'The university wasn't happy': the knowledges, emotions, and care ethics of 'equity, diversity and inclusion' (EDI) workers in UK higher education

Informed by Higher Education Critical Diversity Studies, this qualitative study used interviews and focus groups with 32 staff and students engaged within Equity, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI), to generate new empirical evidence about 'EDI work' in the challenging social and regulatory context of UK higher education in the early 2020s. The thesis also offers novel applications of theories of higher education temporalities to EDI work, and considers how Tronto's Ethics of Care (Tronto, 2013) might provide a useful framework for understanding individual and institutional responsibilities around care within the tensions of equity work. By exploring the lived experiences of individuals engaged in various forms of EDI 'work' across multiple universities, this study enabled analysis that contributes to a more complex understanding of the current state of UK university equity efforts. Critical studies into the lived experience of individual 'diversity workers' (Ahmed, 2012a) in the UK university sector in the 2020s have been limited in number and theoretically fragmented. For example, studies have centred on either formal EDI 'practitioner' roles, critiques of Equality Charters, or academic perspectives on social justice or 'inclusive' pedagogies, curriculum, and research. This more holistic research draws on recent post-2016 'Critical Diversity Studies' literature (particularly in the US) to provide deeper insights into the tensions and emotions within EDI work between different actors, informed by critical race- and critical feminist approaches to examining structures of power and inequity. My study engaged with individuals negotiating their roles during a times of sector crisis, and with institutional EDI 'on the precipice' of failure or success. By doing so, it offers new insights into how emotional labour (Hochschild 1979) and care interact with the different knowledge(s) and intersectional identities of EDI workers in HE, and how different individuals navigate their multiple EDI-related roles and responsibilities over time. The study concludes with recommendations for individual and institutional change to mitigate harms to EDI workers, while building a more valued, equitable, and sustainable care-ethical EDI practice.