Ethics and Aesthetics of Encountering the Other: New Frameworks for Engaging with Difference
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Sch of Education
Abstract
This international research network asks: How do people of conflicting worldviews, memories and future visions encounter each other? Cultural, civic and educational organisations are expected to create a platform for such encounters and their public value is increasingly assessed on how well they reflect societal diversity in their core activity, outreach and governance. While some improvement on diversity measures, such as gender, age, ethnicity or disability, is evident within these sectors, less is known on what meaningful engagement across and within these categories looks like, why and how it matters and what it takes to foster it. This is an urgent question in the face of disconcerting societal tendencies around the world: the coarsening of public discourse in increasingly divided societies, the rise of political and military activism fuelled by hostility and violence towards the other, or the fast-spreading epidemic of loneliness and mental illness across and within generations and social strata. This network is based on the recognition that genuine engagement with difference of any kind is necessary for building peaceful, sustainable and healthy communities. It also acknowledges, however, that success on diversity measures alone does not guarantee meaningful encounters with those who are not like 'us'. Such engagement requires effort, can be difficult to bring about, and sharing the same space is a necessary but insufficient condition for it to occur. The Network addresses this challenge by shifting the theoretical focus from diversity as a social category to difference as a quality that defines every human being. This shift implies that human interactions of any kind are meetings with difference. They are not made meaningful by emphasising sameness, but by exercising an ethical commitment to preserving difference while making a genuine contact. How individuals and communities practise this encounter with 'the other' across diverse contexts of human activity can have profound consequences for addressing some of the global societal conflicts. The Network brings together international artists, linguists and philosophers to examine aesthetic and ethical dimensions of communal meaning making across geographical boundaries and domains of social life: in music and dance rehearsal rooms, in museums and art galleries, in theatres, markets, service encounters, schools. We will study existing research and experiential evidence of these interactions and examine what genuine encounters with difference look like and what it takes to enable them. The resulting theoretical and methodological frameworks will advance inquiry across academic disciplines and creative practices. The practical guidelines will support public institutions in the UK and internationally in their commitment not only to reach diverse communities but to become catalysts for genuine encounters across divides of any kind. More generally, through engaging with one another's disciplines, cultural contexts, existing research data and ways of working, the Network will develop new conceptual frameworks, analytical approaches and practical proposals for researching and living in complex, changing conditions.
The Network will be organised in two one-day seminars, a public assembly and a dissemination lab to consolidate Network outputs. The seminars will include short data-led provocations, keynotes, experiential sessions and moderated conversations. The public assembly will reach out to a wide range of stakeholders, including arts organisations, educational charities, local authorities, health and mental wellbeing agencies and social care sector. The material will be disseminated through creative outputs (interactive website and a digital ethnography blog led by a Doctoral Researcher in Residence), social media and professional workshops. The Network will facilitate the development of new partnerships and inform future inquiry into global challenges of societal conflict.
The Network will be organised in two one-day seminars, a public assembly and a dissemination lab to consolidate Network outputs. The seminars will include short data-led provocations, keynotes, experiential sessions and moderated conversations. The public assembly will reach out to a wide range of stakeholders, including arts organisations, educational charities, local authorities, health and mental wellbeing agencies and social care sector. The material will be disseminated through creative outputs (interactive website and a digital ethnography blog led by a Doctoral Researcher in Residence), social media and professional workshops. The Network will facilitate the development of new partnerships and inform future inquiry into global challenges of societal conflict.
Planned Impact
The Network recognizes a significant potential benefit for a wide range of arts, education and public sector organisations, communities and individuals nationally and internationally. Impact will be created by working collaboratively with partners, intermediaries and participants and by developing an effective communications plan throughout and beyond the life of the project. The Network's impact is embedded in its infrastructure and carried out through named partners' involvement in the shaping of the project's agenda from the outset. Opera North is interested in theorizing and enhancing their practice of crossing cultural boundaries in their artistic collaborations and in harnessing opportunities that their Theatre of Sanctuary status affords. The outcomes of this project will inform their approach to working with refugees and asylum seekers and will also feed directly into their future artistic and outreach work. Leeds Museums and Galleries, as a cultural organization whose NPO status is subject to ongoing assessment by the Arts Council England, also has a direct stake in the project. Their involvement will aide their ambition to respond to ACE's initiative 'Creative Case for Diversity'. They will use their participation in the Network to develop an action plan for creating museums that both represent and meaningfully engage with diverse audiences. International beneficiaries in the arts, culture and heritage sector will be targeted through the work of core international Network members. For example, Fischer will use the Network outcomes to inform his creative practice of engaging with diverse cultural traditions and his pedagogical practice of educating for collaborative musicianship. Dyck, a visual artist in the Pasifika (Tongan) tradition, has strong connections with museums, art galleries and schools in New Zealand. She will use her Network experience to inform her public engagement across these partnerships. Poton Theatre Company, a multi-award-winning community-based Slovak theatre company, reaches around 6,000 users per year, which includes artists and the general public. The Network will inform the Company's ambition to address urgent societal challenges through its artistic output and form a basis for researching a new production. The Network's impact on public and civic sectors will be advanced through involvement of key speakers with considerable influence and public profile beyond academia. For example, Kenan Malik, a journalist, broadcaster and author with national and global reach, writes regularly for national media on the themes of this Network. Lisa Dwan is an internationally acclaimed actress, director, writer and a regular speaker at public events and festivals. Both Jonathan Dove, an English composer of internationally acclaimed operas, and Rosie Kay, an award winning choreographer and artistic director of Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022, have a strong track record of involving schools, NGOs and communities in their work. Given the high public profile and engagement of these and other participants, it is expected that they will shape the Network's outcomes and that these will, in turn, be reflected in their own creative practices and in their engagement with national and international audiences through public speaking, teaching, print and social media. The Public Assembly will extend the Network's reach as well as shape its agenda through the input of a range of representatives of anticipated beneficiaries, including educational charities, local authorities, refugee organisations, health and mental wellbeing agencies, social care and care for the elderly sector and NGOs. We will offer up to 10 travel bursaries to invite stakeholders' participation in the public assembly. The communication strategy will be managed via the project's website with dedicated sections for creative and educational sectors and through social media, press office engagement, teaching and professional development workshops.
Publications
Blackledge A
(2022)
The potential of ethnographic drama in the representation, interpretation, and democratization of sociolinguistic research
in Journal of Sociolinguistics
| Title | ETHER Podcast: Curating Difference for Collective Action |
| Description | Curating Difference for Collective Action is a podcast that brings together contributions from the seminars to reflect on the relevance of social identity categories in meaningful encounters with difference. What do we mean by 'the Other' when we speak about 'encountering the Other'? More specifically, in this podcast we look at the role that social identity categories - like a person's ethnicity, class, gender, religion, and disability, among others - play in meaningful encounters with difference. Can these categories help negotiate differences? To what extent does a "meaningful encounter with the Other" require going beyond such social categories? |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Not yet known |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSAtJPKnhU&t=5s |
| Description | The theoretical and practical insights generated through the networking activity so far are beginning to shape debate and practice in academia and in cultural and educational institutions. Through its networking activity ETHER has created a unique platform for transdisciplinary exchange, engaging artists from diverse arts practices (music, poetry, visual art, dance, theatre, film) and academics from diverse disciplines (sociolinguistics, education, philosophy, political science, architecture, language education, deaf studies, multilingualism, multimodality, social anthropology, sociology, literature, curatorial studies) in mutual dialogue. Speakers have come from UK, USA, Lebanon, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, Norway, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, Syria and even more countries have been represented across seminar participants. The three seminars that have taken place have collectively attracted approximately 300 participants. The overwhelming sense from the feedback shows that such an exchange can in itself inform institutional and interactional models for encountering the Other. As a few of the key participants in the seminars noted, "I still feel inspired by the conference - it really provided hope and nourishment in a difficult week. The intellectual and emotional generosity of everyone was very special. Something so rare in academia. I do not use the word 'community' lightly - but thinking back to Tuesday and Wednesday, I do feel that there was a 'community', maybe just fleetingly, but also very real (despite the virtual/digital complexities)." "What a great experience you've gifted me with: Your whole theme and design of the seminar, the great people you invited, your thoughtful pairing of the provocations, the discussion, the mix of ideas, views, forms of expressions and experiences, and the attitudes towards each other have been enriching in a unique way! I have learned so much from that one day (and have so many more questions open now) that I wish there were more... I wish academic practice could be more like this everyday." "I really appreciated the care and attention that had gone into the format of the event. I thought the way you set up the provocations with each of us tasked with asking questions of another person about their video provocation and them doing the same for us was excellent and the dialogue that ensued was really engaging and enriching. This is definitely the way forward for more academic events. I also really appreciated the diversity of the presenters, as well as the fabulous web of interconnections between us. The way you brought us together has already borne fruit - I have been contacted by another seminar participant to discuss things relating to indigeneity/Greenlanders/performance, I've agreed to write a blog post for someone else about my research. And I'm going to talk to a museum curator about working with underrepresented communities So all this hugely positive and makes having attended really worthwhile." The feedback extends beyond positive assessment of the practices of encountering the Other embedded within ETHER activity. Academics, educators and arts practitioners commented on specific theoretical or methodological insights that are now part of their thinking about their own research and/or practice. For example, an artist who runs an international arts festival reaching approximately 500 artists annually writes: "[I realised that I am] A gatekeeper for an international community of creatives. What a responsibility! Over 500 creative practitioners make up the Festival community so far and each year, the community is growing bigger. I'm not saying that I've been totally blind to this, but the full weight of the responsibility of this hit me during this seminar. I have not ever directly tackled this element of engaging with the other in terms of its impact on the potency and potential of meaningful interactions. Moving forward it is something that I am going to consider more carefully when working with others, particularly when working with others who have different experiences to my own i.e. everyone. It is something that I shall be more open about when talking with participants. ...With the wealth of information I took from this seminar, I am feeling confident that I can focus on working in a way that supports meaningful engagement for the international artist community that I am working with. Going forwards I will spend more time thinking about the kind of narrative I am creating. This is not only with the text that accompanies the artworks but throughout the whole event; in the physical arrangement of the artwork itself; with the programme schedule and with the opportunities for artists to engage with the participation projects. I need to seek out opinions, experiences and ideas from many more people to get a wider range of perspectives. This will help to make sure I am constantly going back to that most fundamental checkpoint: 'What am I saying? What are you hearing?'" ETHER has developed a rich portfolio of public engagement activity through its website (ether.leeds.ac.uk) and social media and particularly through its online ETHER Resource Library. Its aim has been to build a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to distinctive seminar themes. The provocations engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke a rethink of the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Collectively, these contributions have received over 4,000 views on ETHER YouTube channel. More than 730 viewers have accessed additional material, including ETHER chats with partners and speakers, creative arts lab videos, ETHER podcast series and recorded keynote lectures. We have published 11 blog entries written by invited guests and our eight editions of ETHER News, a platform for disseminating ETHER activity and findings, have reached over 3,200 readers across sectors. The new ethico-aesthetic framework that we have developed as part of the ETHER networking activity is now beginning to shape debates in sociolinguistics. We have assembled a team of sociolinguists who have adopted the emerging transdisciplinary paradigm to inform their research on discursive and embodied practices of the public protest, on institutional ethics regimes in research with vulnerable adults, on encounters with difference in polarised and racialised communities, on engagement of speakers of stigmatised language varieties on social media platforms, on ethical encounters in research production and more. ETHER's impact has been visible in the work of ETHER members with a third sector organisations internationally. We now actively contribute to informing the development of a language programme designed by an NGO in Slovakia to foster dialogue in the context of social inequality and conflict. The ETHER findings have informed the theoretical framing of the programme's aims and the research design for evaluating its impact. ETHER has informed the development of teaching and learning resources on encountering difference that address curricular areas of KS4 PSHE: Relationships and Living in the Wider World and KS4 Citizenship. The teaching resource enables teachers to encourage a constructive dialogue about the practice of othering and ethical ways of engaging with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Sadler Seminar Series |
| Amount | £7,326 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Department | Leeds Humanities Research Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 08/2023 |
| Description | AMAL: The Language Support Programme as Encounter with the Other |
| Organisation | Cesta Von |
| Country | Slovakia |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The AMAL Language Support Programme is a new initiative whose aim is to support women from disadvantaged backgrounds in Slovakia in the development of their language skills. Apart from the emphasis on the development of Slovak language skills of the Romani-speaking women from marginalised communities, the programme's objective is fostering dialogue and understanding between majority and minority groups in the region. The setting is characterised by conflict and stigma and the programme's aim is to strengthen community relations and inclusion. Maggie Kubanyiova's role as a member of the Advisory Board has been to shape the project's framing of language as meaning making practice that facilitates encounters across difference. The findings of the ETHER project has been used to advise on the theoretical underpinnings of the programme, on the empirical design for gathering evidence of encounters with difference and on the practical proposals for volunteer development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner has organised a series of dissemination events (an online workshop, a series of meetings with key stakeholders and programme participants to advance the programme development), and facilitated empirical data gathering for evaluation purposes. |
| Impact | Training materials for volunteer development |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | ETHER Core Collaborators |
| Organisation | Leeds Museums and Galleries |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Theoretical framing for understanding and orchestrating encounters with difference in the cultural sector |
| Collaborator Contribution | Theoretical and practical input into the seminar content; access to networks; production of provocations; seminar organisation; |
| Impact | Seminar 1, Seminar 2, ETHER chats, blog entries, networks |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | ETHER Core Collaborators |
| Organisation | Opera North |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Theoretical framing for understanding and orchestrating encounters with difference in the cultural sector |
| Collaborator Contribution | Theoretical and practical input into the seminar content; access to networks; production of provocations; seminar organisation; |
| Impact | Seminar 1, Seminar 2, ETHER chats, blog entries, networks |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | AMAL Language Support Programme in Slovakia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Maggie Kubanyiova delivered a talk as part of the volunteer development programme to the AMAL Language Support Programme participants. The programme was established by a third-sector NGO organisation, Cesta von (The Way Out) in Slovakia. The talk discussed the role of educator from an ethical perspective. It was aimed at the volunteer participants and its aims were to disseminate new knowledge on ethical framing of the role of language and language learning in ethical encounters with difference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Advisory expert panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Maggie Kubanyiova has been invited to advise on the development of a new language programme (AMAL: The Language Support Programme) of a Slovak NGO organisation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Blog by Cintya Floriani Hartmann: The Difference that Blindness Makes... |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | From an image-dependent professional (television journalism producer) to conducting PhD research on blindness as an existential conditionthis is the beginning of the journey that led me to know ETHER. How does a blind person survive in a world dependent on images and appearances? How is the experience of being "the other" in an ocularcentrist culture? Why is blindness a difference in the other that makes me afraid? Cyntya Floriani Hartmann reflects on the themes of ETHER through the lens of her project at the Centre for Theatre studies - School of Arts and Humanities (University of Lisbon) and the Acesso Cultura, a cultural association for access to cultural participation in Portugal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Blog: Claire Needler: Home-Hame-Dom: Encountering Difference and Creating a Shared Feeling of Belonging |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog describes Home-Hame-???-Dom, which was a community engagement project that used culture and creativity to break down social barriers and create a feeling of community belonging. The project aim was 'to facilitate deeper engagement between Eastern European migrant communities and indigenous communities' in four towns in North-East Scotland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/home-hame-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bc-dom-encountering-difference-attempting-to-cre... |
| Description | Blog: Cornelia F. Bock: Reflection on ETHER Seminar One: The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog reflects on questions, such as 'do we want the encounter?' It also engages with implications for public spaces. In particular, the blog proposes to talk about multicultural church service as a place to connect, not erase, difference and of the need to see encounter as movement across comfort, panic and learning zones.. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/reflection-on-ether-seminar-one-the-art-of-seeing-and-hearing-the-other/ |
| Description | Blog: Ingrid Rodrick Beiler & Joke Dewilde: Reflection on ETHER Seminar One: Location, location, location |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog reflects on the themes of the ETHER Seminar One in relation to the complexities of representation - when representing others and oneself - and the significance of space and place for representation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/ether-blog-reflection-on-seminar-1/ |
| Description | Blog: Ingrid Rodrick Beiler & Joke Dewilde: When we see that kind of language, "someone is going to jail" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog describes a research context of three classes for migrant learners considered to have little formal schooling, at an adult education centre in Norway. Here, we interpret difference to refer to biographical difference, especially in terms of memories of governance and communication. Several learners have lived in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq or Syria, where they have had negative experiences, including bad memories of encounters with the government. The blog engages with how the learners' linguistic repertoires intersect with these memories in complex ways |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/when-we-see-that-kind-of-language-someone-is-going-to-jail/ |
| Description | Blog: Jonathan Dove - Shortcomings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Jonathan Dove, a composer, shares his experience in the ETHER Blog A new piece of music often begins with an encounter: someone has a dream, a hope, a wish, they want a composer to bring something new into the world, and the composer has to listen and imagine what they might be trying to hear. A few years ago, I was asked to write a lament for the refugees who have died crossing the Mediterranean. I suggested that, instead, I tell the story of just one refugee who survived the Mediterranean crossing. As someone used to listening, and often thought of as sensitive, it was sobering to confront the shortcomings of my imagination. In my provocation I describe this experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/shortcomings/ |
| Description | Blog: Kate Fellows: De-colonising the curriculum and enabling the telling of whole, diverse stories |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Over the last few months, we have had a few conversations with local primary teachers (teaching age 5-11) that have begun thus'Hello Leeds Museums and Galleries, what resources have you got for a Windrush topic? We thought we would add that in to diversify our curriculum' We listened, and then asked why. Just 'dropping in a Windrush topic' is a good start, but doesn't address some of the wider, deeper biases within the subjects and methodologies in the English education system that can lead to 'othering'. However, those phone calls did enable us to open up a conversations with teachers about making the changes together using cultural learning as a starting point. This blog describes our process of engagement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/de-colonising-the-curriculum-and-enabling-the-telling-whole-diverse-storie... |
| Description | Blog: Kate Fellows: I've never met a young person who liked being called 'a young person' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Kate Fellow, Head of Learning and Access at Leeds Museums and Galleries shares her practice of co-creation as a way of encountering the Other in a blog entry for ETHER: Co-creating enables us to go beyond 'communities' or demographic information to meet people as individuals, and appreciate the otherness people bring to the table. ABCD approaches go beyond that, to unpick our unconscious bias around 'those people who aren't like me' to discover 'I can learn and share things' and 'working with people who are different to me is good for my wellbeing'. What does this look like practice? Leeds Art Gallery have been working with an early years children's centre in an ABCD area for a number of years. In 2019, the centre wanted to 'to engage boys and male carers in collaborative learning experiences and support boys' attainment especially in writing where this is low', so they worked with the Gallery to employ an artist who could work collaboratively with centre staff, parents and children to foster enjoyment in mark-making as a precursor to writing. Academically, the programme achieved its aims, but the more meaningful and longer term aim was that the community identified a need that could be fulfilled by visual art, and worked with partners to make this happen. That's one small example of the experimentation and approaches we are testing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/ive-never-met-a-young-person-who-liked-being-called-a-young-person/ |
| Description | Blog: Louise Dearden: Storytelling as a Space for Encountering the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | My PhD project is a phenomenological study that details the genesis of the relationship between myself, a language teacher/researcher and Henry, an ESOL student from Iran. The research was conducted in an Adult Education institute over a period of 9 months. The data gathered within this period comprise an abundance of fieldnotes, recordings and images taken from a series of situated encounters in different contexts within the institute: classroom activities, interviews, informal chats and an artistic workshop. Any one of the student participants in the class could have been the focus of my study, but there was something about my encounters with Henry that awakened a curiosity. He has aspirations of attending university to complete a PhD in aerospace engineering; he already has an MSc in the same field, which he gained in Iran. Despite this ambition, he appears disengaged in class. Yet he purposefully seeks out opportunities to engage with me on a one-to one basis. These encounters are characterised by a telling of stories; Henry tells, I listen. This provocation focuses on the analysis chapter of my project, which is simply entitled 'The Novel'. There are 3 episodes to this novel: The Lorry, The Story, The Pandemic. In this presentation I read an excerpt from the beginning of 'The Story', a tale which unravels on several levels. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/CCcBjYSQaXMjr67r |
| Description | Blog: Parinita Shetty: Marginally Fannish |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Parinita Shetty describes a podcast project which used the framework of participants' favourite fictional worlds, characters and events to discuss our real-world experiences and perspectives. Under the broader umbrella of diverse representations in media (and, more commonly, the underrepresentation or misrepresentation of diverse groups of people), the podcast explored issues of race and ethnicity, gender and gender diversity, class, sexuality, religion, regional/national origin, physical and mental (dis)ability, and age. She describes the co-creation of knowledge through podcast conversations which drew on different, sometimes conflicting, opinions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/marginally-fannish/ |
| Description | Blog: Sarah-Jane Mason: Lacuna Festivals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Lacuna Festivals (we/our) was founded in Lanzarote in 2019 as a festival run by and for practising, contemporary artists. The ethos of the festival is that there is an intrinsic value in art that transcends differences and goes beyond its perceived monetary worth. The principle of equal opportunities for artists regardless of differentials is one our core beliefs and it is this founding principle that ensures encounters with the other are simply part and parcel of the festival experience. This blog describes some of the ways in which we foster such engagement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/lacuna-festivals/ |
| Description | Blog: Sarah-Jane Mason: Reflection on ETHER Seminar One: What Am I Saying? What Are You Hearing? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog describes what stood out for me in the seminar and the connections I am making in relation to my own creative practice and the new questions that have arisen for me. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/reflection-on-ether-seminar-one-what-am-i-saying-what-are-you-hearing-sara... |
| Description | Digital Povocation: Adrian Blackledge & Angela Creese - The Drama of Encountering the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Adrian Blackledge & Angela Creese: This presentation focuses on ethnographic research in an advice service in a Chinese community centre. Over four months interactions between advice workers and their clients were documented as field notes and audio-recordings. Advice workers moved in and out of translation zones, mediating for whoever came through the office door, not only translating between languages, but also interpreting the bureaucratic discourse of institutions, regulations, systems, and processes. Their role as translators stretched far beyond the transfer of meanings from one language to another. They were legal advisors, counsellors, advocates, mediators, and much more. In addition, interactions between advisors were recorded in the cracks and seams of everyday life, including during tea breaks, and in quiet moments at work. Rather than representing the advice session through conventional academic writing, we create the scene in dramatic dialogue in which translation, interpretation, and mediation are at the forefront of the encounter. Advice workers are revealed as anonymous heroes of communication, making sense of the world for their clients, and keeping the superdiverse city moving. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGniEkPFR4U&t=2s |
| Description | Digital Povocation: Sophie Herxheimer- Listening and Drawing with Strangers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Sophie Herxheimer talks about and shows how she collects stories by listening and drawing with strangers. Since 2004, she has been building up a massive collection of ink drawings made one by one and one to one, in collaboration with members of community groups and the general public, on different themes. How this began, what it does and where it has led her is the subject of her video provocation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYz7YfD7qZU |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Adam Jaffer-Curating World Cultures |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Adam Jaffer - Curating World Cultures Focusing on the 'A City and Its Welcome' exhibition as well as my work at other museums, I will discuss the challenges and opportunities of working with different communities when creating exhibitions and gallery displays. Dealing with topics such as 'Faith', 'Migration' and 'Colonial History' I will outline the processes involved in the curatorial process and some issues of balancing different interests and presenting diverse histories. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMI0fRifT0M |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Amber Galloway-Gallego: Proactive Sign Language Access |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Amber draws from her own personal perspective and through lived experiences, she shows the development of ASL music interpretation over the last few years and the impact it has been having on sign language music interpreting not only in the States but all over the world. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/AiUmMupIRaU |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Anna Frances Douglas: Playing Together |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Anna reflects on the importance of physical space, student multi-sensory relationality and proximity in developing a studio-centred, collaborative (teacher/student) learning environment. Her first year project (Togetherness) was designed to encourage fine art students to model innovative methods of responding to uncertainty, and engagement and relating to 'the other', as well as to experience and validate their own embodied experiences and knowledges creatively together. Whilst not disputing the alternative forms of interaction that the digital affords, she will put forward that face-to-face sensory and embodied-aware teaching is fundamental to supporting the diversity of our students' life worlds and their future creative potential. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/3DjCseJ8egU |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Awad Ibrahim: Dialogue, Hospitality and Difference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Awad Ibrahim is an award-winning author and a Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa. He is a Curriculum Theorist with special interest in applied linguistics, cultural studies, Hip-Hop, youth and Black popular culture, philosophy and sociology of education, social justice, diasporic and continental African identities, and ethnography. In this digital provocation, Awad Ibrahim reflects on Martin Buber's philosophy of ethical encounters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Charles Forsdick: The Case of Travel Writing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | My contribution is a provocation on travel writing and ethics, looking at the form as a site in which difference is encountered, domesticated and on occasion maintained. Since writing a PhD on travel writing and exoticism, my research has been concerned with the ethics and aesthetics of encountering the other. I am interested in the creative practices that emerge from the meeting of linguistic and cultural differences, and have worked in particular on bilingual and multilingual poetics. I have also written about the dynamics of power evident in the contact zones between cultures and focus on the ethical questions to which encounters in these spaces give rise. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=877ehL3jc4A |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Dagmar Dyck: See me, know me, believe in me: The art of offering reciprocal time (ta) and space (va) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. We invite you to contribute to this growing knowledge base. Dagmar Dyck: See me, know me, believe in me: The art of offering reciprocal time (ta) and space (va) Whilst much progress has been achieved within our New Zealand educational landscape the story of marginalisation and racial inequities continue to persist for our Maori and Pasifika learners. Rather than focus on the negative narrative my provocation will focus on the awareness that visual arts education is a powerful platform for Pasifika learners to embrace success as Pasifika and for the need to support culturally sustaining teaching practices. The subject of my video will delve into strategies used to connect and engage with my learners on an authentic and meaningful level. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwtVWI4LIxw |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Elisabetta Adami - Objects as Signs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity Elisabetta Adami: In this provocation I present a couple of examples of meaning making towards perceived others done by using objects as resources of communication. These examples of communication beyond language with perceived others lead me to ask questions on appropriation, on what defines successful communication, and on what is intercultural. I do not provide answers. Rather, I try to show how, by looking at instances of communication beyond language, we might be able to uncover meaning-making principles practices with perceived others that help us dismantle ideas of 'intercultural' as hinged on national or ethnic criteria and, possibly, redefine 'otherness' in more dynamic, relational, situated and emerging ways. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUOe06vYoU&t=6s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Gail Boldt & Joe Valente - Non-Representational Re-Search and A-Signifying Semiotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. How can ethico-aesthetic practices of knowing-thinking-feeling make empirically visible the lived, affective qualities of our oft-imperceptible relational ways of knowing and being/becoming? How can attending to the affective, a-signifying, and a-modal help us to consider the ways re-searching shapes and is shaped by our sense of self with others? Gail Boldt & Joe Valente: How can exploring affective, a-signifying, and a-modal realms of sensation and experience through ethico-aesthetic practices open up new possibilities for making sense or sense-making that allows for perceiving ourselves as intra-acting with the relational in-between of human and more-than-human bodies? In our performance-presentation, we are less interested in producing formal knowledge. Instead we are attempting to "make sense" or rather to be "sense-making" in, through, and with our recent experimentations with the "performative-we" of our deaf/non-deaf becomings (Boldt & Valente, 2021). We aim to offer an example of empirical research that expands beyond scientific-rationalist fixations on realism and representation and that explores worldings beyond the linguistic and knowable in potentializing ethico-aesthetic practices of relating with Other(s). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XrRbX-SXd4&t=1s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Gehan Selim: Architecture and Spatial Memory in Post-Conflict Urbanism |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This provocation explores the condition of shared living in divided and segregated contexts and looks at how people perceive their cities and urban life, and what determines their use of space and attitudes toward the public, shared, and integrated spaces of the city? This condition determines how patterns and attitudes change with time and in light of social and cultural demography changes. It also develops a discussion of the complexity of the spatial manifestation of conditions of post-conflict urban segregation and how the notion of "shareness" has been at the centre of changing living patterns. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/_yASnGN-YRo |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Helen Finch - Encountering the Same Other: Witnessing, Silence and Co-Witnessing in the Aftermath of the Shoah |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Helen Finch: In this provocation, I will briefly read from two literary works by survivors of the Shoah, Ruth Klüger and Edgar Hilsenrath. Both use grotesque exaggeration and political vehemence to imagine the encounter with their German persecutors and with the next generations of Germans. I will ask: why and how do these literary fantasies of revenge and anger break with norms of Holocaust fiction that assume some kind of uplifting ending and reconciliatory message? Can a violent literary fantasy facilitate in-person encounters? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkMe7zoYEvk |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Irene Heidt: The Politics and Ethics and Teaching Multilingual Students in German Citizenship Education |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Today's increasingly heterogeneous classrooms in terms of culture, language, and religion have largely challenged (language) teachers' professional identity which has made a transition from a 'neutral technician' to a 'transformative intellectual' (Guilherme, 2002), to a 'go-between' (Kramsch, 2004), to a 'moral agent' (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016), to a 'multilingual instructor' (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018). All these conceptualizations of today's teaching profession prompt for a more critical, political and ethical knowledge-base and disposition on teachers' part than just factual and objective knowledge. By drawing on a longitudinal ethnographic study conducted over fifteen months (May 2016 - July 2017) in a civics class at a secondary school in Berlin, Germany, this presentation examines how Mrs. Ahmadi, born in Germany to parents who migrated from the Middle East, approaches the contentious topic of homosexuality in Islam with her ninth grade Muslim students. Through an ecologically oriented discourse analysis (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008) of classroom interactions and teacher interviews, the study illustrates how Mrs. Ahmadi charges a difficult teaching moment with her subjectivity and historicity in an effort to establish a relationship of trust to her students while, at the same time, making her students realize how their embodied religious truths increasingly clash with the secular liberal-humanist morality as privileged by the German educational system (Bildung). Ultimately, the presentation addresses the necessity of teachers' "identity-relevant vision" (Kubanyiova & Crooks, 2016) to create a culture of encountering the 'other' in today's increasingly multilingual and multicultural classrooms. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/4a4eJnPmI2A |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Kate Fellows - 'Hi, my name's Kate, what's your name?': Meeting People as Individuals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity Kate Fellows: How can cultural organisations create a space where we can meet people as individuals, and celebrate difference for shared learning? What happens when it goes horribly wrong? What questions should we ask ourselves and what should our guiding principles be? Using Careers for All (meaningful work experience for individuals living with additional needs) and other examples from learning programmes at Leeds Museums and Galleries, we will explore the process of othering, engaging with difference and how we can do that honestly and for the benefit of everyone. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FlvZxTNoBM&t=10s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Khadijah Ibrahim: My Body is a Protest for Change |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | An installation of black art/artists in the landscape. Its reasoning is based on the idea of stillness and observation of buildings and bodies/marginalised artists not given access to buildings to show/display/ perform work that is viewed as valuable. There is whole silence around space, Landscape and building/art institution and marginalized communities of artists. My body is a protest for change is the art of silence/ the art of being present, the art of creating work that not only perceives the struggle of a people and /or the ancestors on whose backs we stand (it is also the joy of creating and being an artist) . When we en/act silence, we hear the voices that speak of oppression, we hear the sermons of loss, we hear the eulogy/elegies/in the moment of stillness. 'The artist duty is to reflect the times' Nina Simone |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/9lpXNkgedp8 |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Lara Stephanie Krause-Difference as Cutting Together-Apart: Productive Racialization in Germany |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Lara Krause: My video takes viewers into the alliances that BLM words and slogans make with Black and White Germans. Assembling our voices from interviews and online content around particular protest posters instantiates difference as cutting together-apart. Through this lens, the increased production of racial difference, i.e. the Black-White racialization of German society, emerges not as worrisome but as potentially productive of new ways of Seeing and Hearing the Other. A production of productive difference seems under way in Germany. Black Lives Matter (BLM) has become visible in the country and new word-body-assemblages shape the spatial repertoire (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015) around White-on-Black racism in on- and offline spaces. Protest slogans like "I understand that I will never understand however I stand"; "White silence is violence" and "Deutschland du hast ein Rassismus Problem" are held up on posters, uttered and posted. Rather than focusing on what these slogans mean or index (Nakassis, 2018), I'm interested in how they are becoming-with young Germans. How do these words make kin with us (Haraway, 2016) in a time where rewor(l)ding is an urgent matter of care (De La Cadena & Blaser, 2018)? Using online pictures, videos and experimental interviews where White and Black participants - including myself - make alliances with protest slogans, I ask: How are German race relations currently (re)shaped - or: how are they cut together-apart (Barad, 2007, 2014) - and what new futures emerge? I conceptualize difference as processual and practiced. Difference is cutting together-apart - the ongoing reconfiguration of boundaries where divisions are also always connections. For example, cutting apart means the production of actually perceived difference between Whiteness and Blackness of Germans, but this difference also cuts us together via a now shared racialization of our words and bodies. 'Why are you so Black?' is countered with 'Why are you so White?' (GermanDream, 2020). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8uc4ph2dsE&t=15s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Maya Youssef: Creating a Culture of Encountering the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The qanun, a 78- stringed plucked zither, is often spoken of as the piano of the Arab world. My provocation is a composition titled 'Lullaby: A Promise of a Rainbow'; a track commissioned by Opera North as part of my new album 'Finding Home'. In this track, the qanun meets a string quartet from Opera North's orchestra to create a sonic translation of an image of a Syrian mother I saw last year: the mother was escaping an explosion with her baby very close in her arms, leaving everything behind. As she was escaping, she was singing to her baby. The mother was creating her own bubble of hope around her child. There was the promise of a rainbow. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/9CGD6oDLNZ4 |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Mohasin Ahmed - Mojxmma: A Space Where Dance and Music Celebrates the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Mohasin Ahmed: I show a short video to demonstrate how I found liberation through creating a safe nightlife space; Mojxmma. This club night differs from traditional clubbing spaces in Scotland as it was created with the intention to attract those who feel unwelcome in normal public spaces, and focused on creating a sense of freedom and joy. People who belong to LGBTQI+ and BPOC communities often have to hide who they are and mask their true self to feel acceptance in society. However, music and movement are often used as an act of resistance to facilitate self-expression and radical self-love. Nightlife has played an important factor in the development of meaningful relationships and finding community for marginalised groups. In this provocation I discuss and show the media which has inspired me, and demonstrate how community and self-acceptance can flourish when individuals are given the opportunity to express themselves through music and dance in a safe space. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ8b435OSCo&t=2s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Nadine Aisha Jassat - Writing from the In-between |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Nadine Jassat Nadine Aisha Jassat is a writer and poet who writes in the spaces of the inbetween: between cultures, countries, and in many ways between the self, too. This liminality is often reflected not just in the content of her writing, but also in the form it takes, whether structurally or in genre: with her prose straddling the bridge between autofiction and memoir, and her poetry focused on telling a story through spoken word, while also telling its own tale through its form on the page. Writing from the in-between, from a position of differences and dualities present within one person, one self, offers the chance for the creation of something new - for defining the self by and for oneself, where differences dissolve into whole. In the form of a reading, and the sharing of film poetry made the author, Nadine will explore how she navigates this space of 'in-between' in her work, building her own bridge and situating herself firmly on it: calling wherever her feet rest home. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V3e4KK4kRc |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Nadra Assaf & Heather Harrington - Unraveling Embodied Terrains Through Virtual Reality |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Nadra Assaf & Heather Harrington: In this digital provocation, Assaf and Harrington address their work and highlight the manner in which they communicate and perform together while existing thousands of miles apart. On January 14th 2016, Assaf (Lebanon) and Harrington (USA) embarked on a collaboration that led to the exchange of 35,500 written words centered around a woman's body and how it is treated in society. They searched their bodies for memories, excavated them, and brought them to life. They were able to witness and reframe these memories into a new, shared movement language. Their collaborative movement created empathy, bonding, and understanding on a deeper level than their written correspondences. Through their use of research and virtual connection Assaf and Harrington have continued to create work that speaks against the violence that hauntingly remains embodied in female bodies across the globe. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtApRv7wEew&t=2s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Nigel Rapport - Cosmopolitan Politesse: Loving Speech in the Good Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Nigel Rapport: Cosmopolitan politesse is an interactional code by which one addresses the common humanity and the distinct individuality of those one interacts with but classifies them in no more specific fashion. One presumes that in social interaction one is engaging with an individual human Other-'Anyone'-rather than with a representative of some more substantive class: 'a woman', 'a Scot', 'a Jew', someone 'working class', 'heterosexual', or 'pious', and so on. It is an ontological reality that a human being, Anyone, possesses an intrinsic identity by virtue of their unique and finite embodiment, giving rise to personal worldviews and life-projects. Cosmopolitan politesse seeks to accommodate the reality of human individuality and give it its proper recognition and respect, and so emancipate Anyone socially from the condition of being made subject to the arbitrary constructions, the 'fictions', of merely cultural, symbolic classes and categories. The argument is made by reference to Immanuel Kant's vision of the 'cosmopolitan', Iris Murdoch's vision of a 'good society', Emanuel Levinas's vision of the 'radical otherness' of individual being, and Luce Irigaray's vision of 'loving speech'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPvLsNymEU8&t=3s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Parinita Shetty - Marginally Fannish: Diverse and Intersectional Perspectives in Fan Podcasts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity Parinita Shetty: For my PhD project, I created a fan podcast called Marginally Fannish. My co-participants and I explored various aspects of intersectionality in some of our favourite media texts and their fandoms. Together, we inhabited a range of identities across national, racial, economic, religious, gender, sexuality, ability, and age spectrums. I will discuss examples of conversations which exposed our different, sometimes conflicting, opinions. In one, my dominant culture blind-spots came to the fore while chatting with queer and disabled co-participants. In another, I, as an atheist, was able to participate with two religious co-participants through the framework of science fiction, fantasy, and fandom, which allowed us to draw parallels between our differing priorities and experiences. And in yet another, my co-participant and I had very different answers to the question of whether you can separate art from the artist, in light of the revelation that the author of our favourite book series held problematic views. The diversity in perspectives allowed us to explore the complexities and nuances of the intersectional themes we were discussing. In this provocation, I want to focus on listening to the Other, which uses a framework that I unexpectedly ended up exploring: "a methodology of discomfort" (Burdick and Sandlin, 2010). In many contexts, I belonged to the dominant culture. While discussing marginalised cultures, I was frequently self-conscious about my ignorance and was forced to grow comfortable with being uncomfortable. This not-knowing allows me to seek more information and stories. This not-knowing is quite liberating. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stlMrKJN6do |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Quentin Williams - They Bodied that Different English in Difference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Quentin Williams: In this provocation, I am interested in re-introducing a cultural studies understanding of difference mediated through genre and intertextuality. In other words, difference will be defined as the embodied representation of relationality in difference, that is to say, it will be taken to be a notion that reveal how multilingual speakers embody relations of difference as in difference, arrived at out of conjecture, determination and contradictions of language in practice and performance, and not necessarily in that order. Specifically, I illustrate this provocation of difference with an embodied performance of parody by a emerging R&B and pop group in Cape Town. I pay particular attention to how this group's parodic performance of a Beyonce Knowles song, published on YouTube, can be understood as an in difference performance and a parodic unsettling of hegemonic linguistic ears of genre authentic loyalists and critics. At the end of my presentation, I'll outline a few threads to advance in our study of difference today. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3SXTXeGNFY&t=62s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Rae Si'ilata- Othering Monolingualism: The Pasifika Early Literacy Project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Rae Si'ilata: Encountering the 'other' is a persistent theme in educational research and practice that positions people who may be distant from dominant cultural norms as different, often in pathologizing ways. As a Maori/Fijian academic working in schools with teachers of Pacific learners, it is crucial to provide 'dominant culture' teachers with opportunities to unpack their preconceived notions of the diversities of Pacific ways of knowing and being. In this sense, encountering the 'other' entails teachers seeing themselves as 'other'. When teachers see themselves through the eyes of children and families whose linguistic and cultural resources are different to those valued in educational settings, deficit assumptions are surfaced and disrupted, and transformational change begins to occur. In the Pasifika Early Literacy Project, we normalise bilingual and multilingual language and literacy practices, positioning monolingualism as "other". Through this approach, the linguistic resources and embodied cultural literacies of Pacific children, families, and teachers are positioned as central to notions of success. 'Encountering the other' in multilingual/multicultural contexts entails the teacher understanding how the child and the child's family might encounter the teacher as 'other'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UOqsztLnFg&t=2s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Stephanie Kent - Sitting With Strange |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Stephanie Kent: My research involves intercultural communication and ethics in interpreted interaction, a striking accompaniment to ETHER's motivations. A presentation of my dissertation findings to the Interpret America conference in 2013, The Real Value of Interpreting, summarizes how skillful participation in interpreted interaction can provide human beings with transferable communication skills for encountering and engaging difference in resilient and socially just ways. This spring, undergraduate students under my supervision in a sign language interpreter education program in the United States will convene focus groups for Deaf and non-deaf "Hearing" academics to talk together about ethical intercultural communication within the constrained communication condition of not sharing the same language (pending IRB approval, in process). Unlike most interpreting research, the research gaze will be upon the dynamics of participant interaction rather than linguistics. The goal is to "produce knowledge about unfamiliar context-bound uses of language" with attention to social and cultural meanings of these uses, an approach known as cultural pragmatics (following Boromisza-Habashi 2020, p. xii). Generally, we will look for relational and phatic aspects of communication (moreso than explicit information transfer) to see what we can learn about communication skills that generate meaningful interactions. Specifically, we'll watch for evidence of participant co-alignment with each other rather than with the interpreter(s). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9kAvqLIv2o&t=2s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Thanda Gumede-Music as Conduit for Encounters |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Thanda Gumede: I have particular interest in the connections between Language, Culture and Education that are inherent in traditional African music and demonstrate how I extrapolate from that triad as I navigate working in classical and contemporary settings in the U.K. Additionally, I also explore the role of music in facilitating encounters between different social classes and "races" with a brief reflection of South Africa during segregation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMxOqJrYV4&t=1s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Thea Pitman - Intercultural Encounters and Indigenous Curatorial Agency |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ETHER is building a shared understanding of what encounters with difference mean in different spaces and practices of social life. The Digital Provocations on this page were created by ETHER seminar speakers as a response to two seminar themes: "The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other" and "The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other." They engage with research, arts practice or public engagement activity and provoke us to rethink the way we do things: how we use language to build relationships, who we label as 'other', how we listen to strangers, how we make space for meaningful encounters, how we represent ethically, why discomfort might be necessary, how we embody solidarity. Thea Pitman: My current research focuses on a 2018 arts-based project that aimed to create a positive space for intercultural exchange and the lessening of prejudice on all sides between Indigenous peoples and 'mainstream' non-Indigenous society in Brazil. Arte Eletrônica Indígena promoted the cocreation of electronic art between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants and subsequently brought that co-created 'indigenous electronic art' to the Modern Art Museum in Salvador da Bahia for an exhibition. I am interested in the ways that the Indigenous partners in the project exercised curatorial agency during their time at the museum to effect a temporary decolonisation of the gallery space. My provocation will take the form of a screening of the short research video - Occupy MAM! (7:30 mins) - that I made to illustrate my findings regarding Indigenous curatorial agency during the exhibition of the Arte Eletrônica Indígena project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_CE5y3c50&t=399s |
| Description | Digital Provocation: Tracey Costley and Colin Reilly: Coming to Terms with Not Knowing: Honesty, Accountability and Welcoming Others in Ethnography |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | In this provocation, Tracey reflects on uses of language in ethnography. After many years of thinking of herself as someone who does ethnographic work, she has recently begun to reflect more on, and hold herself to account for, the ways in which she has engaged with language and multilingualism within her research. Although her research has often focused on multilingual practices, her own research practices have been largely monolingual. In this provocation she and Colin share their experiences of how they have engaged with researching multilingually, reflecting on how their methodological training and linguistic profiles have shaped and influenced the work they have done, and what these have helped or hindered them in doing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/47S_8psMBgA |
| Description | ETHER Resources for Teachers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This resource was created in collaboration with Leeds Museums and Galleries and is hosted on MyLearning.org website. MyLearning offers free National Curriculum-linked resources for teachers and learners, inspired by the collections of arts, heritage and cultural organisations. Teachers can use resources both as stand-alone teaching aids and as planning tools to prepare for a visit. The ETHER resource is aimed at promoting constructive discussion around othering - the practice of recognising, and often labelling, someone as different from you. It deals with sensitive themes and needs careful planning to ensure that pupils are prepared to engage with the subject matter in respectful and open ways. The teaching activities are linked to the following curricular areas: KS4 PSHE: Relationships and Living in the Wider World; KS4 Citizenship. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://mylearning.org/stories/encountering-the-other/1587 |
| Description | Keynote Lecture at the 9th National Conference on Foreign Language Teacher Education and Development in China |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Maggie Kubanyiova delivered a keynote lecture at the 9th National Conference on Foreign Language Teacher Education and Development, organised by Central China Normal University in Wuhan, attracting over 3,800 online participants. The lecture entitled 'Language teacher motivation as a desire to make a difference: Lessons for teacher education in the post-pandemic world' was based on the ETHER project's theoretical findings in relation to anthropological and ethical perspectives on the role of language in human relationships. Reflecting on data-based vignettes from diverse contexts of language learners' and teachers' lives, including the material generated by the ETHER project, Kubanyiova discussed the value of interdisciplinary research for understanding and practising language teacher education in the post-pandemic world. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Newsletter 1 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of the Newsletter Edition 1 was to disseminate information about ETHER, its aims, partners, questions, etc. to a general public, as well as researchers from across a diverse range of disciplines, postgraduate and undergraduate students, third sector organisations, educators, arts practitioners. It was disseminated through our networks with Opera North and Leeds Museums and Galleries and via relevant learned societies. This edition was viewed by 462 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/jFQz1qzI8HSBE7ra?ref=email |
| Description | Newsletter 2 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of the Newsletter Edition 2 was to disseminate information about ETHER: its aims, partners, questions, and the full programme for Seminar 1 with introductions to specific speakers, themes, and related curated activities with relevance to ETHER research questions. The newsletter was disseminated to a general public, as well as researchers from across a diverse range of disciplines, postgraduate and undergraduate students, third sector organisations, educators, arts practitioners. It was disseminated through our networks with Opera North and Leeds Museums and Galleries, via relevant learned societies and through our ETHER mailing list containing over 100 members. This edition was viewed by 936 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/bDuVF9BlZ0s6Eo1l?ref=email |
| Description | Newsletter 3 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of the Newsletter Edition 3 was to disseminate information about ETHER: its aims, partners, questions, and a summary of Seminar 1 outcomes, with excerpts and quotes from discussions, keynotes and conversations. The newsletter was disseminated to a general public, as well as researchers from across a diverse range of disciplines, postgraduate and undergraduate students, third sector organisations, educators, arts practitioners. It was disseminated through our networks with Opera North and Leeds Museums and Galleries, via relevant learned societies and through our ETHER mailing list containing over 100 members. This edition was viewed by 546 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/9SQAkzXQtnlvKpMS?ref=email |
| Description | Newsletter 4 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This edition of our newsletter focuses on our upcoming seminar: The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other. We introduce our Keynote Speaker, Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson, and Artist in Residence, Rosie Kay. We also meet our panelists who promise a truly engaging discussion based on a range of encounters presented in their digital provocations. Once again, it is an eclectic mix of thought-provoking topics which take us to a range of settings such as a dramatic recreation of a scene in a Chinese community centre in Birmingham and a night club in Scotland, created as a safe space for marginalised members of a community to express themselves through music and dance. We experience emotive film poetry as well as a performance of collaborative movement that speaks against the violence embodied in female bodies. The newsletter was viewed by 104 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/1HpFU6I1O0oopLgU?ref=email |
| Description | Newsletter 5 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of the Newsletter Edition 5 was to disseminate information about ETHER: its aims, partners, questions, and a detailed summary of Seminar 2 outcomes with excerpts from conversations, panel discussions, participant feedback and related curated activities with relevance to ETHER research questions. The newsletter was disseminated to a general public, as well as researchers from across a diverse range of disciplines, postgraduate and undergraduate students, third sector organisations, educators, arts practitioners. It was disseminated through our networks with Opera North and Leeds Museums and Galleries, via relevant learned societies and through our ETHER mailing list containing over 100 members. This edition has so far been viewed by 286 viewers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/DxBA8dkspN7NeWgZ?ref=email |
| Description | Newsletter 6 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The sixth edition of our newsletter is a seminar special. It outlines the programme for our final seminar "Creating a Culture of Encountering the Other" and introduces the artists, linguists, philosophers and educators who will be participating in the seminar discussions. It features our keynote speaker Gert Biesta and our Conversation facilitator Erin Moriarty Harrelson. We also spotlight our panelists and the wide range of projects and spaces they have been engaged in. These include poetry as art and protest, the role of public architecture in post-conflict settings, music as a space of communication, comfort and discomfort, considerations of otherness in travel writing, and the intersection of storytelling, conversations and sharing space in classrooms as a way of disrupting preconceived notions. Read about how their work contributes to creating a culture of encountering the other in ETHER News. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/GXEQ7JxTGZetf7Ht |
| Description | Newsletter 7 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The seventh edition of ETHER News offers a glimpse into what inspired our conversations, questions and imaginations during Seminar 3 "Creating a Culture of Encountering the Other". Extracts from the panel discussions, keynote, and conversation offer key insights into the wide-ranging ideas our participants shared. We also discuss the AILA (International Association for Applied Linguistics) Congress in July 2023 in Lyon where ETHER will be participating. Our symposium "Sociolinguistics, Ethics and the Art of Encountering the Other" advances the sociolinguistics of ethical encounters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/dMoQprrNYhMJyTmm |
| Description | Newsletter 8 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | As the funded phase of the ETHER Network comes to a close, the eighth edition of ETHER News looks back at highlights and shares details of new and future projects that ETHER has inspired. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://sway.office.com/imiUB5LmhWT7ieLw |
| Description | Podcast Series: Encountering through Storytelling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Encountering through Storytelling Whose stories are told, who gets to tell them, and who listens? These conversations explore the ethical, aesthetic and political implications of representing diverse experiences. Many people's stories have been historically excluded from different cultural, social and educational spaces. In the three parts of this episode, museum curators, educators, researchers, poets, artists, dancers, musicians and sign language interpreters discuss how they or those they work with are reclaiming mainstream narratives. Their counternarratives and practices challenge erasures of those on the margins and rewrite the default scripts which exclude them. Creative ways of representing research can similarly disrupt academic norms. These opportunities are growing and are exploited by many across these sectors. But the difficult questions linger. Who has the right to tell and what does the responsibility to listen entail? What kind of spaces enable encounters with different stories and help communities tell new histories, futures and possibilities? And, just as importantly, what does this mean for how we listen? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/ether-resource-library/ether-podcast-series/ |
| Description | Seminar 1: The Art of Seeing and Hearing the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | How we see and hear the other is often shaped through our attachment to ideas, images and ideologies about ourselves, others and the world. Language ideologies, for instance, delineate what counts as language and as legitimate ways of language use. They set boundaries inside which another is heard, encountered and judged (Inoue, 2003; Piller, 2016). This kind of meeting, however, precludes genuine contact because the listening/looking subject's ideological preoccupations always put another in the position of an object ('it') to be comprehended, made sense of or assimilated. Anthropological philosophy, on the other hand, has entertained the possibility that an authentic encounter with difference can be achieved with a relational shift from 'I-it' to 'I-Thou' (Buber, 2013). The latter requires the subject's pre-reflective way of being-in-the world which regards oneself and the other as whole human beings who cannot be reduced to cultural categories (Levinas, 1972). The seminar examined how the two stances are negotiated in real-life encounters and identified theoretical and practical principles for enabling authentic meetings across divides. The innovative online format (adapted as a result of Covid-19) facilitated rich interdisciplinary exchange among sociolinguists, museum curators, political scientists, American sign language practitioners, artists, poets, musicians. The seminar had four parts: 1) Provocation Panels. A series of mini-conversations in relation to short data- or experience-led contributions in the form of pre-recorded academic polemics, research reflections, dialogues, artwork or demonstrations; 2) Keynote. A state-of-the-art by an invited internationally leading figure in philosophy. 3) Creative Lab. An experiential treatment of the theme run by an Artist-in-Residence; and 4) Conversation. A moderated discussion of theoretical, methodological and practical themes arising from the day. The innovative format of this interdisciplinary exchange was commented on by the participants as modelling encounters with difference. The seminar was attended by up to 90 participants from all over the world (UK, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, USA, Slovakia, Norway, etc.) and generated further exchange and outputs in the form of blogs, video chats, newsletter and podcast for wider dissemination. "I still feel inspired by the conference - it really provided hope and nourishment in a difficult week. The intellectual and emotional generosity of everyone was very special. Something so rare in academia. I do not use the word 'community' lightly - but thinking back to Tuesday and Wednesday, I do feel that there was a 'community', maybe just fleetingly, but also very real (despite the virtual/digital complexities)." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/events/seminar-1-the-art-of-seeing-and-hearing-the-other-university-of-lee... |
| Description | Seminar 2: The Ethical Drama of Encountering the Other |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The idea that sense and sense making are deeply intertwined has been at the forefront of significant shifts in conceptualising encounters in linguistics, arts and philosophy. When people with apparent differences interact with one another in 'contact zones', they turn toward the other by deploying rich communicative repertoires which rely not only on speech but on the body as a fundamental resource for meaning making (Blackledge & Creese, 2018). They perform the drama of encountering the other. When audiences are moved by a play, they are responding to "an almost ethical demandto forge attachments with all the intensities and sensations that emerge in performance" (Einarsson, 2017, p. 4). Philosophers have argued that the ethics of relating to the other can be approached not as just philosophy or moral philosophy, but as drama: a pre-reflective way of relating that is at once deeply spiritual and phenomenologically experienced through the body (Critchley, 2015). This seminar engaged with these theoretical intersections and proposed theoretical and methodological principles for connecting the discursive, phenomenological and performative dimensions of embodied encounters in research. The innovative online format (adapted as a result of Covid-19) facilitated rich interdisciplinary exchange among educators, museum education outreach workers, sociolinguists, dance practitioners, deaf studies scholars, theatre practitioners, philosophers, poets. The seminar had four parts: 1) Provocation Panels. A series of mini-conversations in relation to short data- or experience-led contributions in the form of pre-recorded academic polemics, research reflections, dialogues, artwork or demonstrations; 2) Keynote. A state-of-the-art by an invited internationally leading figure in philosophy. 3) Creative Lab. An experiential treatment of the theme run by an Artist-in-Residence; and 4) Conversation. A moderated discussion of theoretical, methodological and practical themes arising from the day. The seminar was attended by up to 90 participants from all over the world (UK, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, USA, Slovakia, Norway, etc.) and generated further exchange and a newsletter for wider dissemination. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ether.leeds.ac.uk/events/seminar-2-the-ethical-drama-of-encountering-the-other-21st-septembe... |
| Description | Seminar 3: Creating a Culture of Encountering Difference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The aim of this seminar is twofold: to share insights from the two seminars with the broadest range of stakeholders in the public, private and NGO sectors and to collaborate on generating new questions relevant to these groups. The seminar will include representatives of arts organisations, schools, social care providers, health and mental well-being charities, community organisations, social commentators and others. The theme centres on the notion of the 'contact zone' (Pratt 1991), a space in which people with different biographies, understandings and social trajectories engage in everyday encounters. Linguistic ethnographers have generated detailed descriptions of communicative encounters that take place there. Artists and philosophers, on the other hand, have studied people's emotional, imaginative and moral investment in such encounters. We conceptualise these contact zones as metaphorical 'unsafe spaces' to highlight initial discomforts that encounters with difference are likely to produce. This seminar aims to explore ways in which such 'disturbing encounters' can be harnessed for the good. We will draw on insights from the previous two seminars and draw on experiences and questions of participants to map the transformative potential of these spaces across diverse layers of social activity. The seminar will engage participants with the 'why' and 'how' questions of enabling such encounters in public life. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |