The everyday practices of global finance: gender and regulatory politics of ‘diversity’

This article argues that practices of global finance provide a rich opportunity to consider gender's embodiment in everyday, but highly regulatory, financial life. Tracing a pathway through the rise of the ‘diversity agenda’ in global finance in the wake of the global financial crisis, the article asks how ‘diversity’ has shaped the global financial services industry, and whether it has challenged the reproduction of gendered power in global finance. Recent, innovative feminist political economy work has laid out a clear challenge to researchers of the global political economy to explore how everyday practices have become significant sites of gendered, regulatory power, and this article takes up this challenge, analysing how the rise of ‘diversity’ in financial services reveals the crucial intersections of gendered power and everyday economic practices. Using a conceptual framework drawn explicitly from Marysia Zalewski's work, this article advances critical inquiry into how gender has become an often unacknowledged way of writing the world of global finance, in ongoing, and problematic, ways. It proposes that the practices and futures of the diversity agenda in global finance provide a window into the persistent failure of global finance to reconfigure its foundational masculinism, and asks that financial actors begin to take seriously the foundational, gendered myths on which global finance has been built.

Cultural discourses and practices of institutionalised diversity in the UK film sector: ‘Just get something black made’

‘Diversity’ is an evolving dimension of discursive debates within publicly funded parts of the UK media. This article considers how representations of racial diversity in cinema were articulated in a particular moment in recent history. It traces the relationship between the broader New Labour neoliberal agenda of the late 1990s and the UK Film Council’s (UKFC) New Cinema Fund, the key funding mechanism for supporting black British cinema at the time. The authors suggest that the New Cinema Fund’s ‘institutional diversity’ agenda represented a symbolic effort by both the UKFC and UK public service broadcasters to redevelop black British film vis-a-vis a plethora of cultural imperatives oriented around the notion of ‘social inclusion’. The nature of this intervention, it is argued, was strongly influenced by the 1999 Macpherson Report, which identified ‘institutional racism’ within the fabric of the UK’s organisations. The article examines how such an ‘institutional diversity’ agenda emerged within the production context of a BBC Film/UKFC production, Bullet Boy (2005), thus generating a rearticulated black British cinema that was deeply imbricated in the highly politicised contexts outlined.

The UK Film Council and the ‘Cultural Diversity’ Agenda

From May 2000 until its demise in 2011, the UK Film Council (UKFC) was the main film funding body in the United Kingdom. While many critics have analysed the economic successes and failures of individual films that it funded over this period, little has been written about its influence on the UK film industry more broadly. Of the handful of articles that have addressed this area, the question of the diversity of the UK film industry, and the UKFC's alleged failure to make it more accessible, is a consistent theme, supported by damning data from Creative Skillset and the UKFC's own reports, which suggest that in many areas the industry is even less diverse now than it was when the UKFC was first established. Yet despite this evidence, there has until now been no engagement with the views of the staff actually making funding decisions at the UKFC. This article attempts to redress this oversight, by augmenting existing data with interviews with former leading figures in the UKFC's script development and diversity departments, in order to present a richer picture of the issues surrounding UK film funding and the ‘cultural diversity’ agenda. In so doing, I seek to unpick some of the common critiques levelled at the UKFC's record on diversity, and explore why the numerous measures that it put in place failed significantly to change the composition of the UK film industry.

A gender agenda

Purpose The paper aims to categorise the nature of the research undertaken in respect of gender and accounting to identify where research is undertaken and where there remains lacunae in the field. It seeks to offer prescriptions for more research in the field and for the consideration of a particular type of research that considers the gendered values that inform accounting. Design/methodology/approach The approach taken is to provide an illustrative review of the literature in the area to demonstrate the streams of thought that are reflected in research in the field. The paper is therefore an argument for undertaking research in relation to gender more generally and more specifically pays attention to how the nature of accounting information is informed by gendered values. Findings The argument is that the considerations of gender in accounting research are not providing the impetus for a change that will enrich accounting information and the decision-making processes that it informs. A different approach to accounting provides the possibility of providing more equitable opportunities for those working within the accounting profession, including women. Research limitations/implications The paper argues the case for more research in this field. Social implications The paper has implications for the situation of women working as accountants and for a broader diversity agenda. Originality/value The paper seeks to re-emphasise an earlier paper (Broadbent, 1998) and re-energise the debates about the effects of gender in accounting. There is no other research that addresses the agenda of the gendered nature of accounting information and technologies.

Putting diversity to work

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically explore why a diversity agenda in favor of equal opportunities failed despite apparent organizational support and commitment to diversity. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on data from a municipal center, this study inquire into how organizational dynamics of power and hierarchy influence change efforts to alter practices of inequality. The study is positioned within critical diversity research and structured around an analysis of the researcher’s fieldwork experiences. Findings The analysis examines into why change efforts failed despite organizational approval of a diversity agenda, open-mindedness toward change and legitimacy in regard to diversity. Paradoxically, change efforts designed to alter the status quo were, in practice, derailed and circumvented through power dynamics reproducing organizational inequality. Research limitations/implications A single case study in a particular type of organization constrains the generalizability but point to new directions for future research. Practical implications This study aims at sensitizing researchers and diversity practitioners alike to the organizational embeddedness of diversity initiatives. Accordingly, change efforts must necessarily address diversity in a situated perspective and as intersecting with key organizational power dynamics gaining impetus from macro discourses on diversity and difference. Originality/value Few critical diversity scholars engage with practitioners and reflect on the impact of their studies. In doing so, this paper contributes by developing diversity research, exploring the limitations and possibilities for increasing its relevance and impact.