Ethics and Aesthetics of Encountering the Other: New Frameworks for Engaging with Difference

这个国际研究网络提出了一个问题：世界观、记忆和未来愿景相互冲突的人们是如何相遇的？人们期望文化、公民和教育组织为这种接触创造一个平台，它们的公共价值越来越多地取决于它们在核心活动、外联和治理中反映社会多样性的程度。虽然这些部门在性别、年龄、种族或残疾等多样性指标上取得了一些明显的改善，但人们对这些类别之间和内部的有意义的参与是什么样子的、为什么重要、如何重要，以及如何促进这种参与，却知之甚少。面对世界各地令人不安的社会趋势，这是一个紧迫的问题：在日益分裂的社会中，公共话语变得粗俗，对他人的敌意和暴力助长了政治和军事行动主义的兴起，或者孤独和精神疾病在几代人和社会阶层之间和内部迅速蔓延。这一网络的基础是认识到，要建设和平、可持续和健康的社区，就必须与任何形式的差异进行真正的接触。然而，它也承认，仅仅在多样性措施上取得成功并不能保证与那些不像“我们”的人有意义的接触。这种接触需要努力，可能很难实现，共享同一个空间是发生这种情况的必要条件，但不是充分条件。该网络通过将理论重点从作为社会范畴的多样性转移到作为定义每个人的品质的差异来应对这一挑战。这种转变意味着，任何形式的人类互动都是有差异的会面。它们不是通过强调相同而变得有意义，而是通过在进行真正接触的同时行使道德承诺来保持差异。个人和社区如何在不同的人类活动背景下实践与“他者”的相遇，可能对解决一些全球社会冲突产生深远的影响。该网络汇集了国际艺术家、语言学家和哲学家，研究跨越地理边界和社会生活领域的公共意义创造的美学和伦理层面：在音乐和舞蹈排演室、博物馆和艺术画廊、剧院、市场、服务场所和学校。我们将研究这些相互作用的现有研究和经验证据，并研究与差异的真正接触是什么样子的，以及需要什么才能使它们成为可能。由此产生的理论和方法框架将推进跨学科和创造性实践的探究。实用指南将支持英国和国际公共机构的承诺，不仅要接触到不同的社区，还要成为跨越任何分歧的真正接触的催化剂。更一般地说，通过相互接触彼此的学科、文化背景、现有研究数据和工作方式，该网络将为研究和在复杂、不断变化的条件下生活发展新的概念框架、分析方法和实际建议。该网络将举办两个为期一天的研讨会、一个公众集会和一个传播实验室，以巩固网络的产出。研讨会将包括以数据为导向的简短挑衅、主题演讲、体验会议和主持对话。公众集会将接触到广泛的利益相关者，包括艺术组织、教育慈善机构、地方当局、卫生和精神福利机构以及社会关怀部门。这些材料将通过创意输出（互动网站和由驻院博士研究员领导的数字人种学博客）、社交媒体和专业研讨会传播。该网络将促进发展新的伙伴关系，并为今后调查社会冲突的全球挑战提供信息。

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.