching for different perspectives. So, although the main focus of my research was, for a long time, this thing we call human rights, I looked at this topic from the world of law and from the world of criminology and from the world of sociology.
So, I earned three diplomas in three diverse universities in two very distant, in different continents. And anytime I would change discipline, I went through what I can call, you know, the crucible of diversity and inclusion as lived. So, I was never really, really a criminologist and never really, really a sociologist and never really, really a lawyer.
And I would say that this extraordinary gift of expanding my worldview and looking at things from different perspectives came with that price of discomfort of not knowing, of not mastering the foundations of any discipline, actually. That was, I would say, the entry of the topic. And then I pursued my PhD research on the distinction: inclusion - exclusion, as I did extensive work to better understand, how in the world of sentencing, we actually use the semantics of human rights to exclude offenders from society.
So, it was kind of a very open-eye example, for me, of a paradox that is kind of rich. And that is how we can use, you know, some of modernity's most progressive and even emancipatory tools to produce results, because we engage in polarized thinking or because we engage in what I call wars of humanisms. To finish, I would say that diversity and inclusion, it's really at the core of my most important project of the moment. And that's supporting leadership education for all, what we can call inclusive leadership. So, my team and I created the Leadership Academy at the University of Ottawa and we are developing inclusive leadership training based on an ontological model of leadership.
Valerie
What does that mean?
Margarida
What does that mean? “Ontology,” big word. Simply said, it means that we focus on ways of being, because we assert that the most pressing and important challenges of our time – fighting racism, exclusion, or discrimination, climate change – all of that, those challenges will not be won by our traditional way of dealing with challenges, and that is, accumulating knowledge. So, we are not lacking knowledge around climate change, and we are not lacking knowledge around, you know, systemic racism and exclusion. So, there's something missing. And we say that what's missing is really an education on human being, ways of being human.
Valerie
Well, and it's interesting, but you know, ways of being human are also the problem, right? In terms of, you know, people's attitudes and racist and colonial attitudes, you know, for centuries.
Margarida
Oh, completely, completely. So, I think we are really living a real-time paradigm shift. Our ways of being are not working, we're facing massive social and cultural breakdowns, so we need to reinvent all that. And we are not doing that job in academia. We’re focused extremely narrowly on knowledge, accumulating knowledge, and we need to revise that paradigm to support invention of ways of being that are more responsible, more responsive, and more, you know, connected to our shared humanity.
Valerie
Well, and open to different forms of knowledge as well, you know, accepting…
Margarida
Exactly. To a diversity of perspectives, but a meaningful one, right? And that's actually, you know, what really interests me in this Brave Spaces podcast – is that you'll be having those conversations and listening to diversity as lived with my guests.
Valerie
Is there any debate going on any more in academia that you think, and I… obviously, you don't know what's happening everywhere, but just about the importance of creating and engaging in diverse spaces?
Margarida
That's a very important question, Valerie, because I personally think it's just the beginning. So, I think we're just learning to say the right words and to have the right policies. And I think we're doing a good, important job doing that, but we really need to go to the real work and, you know, that's the unwritten policy around inclusion and diversity. So, making someone feel that he or she, or they belong, it's not about ideas or policies. It's really about being with that person in a certain way, about acting with that person in a certain way. So, I would say, it’s the beginning, and there's a lot more to be done.
Valerie
And difficult conversations.
Margarida
Exactly. Very difficult conversations, because it cannot be superficial. It cannot be performative. And it cannot be about rushing for common ground when there's not common ground. So, I do think that we need all the space for difference and mutual respect, and to disagreement.
You know, I can disagree with people's opinions and I do disagree with a lot of opinions, but I cannot disagree with people's experiences of life, of the discrimination they lived. And we need to go beyond the sea of opinions and create something else. We can need to create, you know, life-giving and life-altering spaces, and life-altering conversations, where we can actually listen, even if it does not resonate with our own experience.
Valerie
And, you know, that requires work. That requires a lot of people cracking their heads open and looking inside themselves, you know, academics and non-academics.
Margarida
All of us. And I would say, you know, it's even going beyond our heads. And sometimes what we have inside our heads is the problem. So, knowledge can be in the way of that.
If we come together to create, from the future, ways of being and acting that actually support human flourishing for all of us, despite disagreement on the world of knowledge and opinions.
Valerie
Mm-hmm, interesting. Do you have any sort of understanding of how and why this is happening now? What’s come together to cause people to think about this and act?
Margarida
Well, I think, you know, of course the death of George Floyd comes to mind when you ask that question, for sure. I think we were shocked to see that we can do things like that. And so, all of this was happening already. So, I think we need to be clear about that. The world was never not diverse, never, ever.
I think what's happening now is that we are really bringing different perspectives that were in the margins. And, you know, revolution happens always in the margins. So, if we want to do things differently, we need to be curious and open, and to search for materials that are not the ones that brought us here, right? That brought us to this massive social, cultural breakdown that we are facing. So, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and I think that's what happened, Valerie. I think we had several mirrors at the same time where we could see, you know, ways of being and acting that were not what we want for us and for the future.
So, it's a moment of openness, of curiosity, of humility, and coming to terms with things that cannot happen again, or that will happen again, but we need to not put it below the carpet.
Valerie
And, you know, as George Floyd, as you say, was an episode following thousands, millions of episodes, and the finding of the graves in the residential schools...
Margarida
Of course, in Canada, yes.
Valerie
Similar, you know: we knew, we knew. We'd had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But it's interesting, what penetrates our brains and consciences, you know, ultimately?
Margarida
I think we attain a threshold of horror with some of those episodes that really cracked something open. And now it's time to do the work.
Valerie
Mm-hmm. Are there specific areas where you've seen evolution, change?
Margarida
Valerie, that's an interesting question. I think change is the normal state of affairs, right? Things are always, continuously changing.
Now the question is, is there an evolution? And I think we are seeing evolutions in many different directions. I think some of them are positive, so we are really committed to this idea of diversity and inclusion becoming criteria, meaningful criteria for decision-making, for hiring a team, for doing research.
So, I think that's a positive evolution, and we had to adapt to that framework and to that worldview very quickly in our institutions. And I think that's a positive evolution. I am also seeing breakdowns in polarization of debates because of these conversations, right? So, you know, the polarization between academic freedom or the anti-racist efforts. And the wars that generated in academia are difficult to understand, coming from a body of professionals, whose main task is to think critically and with nuance and complexity around difficult issues.
I think we do need to be more conscious and more careful about naming things, about the way in which we reframe conversations. So, language is very important.
Valerie
Well, language can also, as you sort of referred to, in academia, shut down debate. “Oh, we can't go there. You can't talk about that. You can't say that anymore. That is not allowed.”
Margarida
Yeah, and that's, for sure, something that is happening. And that, I think, is very disruptive, because we cannot deal with any of this by silencing voices and silencing our own ignorance. So, I need to deal with my ignorance and I need to deal with my biases if I want to do things differently. And I need to have a space to say it as I see it, as I feel it, knowing it's not… that probably I don’t have the good language and that I'll make mistakes.
If we don't let people be where they are, if you don't meet people where they are in their journey of prejudices and biases, and ignorance, and insights, we cannot do anything about it. And it cannot create common language and a common world that will make sense for all of us. So, I think that's an undesirable evolution that we silence things that are not set in the perfect form or in an acceptable form, because it's so uncomfortable to look at the mirror that you try to rush into a common ground that is not felt, that it's just a performative common ground, because those two strategies actually prevented us from dealing with the messiness that we need to confront.
If you are really about the diversity of perspectives, diversity of perspectives is not easy. It's not a walk in the park. It’s someone in front of me, you know, pushing for something that I don't agree with, or that goes against my values. So how can I be with that and hold the space for someone who has a different opinion without losing relationships?
So, I do think that's really something that is very, very important now.
Valerie
Probably, the most difficult and the most important work that's going on now.
Margarida
Yeah, I think that's… exactly. I would say that. I think that to create spaces where we can have these difficult conversations, where we can hold space for difference of opinions, a difference of perspectives, while strengthening relationship in face of disagreement. I think this is what's really ahead of us. It's not easy and it will be profoundly transformational for all of us.
Valerie
Which is creating a brave space. And I know, people will be listening to this series and you talking to your guests, desperate for advice, because people are grappling with this.
Everybody is grappling with this and how to get it right, and how to move
forward.
Margarida
Well, I think the only way to getting it right and moving it forward is that you learn to know each other. And that we connect with things that I think are true for all of us. Those are things… I think we can all agree that we are starved of more meaningful lives and ready for more meaningful lives, and we are starved of being seen and appreciated for our uniqueness. And ready to be seen and appreciated for our uniqueness, so, I think that's true for all of us. I have never met someone who doesn't want to make a difference with their work, with their voice, with their commitment in life, in institutions, in teams.
So, we need to create those institutions that are really a good ground for us to be more human. I want to bring my creativity to my workplace and I want to be my uniqueness to my workplace.
I think there's more space for us to show up as we are. And maybe one day you’ll say, you know what? Diversity is not even the good word. Maybe uniqueness is the good word.
So, maybe it’s just about us showing up as we are with all the disciplines, and all the identities, and all the opinions, and all the blind spots, and all the potential that we are. So, we need to see possibilities. And to see possibilities, there's no way better to look for them than in different perspectives.
Valerie
Then it is unique too, because you can't, as people have found, put one person from one community, or one race, or one gender, or whatever on a committee or a panel and say, okay, you're it, you represent this. As if.
Margarida
Exactly. And that's what I’m saying: it cannot be about bodies, because you can’t have diversity without really getting to know the people in front of you. And they're just diverse using some kind of superficial criteria, but maybe, you know, they all think the same way. So, we don't, aren’t much more advanced with regards to decision-making.
Valerie
It's not a box to tick. You cannot tick a box.
Margarida
No, you cannot tick a box and people know that, right? So, you just need to ask people, “Well, do you feel welcomed in this institution?” It's not about arriving there. And that's important by the way, you know, arriving there. It's very important, but that's just the beginning. It's not about policy. It's not about treats and words. It's about a certain way of being with people.
Valerie
Do you have a sense of enormous urgency about this? Or do you have a sense, we're on a path, this will take time? I remember a line of a former Supreme Court Justice Rosie Abella about our evolutionary grasp of justice, you know, with implying that it's a journey.
Margarida
I have no doubts this is a journey, and I have no doubts this will take time. I would say, from my work with human rights, I really got to see that it's a mountain with no top. As time goes by, we become aware of threats to dignity that we were not aware of 20 years ago, and we are today. And it's going to be the same thing in 20 years from now. It has been, you know, the evolution of human rights. That's why they are very flexible. And they need to be, so that we can grow with them and that they can grow with us.
So, I think it's the same thing here. We'll never get there. We'll just get better and better and better, and more inclusive, and more inclusive, and more diverse, more diverse and more diverse, and richer. And I think that's an important aspect of the conversation on diversities in institution is, why should we not go there? We’d gain so much. It's so much more interesting, and rich, and we end up doing things in new ways.
So, why not go there? We are the ones missing the boat if we don't do it.
Valerie
What are you sort of hoping to get from the conversations that you're going to have as part of the Brave Spaces podcast on diversity, with the people that you will speak with?
Margarida
I would say that my stand for these conversations is to be a listener of diversity.
So, my only goal is, I hope I'll be able to capture the experience, the as-lived experience of my guest around the topic of his choosing: on diversity, on inclusion, and the way he sees it, so that I hope that we can really put ourselves in someone else's shoes for the duration of that conversation.
Valerie
And then understand from that again, to amplify the sense that a plurality of perspectives, even if they're, as we say, difficult conversations, and they often are, that they absolutely enhance us and enhance our work.
Margarida
Exactly. And I say for myself, when I really encounter a different perspective, my mind explodes in a good way. It's like turning a corner, you know, and the background completely changing, and you expand yourself.
Valerie
Which is, you know, I guess what you do all the time in your work at the University of Ottawa as well.
Margarida
Yes. As an educator, that's for sure something to practice and to live with my students.
Valerie
So just to finish off here, I don't know if you have any advice for people who are listening. Anything you've read or listened to, or seen that has sort of helped you think about this, think about diversity and ways to approach it?
Margarida
Well, it's a coincidence, but I do, I have a podcast that I really like. That is an inspiration in the world of diversity, you know, with disciplines of perspectives of all the criteria, it's there.
It's the podcast called On Being, the host is Krista Tippett, the American journalist, Peabody award. And I'm actually reading her book, that's just a coincidence, that is called Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by also Krista Tippett. So, I think those are two great sources of inspiration in the world of, you know, being with the idea of diversity - What does it mean? What does it mean to be a human being? - that I would recommend, if people are curious about it.
Valerie
So, the book is called Being Wise.
Margarida
Becoming, sorry, Becoming Wise. And the podcast, On Being, yeah.
Valerie
On Being, sorry. On Being and Becoming Wise, but becoming wise, isn't saying, be diverse, you know, inclusive, but that's implied?
Margarida
Yes, because, as I said, you know, diversity is a fact, the world is just diverse. So, I think, becoming wise, it's really becoming ready and open to be with live people in the world as live people in the world are. And they are diverse.
Valerie
They certainly are. Well, I look forward to your conversations, and thank you so much for talking with us today, and this will continue on, because it's so interesting and such important work. And it's great that it's part of the leadership curriculum for the Trudeau scholars, absolutely.
Margarida
Yeah, I'm really excited to have these conversations, to be a listener for diversity, and I hope you all will enjoy it.
Valerie
Okay. Thank you so much, Margarida Garcia, who will be hosting that series and, just to recap, I’m Valerie Pringle, and this was the intro and the Brave Spaces series podcast on diversity will be upcoming. Thank you.
Margarida
Thank you, Valerie.