Leadership in Question: Talking Diversity, Walking Homogeneity in the Dutch Police Force

Diversity: who can be possibly against it at this time and age? According to the literature, managing diversity — a direction based foremost in the business concern of enhancing competitive advantage — acknowledges multi-identities as valuable resources in the pursuit of company goals. In spite of, or maybe because of the readiness by which the term ‘diversity’ has been adopted in business and government policy discourses I could not help feeling wary. Diversity resonates with the Dutch self-image of tolerance. At the same time, with the notion of diversity rising in popularity, a number of problems so far insufficiently dealt with, notably discrimination and racism, are being pushed further to the background. Moreover, diversity is often interpreted in essentialist ways. In the name of inclusion different bodies than normative White males are tolerated, as long as there are no cultural changes involved (Essed, 2002). Cultural assimilation serves as a mode for inclusion, while different bodies are problematized, ‘othered’, perceived as invaders, out of place in spaces originally not meant for them to be (Puwar, 2004). Elsewhere we have argued that the focus on difference, on the ‘other’ has masked the other side of the same coin, the continuation of preference for sameness.