Why perspective matters in EDI work: lessons from theology and Critical Race Theory

In Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work, one of the most persistent challenges is helping people move beyond the idea that there is a single, neutral way of seeing the world.

This is not just a practical issue, it is a conceptual one. How we understand knowledge, experience and truth shapes how we listen, how we lead, and ultimately how organisations function.

A recent piece I wrote explored this question through an unexpected lens: what Christianity might learn from Critical Race Theory. While that conversation sits in a theological space, the underlying insight has clear implications for organisational practice.

At its core is a simple but often resisted idea: what we see is shaped by where we stand.

In many organisational settings, there is an implicit assumption that objectivity means detachment. That the best decisions are made by stepping back from particular perspectives. In practice, however, this can flatten important differences in experience, particularly those shaped by race, gender or other forms of structural inequality.

Critical Race Theory challenges this by emphasising that knowledge is always situated. People encounter institutions differently, and those differences are not noise to be filtered out, they are data to be taken seriously.

Interestingly, this is not as alien to established traditions as it might first appear. Within Christianity, for example, the existence of multiple Gospel accounts reflects an understanding that no single perspective exhausts the truth. Each account offers a partial, situated view, and it is precisely their plurality that deepens understanding.

For EDI work, this has practical consequences.

First, it reframes what it means to “listen”. Listening is not simply about gathering views; it is about recognising that some perspectives reveal aspects of organisational life that others cannot see. Creating space for those perspectives is not an optional extra, it is essential to understanding how an organisation actually operates.

Second, it challenges how we think about disagreement. When different accounts of the same environment emerge, the instinct is often to resolve them into a single, coherent narrative. A more productive approach is to hold those accounts in tension and ask what each one makes visible.

Third, it has implications for training and development. Effective EDI work is not just about raising awareness; it is about helping people engage with perspectives that may unsettle their assumptions, and equipping them to respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness.

In our work with student-facing teams, including recent projects with Residence Life at the University of Leeds, these principles have been central. The aim is not to replace one “correct” perspective with another, but to build the capacity to navigate a more complex and honest picture of organisational life.

The broader point is this, organisations do not become more inclusive simply by adopting new policies or language. They become more inclusive when they develop a richer understanding of how different people experience the same environment and when that understanding is allowed to shape decisions.

Perspective, in other words, is not a barrier to truth. It is how we get closer to it.