Closing the Door: Complaint as Diversity Work

This lecture by Sara Ahmed draws on interviews conducted with staff
and students who have made complaints within universities that
relate to unfair, unjust or unequal working conditions and to
abuses of power such as sexual and racial harassment. It approaches
complaint as a form of diversity work: the work some have to do in
order to be accommodated. Making a complaint requires becoming an
institutional mechanic: you have to work out how to get a complaint
through a system. It is because of the difficulty of getting
through that complaints often end up being about the system. The
lecture explores the significance of how complaints happen 'behind
closed doors,' and shows how doors are often closed even when they
appear to be opened.