As the Graduate Institute celebrates Diversity Month this November, we asked our director, faculty, students and staff what diversity means to them.
"Affirmer la diversité, c’est reconnaître dans une égale dignité nos communautés et leurs formes variées de présence au monde. Affirmer la diversité, c’est militer pour que ces différentes formes de présence au monde puissent s’exprimer et s’épanouir. Enfin et peut-être surtout, affirmer la diversité, c’est démontrer sa valeur – qui ne se révèle finalement que lorsque la diversité devient rencontre."
Marie-Laure Salles, directrice
"Speaking with Audre Lorde, diversity means to recognise, accept, and celebrate our differences. It means making room for unfamiliar and sometimes disorienting perspectives. For me, at the Graduate Institute today, it means making the ‘Gender, Race and Diversity’ track in the new Master in International and Development Studies curriculum a success."
Elisabeth Prügl, Professor of International Relations/Political Science and Co-Director of the Gender Centre
"Having spent my formative years in multicultural and cosmopolitan international Geneva, diversity has always been a core value for me. At the same time, diversity involves more than multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism, it is a particular way of being that can be summarised through analogy with the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s notion of love, put forward in his 2016 essay 'In praise of love'. He argues that rather than being about the search for similarity, love concerns an inherent engagement with alterity, that it is an altruistic condition that occurs not when two people become one, but rather when one becomes two, and no longer lives only on the basis of their own experience but rather through the constant engagement with another perspective. Diversity is similarly fundamentally about engagement and exchange with other voices, understandings, and experiences, to learn from them, include them in our way of being, and ourselves in theirs, in order to become less 'individual' and more 'dividual'. Only in this way can we build a truly collective way of seeing the world that reflects its polysemic diversity."
Dennis Rodgers, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology
Reference: Alain Badiou, avec Nicolas Truong (2016), Éloge de l'amour, Paris: Flammarion.
"Diversity, for me, is pride. It is embracing oneself in a world divided. Strong are those who have been denied their diversity yet have fought for their pride. It was Anne Frank who already said that 'How wonderful it is that no one has to wait a moment before they start making the world a better place'. Dreaming of changing the world is only possible if we embrace diversity as pride, cherishing the uniqueness of every human around us. Diversity, therefore, is a gift, as seen in the microcosm of the Institute, to unite rather than divide us."
Emilian Lorenzo Berutti, PhD Candidate in International History and Politics
"We are forced to think of diversity in numbers.
At the Graduate Institute, 100 nationalities are represented.
In 2020, women made up only one-fifth of the world’s ambassadors.
As of 2021, same-sex marriage is legal in only 30 countries in the world.
These are not just numbers. Diversity is where this is recognised: that these numbers represent and shape the lived experience of us all.
Diversity is not just about numbers. It is like being invited to a party, not by being asked 'you can come too, if you want', but 'I would like you to come. I want you there'".
Gaya Raddadi, Master student in International Affairs
"Née en Côte d’Ivoire, ayant grandi à Genève avec des amies venant des quatre coins du monde, j’ai toujours été présentée comme un membre de la diversité. Nos professeur·e·s avaient rapidement trouvé un nom pour mon groupe d’amies : les minorités ethniques ou encore les United Colors of Benetton. Ce qu’ils et elles avaient du mal à comprendre, c’est qu’au-delà de nos différences physiques nous étions un groupe assez homogène, avec une passion pour les K-dramas (très peu populaires il y a 15 ans) et peu de diversité de valeurs et d’opinions."
Marielle Montime, gestionnaire des masters et des doctorats au Service des étudian∙t∙e∙s
Diversité et cinéma
"Friand de films, j’ai découvert dernièrement sur grand écran un documentaire helvétique sur les soignant·e·s, le conflit syrien perdu dans la traduction, l’édification passionnée de la tour Eiffel, les amours indécises d’une Norvégienne, un duel moyenâgeux mais féministe, et les adieux d’un grand blond aux chaussures noires du nom de James. Quoi de plus divers et varié que le cinéma ? Reflet métaphorique de notre société, vecteur d’émotions, échappatoire divertissante, le septième art est pour moi plus qu’essentiel. Il répond à mon goût pour l’éclectisme et à ma curiosité envers ce qui dépasse le quotidien. La déception est parfois au rendez-vous, mais l’expérience s’avère toujours enrichissante. Que le monde serait ennuyeux s’il n’y avait que du Marvel à se mettre sous les yeux !"
Pierre-André Fink, responsable adjoint de bibliothèque