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Of Diversity RE-THINKING IDENTITY The Challenge of Diversity Edited by Katherine Zappone RE-THINKING IDENTITY The Challenge of Diversity Edited by Katherine E. Zappone Commissioned by the Joint Equality and Human Rights Forum FOREWORD This publication is the first joint venture of the Joint Equality and Human Rights Forum. The Forum brings together the human rights and equality bodies in Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland. The cooperation being developed within the Forum seeks to support new thinking on equality issues and to advance the establishment of increasingly effective equality strategies. The exploration of identity and how people hold multiple identities has been a key dimension to this cooperation since the Forum began its work. The purpose of this joint research project is threefold: • To accord a visibility to groups of people whose identity, situation and experience has yet to achieve an adequate focus in equality strategies. • To contribute to new thinking about and understandings of equality on the basis of an exploration of the multiple identities that people hold. • To open a debate on the practical implications for effective equality strategies that flow from the specific experience, situation and identity of particular groups of people holding multiple identities. Tackling discrimination and addressing equality issues relating to a particular individual identity remains a key task. However, consideration and action in respect of multiple identity groups is also of major importance and holds significant potential for equality strategies. The research is based on an acknowledgement of the multiple identities people hold. The research focuses on disabled minority ethnic people, Black and minority ethnic women, lesbian, gay and bisexual people with disabilities, women with disabilities, young lesbian, gay and bisexual people, and young minority ethnic men. The research is small scale, qualitative and of an introductory nature. Within these parameters it identifies the particular exclusion, inequalities and discriminations experienced by these groups. It records and celebrates the struggles for change, for recognition and for self-determination by these different groups. The research establishes: • The importance of a focus on identity within equality strategies. Identity is found to be important in people’s positive sense of self, as a basis for people to organise and seek change, and as having practical implications for institutional policy and practice. • The complexity and fluidity of identity. People construct their identity from more than one source. Multiple identity groupings have specific experiences, situations and identities that need to be addressed within equality strategies. • The need for new solidarities across and between the different groups that experience inequality and discrimination. Tensions emerge for people holding multiple identities seeking to participate in their communities and their organisations. A particular role for the community and voluntary sector is identified in this regard. • The need for attitudinal and systemic change within institutions. The Health Service is used as a common focus across the different areas of research. However, the challenges to institutional policy and practice that emerge in the research are common to all sectors of service provision and employment. Institutions need to develop a focus on multiple identity groups and their particular needs, experiences and situations. This focus on multiple identities needs to be a feature of equality training, mainstreaming strategies and the targeting of resources on specific groups. The research poses challenges to the members of the Joint Equality and Human Rights Forum. We are committed to meeting these challenges by: • Continuing to raise the debate on issues relating to multiple identity groups. • Continuing to ensure a visibility for multiple identity groups and issues in our work as individual organisations and in our cooperation together within the Forum. • Continuing to advocate for and promote equality strategies that are relevant to the situation, experience and identity of multiple identity groups. Such strategies include a focus on institutional policy and practice. They also include a focus on the wider equality framework, including the development and implementation of equality legislation, the collection and analysis of equality data and approaches to mainstreaming equality. The Forum is grateful to Katherine Zappone for her expert and thorough work in coordinating and guiding this project and in contributing to and editing this publication. We are grateful to the creative and insightful work of each of the researchers that worked with our organisations to research and draft the chapters on the different multiple identity groups. Equality Authority (Ireland) Human Rights Commission (Ireland) Equality Commission for Northern Ireland Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission Disability Rights Commission (Great Britain) Commission for Racial Equality (Great Britain) Equal Opportunities Commission (Great Britain) June, 2003 The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Joint Equality and Human Rights Forum or any of its members. CONTENTS 1. Introduction 1 Katherine Zappone 2. Disabled Minority Ethnic People in Ireland: 7 The Need for Recognition Maria Pierce 3. Black and Minority Ethnic Women: Understanding 25 Identity, Access and Equality in the Health Service Heidi Safia Mirza and Ann-Marie Sheridan 4. It’s Not Just About Ramps and Braille: 49 Disability and Sexual Orientation Michael Brothers 5. Situation, Experience and Identity of Disabled 69 Women in Northern Ireland Norrie Breslin 6. Learning to Grow Up: Young Lesbians, Gay and Bisexual 89 People in Northern Ireland Christine Loudes 7. Young Ethnic Minority Men in Britain 113 Colin Hann 8. Conclusion: The Challenge of Diversity 131 Katherine Zappone Contributors 153 Contact details 155 1 INTRODUCTION Katherine E. Zappone 2 Re-Thinking Identity 1.1 BACKGROUND The Joint Equality and Human Rights Forum was established to provide an opportunity for members to share ideas and expertise, to engage in joint work and to contribute to wider equality and human rights discussions at British-Irish and European Union level. Members of the Forum include the Equality Authority, Ireland (EA), the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI), the Human Rights Commission, Ireland (HRC), the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), the Commission for Racial Equality, Great Britain (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission, Great Britain (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission, Great Britain (EOC). As one of its first co-operative ventures, the Forum commissioned this joint research project to explore the reality of diversity in peoples’ identities. The notion of ‘diversity’ in recent times has become a core principle in the work of equality and human rights bodies. People are different from one another by virtue of their gender, age, sexual orientation, cultural and ethnic background, religious belief, impairment(s) and other factors. People are part of social groupings such as ‘young people’ or ‘older people’ according to such differences. People with different identities often face different equality and human rights issues. Recognising different identities is a critical step in developing policies and practices that create more equal societies and that accommodate differences in the provision of services and in the workplace. An adequate understanding of the diversity of people’s identities is therefore necessary to the work of promoting equality and human rights. 1.2 ‘MULTIPLE IDENTITIES’ AS THE RESEARCH FOCUS Awareness is growing that people’s identities are complex. An individual’s identity is made up of several factors such as gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. There are young gay men and disabled older women. There are white men and minority ethnic women. People can often find themselves categorised according to more than one social grouping. Multiple characteristics and membership of more than one social group structure the unique experiences and identity of individuals. This is what is meant by the term ‘multiple identities’. The other side of this is that people can, and often do, experience multiple barriers to equality such as those faced by a disabled gay man or an African-Carribean woman. Policies for service provision and organisation of work practices have often not been designed to take account of these multiple differences, resulting in exclusion and compounded or multiple discrimination. Consequently a more adequate understanding of people’s multiple identities would be of benefit to anti-discrimination, equality and human rights work. There has been little systematic research to date that documents the multiple identities of people in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. Members of the Joint Forum commissioned this research project as a way to develop knowledge in this area. Introduction 3 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE The overall research objective was to explore the experiences of people who fall within a common ‘multiple identity’ grouping and to draw out implications of this for equality and human rights work. The research gave visibility to a number of ‘multiple identity’ groups that had received little recognition to date within the different jurisdictions. The expectation was that results would raise new issues, and increase understanding of how affirmation
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