Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

The School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography is committed to fostering an inclusive culture that promotes equity and values diversity, justice, and belonging. We are developing a working, learning, and social environment where the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Our focus on equity recognises that everyone has a different starting point in life.

Our EDI story so far

Comprising a broad range of staff and students, the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) committee works to devise and implement good practice on EDI across the School. We seek to identify equity and equality objectives for SAME and monitor action plans and implementation of these objectives. We evaluate data and evidence to understand equity needs within the School and regularly review SAME policies with regard to EDI.

The committee manages a small budget for developing projects to improve EDI, including, but not limited to, appropriate training. We welcome suggestions from staff and students on how we can use this funding to better support and promote activity across the School dedicated to meeting our shared objectives.

The School is critically engaging with the complex and at times shameful history of the discipline and its origins in Oxford through the Histories of Oxford Anthropology Project (HOAP). This project aims to better represent the ‘hidden histories’ of the department, through student-led re-evaluation of our history and what is relevant to it.

As a department directly linked to the training of colonial officers, one aim is to reflect further on the relationship between anthropology at Oxford and the history of colonisation. Equally, the HOAP project, alongside the Diversifying Portraiture project, are starting to highlight contributions to scholarship which have been wrongly overlooked – though there remains much to do.

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Departmental culture

Strengthen the infrastructure for and improve recognition and embedding of EDI work
Strengthen School culture to foster inclusivity and sense of belonging
Take concerted action on anti-bullying and anti-harassment

Staff

Improve recruitment for diversity to address any biases within recruitment
Support better career progression routes for early- and mid-career staff – opening up opportunities for progression into leadership roles and reducing precarity

Students

Use data and evidence to identify and tackle biases in student admissions, attainment and experience
Review the curriculum in order to ensure a more diverse and inclusive learning experience for students

Community

Improve support and guidance to promote ethical and non-extractive research, knowledge exchange, and impact methods and practice

Valid July 2023 – July 2028 

The renewal of our Bronze Award signals our ongoing commitment to tackling gender inequalities and barriers in the life of the School. Our new action plan will ensure we are able to better support all those who wish to further their careers whilst maintaining a balance with their home and family lives. 

School Priorities for 2023-2028

Empower the EDI committee to serve as the hub of gender equality action across the School.
Improve career progression, particularly for colleagues on fixed term contracts.
Continue to address gender bias in admissions, attainment and recruitment.
Work to strengthen School culture to foster inclusivity and a sense of belonging.
Sustain work against bullying and harassment.

Code of Conduct

The School Code of Conduct sets out standards of behaviour and good practice expected from its members. In the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, we are committed to establishing an inclusive and supportive culture in which all staff and students feel welcomed, accepted and given a voice, irrespective of individual and group difference. We each have a responsibility to create an environment where everyone feels equally valued.

Inclusive Conferences Guide

A practical, wide-ranging guide for event organisers, drawing on examples of best practice from across the university sector and beyond, developed by the School of Geography and the Environment. The guide incorporates sections on pre-event logistics; programme development and speaker selection; encouraging inclusive participation in Q&A sessions and networking events; representing diversity in conference communications; as well as how to prevent and deal with harassment and discrimination during the event and how to support the needs of those with caring responsibilities.

Code of Conduct for Ethical Fieldwork

This guide provides principles and questions to help researchers improve equity in their fieldwork. It prompts reflection and conversation on better practice beyond institutional ethics review processes. The Code addresses a wide range of ethical issues that can arise through interactions with people during fieldwork, regardless of the type of research being conducted. It is relevant across geographies, methodologies, disciplines, researcher experience levels, and project scales.