As part of Women’s History Month, and inspired by this year’s International Women’s Day theme 'Inspire Inclusion', this week we get to know Dr Shzr Ee Tan, Vice Dean for Equality Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Performing and Digital Arts (PDA).
1. Please tell me more about yourself and your role?
I am the Vice Dean of Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the School of Performing and Digital Arts, and I am also a Reader at the Music Department where I continue to teach. For me, EDI means creating - as a community - activities, pathways and systems through which everyone can gain a fair chance at making and owning decisions that feed into achieving one's utmost potential. I think there's a difference between diversity, equality... and the ultimate but never attained goal, inclusion. I've since discovered that many 'EDI' aspects of my role aren't obviously tagged as such (or even around explicitly safeguarding minoritised communities), but that EDI work actually has to be integrated into actions and processes directly (with sometimes awkward, and sometimes behind-the-scenes but always necessary interventions) in the everyday aspects of university life.
2. What do you enjoy most about being the EDI lead in your School?
I get to learn and re-learn things everyday, as notions of – and actual – minoritisations keep on changing alongside a world that is always spinning! It's hard to keep up, but I know we all try. Also, and this is a bit of a cliche, but I've met so many wonderful and kindred spirits along the way. I am grateful for all our time spent together in the meaningful as well as nonsensical exchanges. At our Bollywood mass dance event for Divali last term I got to meet a few cool people who are yoga and meditation practitioners, who have since volunteered to co-run activities around mental health (more activities on the horizon – email me directly for info!). At another Sight Training Event in November spearheaded by Anica Zeyen I got to wear special simulation glasses – and meet Guide Dogs! Fun things aside, I'd also like to think some of the work we do under the EDI remit can make real, sustained and positive change in people's lives, even if it means taking one step back (or sideways) before we can take two steps forward.
3. The theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is ‘Inspire Inclusion’ – how do you integrate this theme within you own work?
I believe intersectionality is key here, and recognise that there are new and different forms of feminism today, and also that many women have to hold multiple spaces and roles in their individual journeys. I think there are geocultural, intergenerational (eg post-woke) and different environmental responses to global feminist discourses. This April, as part of Intergenerational Awareness Week, I will be working with Josephine Carr from the Gender Institute, Korean artist Youngsook Choi and EDM activist-scholar Luis-Manuel Garcia-Mispireta in a public workshop around women and tea (tea as ceremony, beverage and gossip networks – this will be third instalment of the Radical Aunties Project) at Bedford Square. We will be celebrating women (and men, and queer people) who have been historically defined only in relation to other members of their immediate family, who are folks known to have ‘many opinions, no responsibilities’, but who are also society’s first-rate busybodies, pro-organisers, cheap-deal scorers and unashamed owners of air fryers.
4. What are you currently working on in your role as EDI lead?
I just filed a School report on this - you can have the boring file where I log info down on tedious but important policy and strategy work on pressing issues such as Inclusive Environments, the Black & Global Majority Awarding Gap, Curricular reform, Career progression – among other structural ‘problems’ in higher education. Otherwise, I’m very much looking forward to co-organising an Iftar ‘breaking fast’ meal with some of our inter-faith students and staff when Ramadan begins (email me if you’d like to get involved!).
5. Who inspires you both inside and outside work?
Right now I’ve just completed a research project in Southeast Asia, collaborating with migrant domestic women workers investigation of their acoustic/ sounded lives. I’m constantly amazed at how they can wake up early every day to a tough day of precarious work with minimal pay, and still find freshness, meaning, newness and hope… for themselves, for their (often, chosen) families, for their expanding creative lives, and also for societal and political change in the world at large.
6. March is also Women’s History Month – is there a woman from history that you find particularly inspiring?
Can I have two? Sarah Ahmed, her feministkilljoys site is a constant source of humour and wisdom, and the queen of Intersectionality, Kimberlé Crenshaw.