Discussion in the #SIPS2019 diversity session: being a truly diverse society and a node in the community means bringing in people with very different cultural notions of diversity than North Americans.
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It also means non-native speakers who can't use or don't even understand the really complicated lingo developed in North American progressive cultures.
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This is not to say it's okay to be racist or sexist or homophobic if you're not North American, but please keep this in mind when getting into conversations about diversity.
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Replying to @ivanflis
To be clear, not at SIPS probably never will be, but given you mentioned NAs... I personally have always been at least with one foot in the anglosphere and I struggle deeply with how harmful overrepresentation of NAs is in every facet of academic life both on and offline.
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I like to call this whole thing very vaguely Western privilege because North Americans might be at the epicenter but North and Central Europeans and Australians also are highly highly represented and understood, while people from outside this sphere are just not.
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I feel like every experience I have and every social-work interaction (like at conferences but also other events with similar networking components) I have to explain myself deeply including even giving a short history of my own country to have a full conversation with people.
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It might sound as not that bad, but imagine if every time you interacted with somebody about your research you also had to give a quick history of you & your homeland. It might seem like I'm exaggerating but I'm sadly not. I have to go through genocide, war, what ethnicity I am.
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This deeply taints my interactions with people and makes it much harder for me to have a chat with them. I feel respected often and listened to, but I also feel like a museum exhibit too.
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And I'm not that clueless or arrogant to assume this is just me, anybody who has roots outside the West (I have seen it) is expected to do this type of education to their academic peers. It's epistemic exploitation, see:https://philpapers.org/rec/NOREE-2
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Replying to @o_guest
Yup, pretty much. I kinda stopped thinking about it and have a relatively well practiced a) tourist board answer or b) short history lesson.
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Explaining why we have longest UN peacekeeping force ever is just not fun. I need a break. 
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Replying to @o_guest
Actually, UK being in the political shits kinda helps us now, I got a couple convo starters : "I read this peace that compares Yugoslavia to the UK..." That's at least a refreshing take on it.
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