Sameness and difference in government equality talk

This article discusses two sets of policy documents produced in the UK which form part of the equality and diversity agenda' as it was articulated by the Labour government and which led to formulation of the 2006 and 2010 Equality Acts. These documents are critically examined in order to identify the underlying definitions and discourses of equality and diversity that they deploy. What definitions of equality and diversity provide the legitimating discursive structure within which debates about human rights, inequality and discrimination take place? What does this tell us about the understanding of the relationship of sameness and difference to equality, and the relationship between different differences in government equality talk? I argue that, in both cases, gestures towards recognizing the central importance of difference and towards a more intersectional approach to those differences are ultimately subverted by the liberal terms within which these challenges are understood.