Postdigital Positionality: Developing Powerful Inclusive Narratives for Learning, Teaching, Research and Policy in Higher Education

This book challenges the notion that static principles of inclusive practice can be embedded and measured in Higher Education. It introduces the original concept of postdigital positionality as a dynamic lens through which inclusivity policies in universities might be reimagined. Much is written about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) based on an assumption that such principles are already ’established’ in educational institutions, to ensure fairness and opportunity for all. In this book, readers are asked: what does an airing cupboard have in common with ’cancel culture’? This opens a provocative debate concerning the disconnect between EDI policy agendas and the widespread digitalisation of society. Written as Covid-19 has converged with existing political economic spaces of technology, culture, data and digital poverty, Postdigital Positionality calls for more ecologically sustainable inclusivity policies.

Sarah Hayes, Ph.D. (2015), Aston University, Birmingham, is Professor of Higher Education Policy at University of Wolverhampton. She has published articles, edited collections and is the author of The Labour of Words in Higher Education: Is it Time to Reoccupy Policy? (Brill Sense, 2019).