ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a project of forced introspection in a Critical Diversity Literacy (CDL) class that incorporated photo-essays to engage the interconnectedness of personal lives with social structures and relations of power. CDL is a useful theoretical and analytical tool for engaging the personal as interwoven with the political. Teaching social justice in the classroom is both an affective and action-oriented endeavour. The chapter examines the epistemology of the CDL module and its intersection with social justice as fundamental to the education project. CDL encourages a more critical understanding of the concept of 'diversity' than the normative bureaucratic conception that many institutions and business corporations employ. CDL is a useful theoretical and analytical tool for engaging the personal as interwoven with the political. The myriad of emotions attests to the complicated and nuanced processes of transformation and assuming agency in how one thinks about the socio-political world.
