Queer workers, diversity data and the UK television industry: is more data always better?

This paper introduces new, interdisciplinary perspectives for understanding and analysing what diversity data is and works to do. Combining critical data studies with research on diversity and inclusion in the UK television industry, we explore the case of sexual orientation data. We discuss the ambiguous relationship between diversity data and its use to remedy structural inequity and exclusion. We show that diversity data brings into view a narrow selection of queer workers’ lives and experiences while further marginalising others, and that it is generative and productive rather than merely representative of the world around us. In so doing we provide novel and transferable insights for scholars and practitioners to improve both our understanding of diversity data and its practical use in workplace interventions.