Old Wine in New Bottles? From Diversity to Social Safety in Dutch Academia

In light of the #MeToo-movement and the Black Lives Matter movement, sexual and racial harassment have gained renewed attention within academic institutions. Especially in recent years, various publicized cases of harassment in academia have sparked substantial debate concerning the failures of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion work (EDI). As a result, academic institutions have faced mounting pressure to respond by reaffirming their commitment to EDI. One notable response has been the emergence of ‘social safety’ policy as a substitute or supplement to the established EDI efforts within Dutch universities. Despite the increasing popularization of ‘social safety’, scholarly work investigating this development remains absent. This paper, therefore, offers a critical investigation into the conceptual foundations, origins, scope and relationship (or lack thereof) between ‘social safety’ and EDI. work in academia. We aim to answer two research questions: 1) How is the concept of social safety understood in the context of Dutch universities?, and 2a) Is social safety integrated into EDI work within Dutch Universities, and if so 2b) How is social safety understood within EDI work? Our theoretical framework brings together conceptualizations of social safety within the fields of political sciences and organization studies. Additionally, we employ Sarah Ahmed’s work on the non-performativity of EDI policy to understand academic institutions’ intentions and strategies to produce in/effective EDI work. This serves as the foundation to investigate how social safety is interpreted, understood and incorporated in EDI work. We conducted interviews with DEI professionals employed at nine universities in the Netherlands. Apart from the intersectional approach which is only exceptionally incorporated in EDI work, this new notion predominantly perpetuates the ‘happy’ diversity discourse and non-performative EDI work. We conclude by advocating for transparent and bottom-up EDI work that incorporates an anti-racist feminist lens to effectively tackle racial and sexual harassment in academia.