ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the notions of 'diversity', 'inclusivity', 'postmodernity' and 'difference'. The linking of 'inclusivity' with 'human rights' in post-1994, postapartheid South Africa was informed mainly by the Bill of Rights of the 'new' South African Constitution. Identities and identity-based politics then characterise the modernist ways in which the notions of 'diversity' and 'inclusivity' have been framed in postapartheid South Africa. The notion of 'difference' is increasingly viewed as one of the more significant characteristics of the postmodern condition. The clearly visible and widely shared socio-cultural effect of postmodernity on people's lives and on socio-cultural levels is undoubtedly related to the impact of Information Communications Technologies. The ontology of difference under postmodernity is multi-layered, plural, dispersed, contradictory and specific, as much as it is with macro-sociological impact and implication. The increasing complexity, multiplicity and pluralisation materially embedded within postmodernity require an epistemological approach that can view phenomena in multiple ways and from different perspectives.
