From tolerance and tokenism to radical inclusion : decolonial and intersectional approach to diversity in arts organisations and cultural policy

Abstract

Improving diversity and the position of minority and marginalised groups structurally in European arts and culture has remained challenging despite continuing efforts. Structural inequalities and barriers to participation are still prevalent. To address structural discrimination, the epistemology onto which policies, practices, and institutions have been built, must be examined. The purpose of this article is to critically examine how discriminating hegemonic power structures, derived from colonial and europatriarchal understandings of difference as hierarchical, are reproduced through cultural policy texts even if their aim is the contrary. I critically analyse the discourses of diversity in the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture’s 2023 action plan measures and their implications to promotion of diversity in Finnish National Arts Institutions. Situated within decolonial and intersectional frameworks, the central argument is that cultural policy should move beyond symbolic inclusion to radical inclusion, to enable change and dismantling of structural discrimination.