Toronto the Good?: Negotiating Race in the Diverse City

Shana Almeida

Open Access Published by University of Toronto Press 2022

Toronto the Good?

Negotiating Race in the Diverse City

Shana Almeida
Funded by: University of Toronto Libraries

https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487552336

Overview
Contents

About this book

Toronto the Good? uniquely explores what diversity does to remake the City of Toronto as a beacon of democracy, racial inclusion, and progress.

Author / Editor information

Almeida Shana :

Shana Almeida is an assistant professor in the School of Professional Communication at the Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research and teaching contributions are informed by over six years as a senior political staff member at the City of Toronto.

Reviews

Stefan Kipfer, Associate Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University:

"In Toronto the Good?, Shana Almeida offers a rare inside-outside perspective on municipal multiculturalism. Focused on City employees who do the ‘diversity work’ that sustains the City of Toronto’s motto Diversity our Strength, Almeida analyzes how routinized discourses of ethno-racial diversity reproduce rather than challenge racism and racialization. This is a must-read for all those interested in understanding the contradictions of diversity as institutional practice in Big City politics."

Alana Lentin, Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis, Western Sydney University:

"Shana Almeida’s meticulously researched and accessibly written book on the politics of diversity in Toronto has crucial implications far beyond the city limits. Almeida moves critical thinking on race forward by showing how the inclusion of racially minoritized people within public and private institutions paradoxically underwrites a white vision of ‘good diversity’ and contributes to further compounding the abjection of those whose otherness remains unassimilable in the racial colonial state."

Deborah Cowen, Professor of Geography & Planning, University of Toronto :

"At a time when race and racism sculpt the fractious contours of political and economic life, and from a city known all over the world as the capital of diversity, Toronto the Good? is both high stakes and deeply rewarding. Shana Almeida skilfully interrogates ‘diversity’ as a means and signifier of struggle and offers prescient insights for a different way forward."

Sherene H. Razack, Distinguished Professor and Penny Kanner Endowed Chair, Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles:

"This book’s most important contribution is that it enables us to see how a liberal logic of reform is a part of routine racial governance. Highlighting the role that people of colour can play in diversity discourses, Toronto the Good? shows that diversity policies provide the City with ways to claim that it has transcended its racist past even as little concrete change results. In these times, when many believe that we are finally in an age of redress and reconciliation, Shana Almeida invites us to consider how spaces of raciality persist where we least expect it. This is a critical lesson for our times as we are prompted by movements, such as Black Lives Matter to distinguish between reform and abolition."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Chapter One. The Diversification of Diversity Open Access Download PDF	1
Chapter Two. Theoretical Concepts Open Access Download PDF	22
Chapter Three. Being Exceptional: Moving Diversity Beyond Race Open Access Download PDF	39
Chapter Four. Being Like No Other: Building Inside(r) Relations Through Race Open Access Download PDF	66
Chapter Five. Being Through Consultation Open Access Download PDF	91
Chapter Six. On Diversity Discourse and the Problem of Agency Open Access Download PDF	110
Notes Open Access Download PDF	125
References Open Access Download PDF	133
Index Open Access Download PDF	147

Language: English
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Audience: College/higher education;Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 172
Keywords: politics; government; race; racism; diversity; discourse; Toronto; government policy; democracy; political participation; activism; City of Toronto; municipal government; city hall; City of Toronto; urban politics

eBook

Published: November 14, 2022
ISBN: 9781487552336