Identity + Strategy: Leveraging DEI backlash for meaningful culture change
Vincent N. Pham, PhD
Peter Campbell, PhD
Myra Washington, PhD
VPC Consulting
Portland, Oregon, USA
Identity has been a core part of how DEI has been organized for corporate America. However, the backlash against DEI has challenged and dismantled many of the ways that organizations do this work of inclusion and belonging. This panel interrogates and entertains the possibilities of how the contemporary anti-DEI movement can catalyze other ways to educate and activate identity as part of justice work.
From cultural identity food sharing to eployee resource affinity groups (ERGs), racial & cultural identity was the central focus of many corporate DEI efforts. The focus on cultural identity and personal lived experiences created an easy entry - and endpoint - for performative, surface-level DEI. However, the backlash against DEI has challenged and dismantled even these perfunctory strategies mainstream organizations used to foster inclusion and belonging.
Session panelists will interrogate the problematic patterns of workplace cultural appreciation and cultural competence trainings, and share possibile next steps agencies can take to educate workers and honor cultural identity, while creating more just, safe and supportive workplaces for their global majority employees.
Presenter Bios
Vincent N. Pham is a Portland, OR based scholar, trainer, and consultant. With over 20 years of experience working in higher education, Dr. Pham is an expert facilitator, seasoned teacher, and a respected researcher with over 50 talks and presentations on topics ranging from cultural belonging and citizenship in popular culture to organizational and institutional issues of diversity and inclusion.
Peter Odell Campbell is an independent scholar, union representative, and rank-and-file member of Teamsters Local 763 in Tukwila, WA. In 2014, Peter joined the graduate faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he promptly co-founded a successful campaign to organize Pitt faculty across all ranks and campuses with the United Steelworkers—an effort that sparked more than 10,000 other local university and culture workers to form unions of their own. Peter earned his PhD in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013, with a specialty in identity and regulation in U.S. law. His essay “Intersectionality Bites” is internationally recognized as a touchstone for research on vampires in television and film.
Myra Washington is a scholar of media, culture, and society. Her interest revolves around how media can help create and sustain ideas about our identities, our relationships with each other, various institutions, and the way we live. Washington's research topics range from representations in media to sports, digital media technologies, and the rhetoric of racially mixed individuals. She continues her work in higher education and labor issues as an organizer, faculty member, administrator, and a committed thought leader on issues of employee recruitment and retention.
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