ABSTRACT
The concept of critical diversity literacy (CDL) has been a work in progress for more than a decade.1 It represents an attempt to distil into a single framework the analytic profi ciencies I believe a qualifi cation in diversity studies should provide. The particular framing is the outcome of a confl uence of factors: the specifi c higher education context in post-apartheid South Africa where students enter a society characterized by an impetus towards transformation, integration and greater equity; the deepening of my own work on whiteness towards recognizing the family resemblances in how privilege and oppression operate along other axes of difference; and a serendipitous encounter with France Winddance Twine’s concept of racial literacy,2 which I recast, developed and extended along new lines for a different purpose.
