Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis

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The Research Network on Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis ('PEDEC') draws on core philosophical and methodological traditions from geography, law, business and management, history and politics to advance understanding of: (i) the equality and diversity effects of the downturn across places, sectors, and social groups; and (ii) the possibilities for resisting negative outcomes and effecting positive change. PEDEC is concerned to promote equality based both on the recognition of difference and the redistribution of resources (Fraser, 1997). The fundamental inseparability of social class from other dimensions of social identity (gender, race/ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation and religion) also critically inform the approach taken. Collaborators will pool their inter-disciplinary expertise to debate urgent issues around: competing organizational responses to economic crisis; the uneven social and spatial distribution of redundancy; the effect and utility in this climate of legal interventions including as envisaged by the 2009 Equality Bill; a potential backlash against equality and diversity as 'too costly in recession'; and the media representation of these issues. The creation of the network responds to the new questions that have been raised by the economic crisis and that require investigation across disciplinary and spatial boundaries. It brings together scholars, practitioners and activists from the UK and elsewhere to explore the implications of the economic downturn, and coming cuts in public spending, for maintaining and progressing equality and diversity standards and for including marginalized groups in economic recovery.