CFP Meaningful Contact: Generating social change from encounters with difference
Session organisers: Lucy Mayblin & Lucy Jackson, University of Sheffield
The growing literature on encounters with difference has detailed a range of contexts and activities which bring people together. This research, however, raises new questions around what types of encounter might be considered meaningful and what factors affect the possibilities for producing meaningful contact. By meaningful contact we refer here to “contact that actually changes values and translates beyond the specifics of the individual moment into a more general positive respect for – rather than merely tolerance of – others. Contact which has the power to produce social change.” (Valentine, 2008, p.325). This session therefore seeks to investigate meaningful contact between people of different backgrounds in a range of contexts. Though we are interested in receiving abstracts on the broad themes of meaningful contact or meaningful encounters, we particularly encourage submissions on the following themes:
• Methodological insights in researching meaningful encounters
• Theoretical insights on the theme of meaningful contact
• Discussions of what might facilitate meaningful contact, as well as discussions of limitations of this approach.
• Conceptual tools related to meaningful contact such as ‘contact zones’, ‘encounters’, ‘cross-cultural dialogue’ and ‘inter-cultural dialogue’
• Investigations of particular sites of encounter such as the workplace, leisure spaces, educational settings, and public spaces
• New sites, or indeed scales, of contact not previously researched, for example, the home, prisons or international spaces.
• Investigations of contact across particular axes of difference, especially around themes of class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and disability.
• Reflections on meaningful contact or meaningful encounters and their ability to change social conditions, hierarchies or attitudes towards those different.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Lucy Mayblin ([log in to unmask]) no later than the 11th October (early bird registration deadline 23rd October).
Reference:
Valentine, G (2008) Living with difference: reflections on geographies of encounter. Progress in Human Geography 32: 321-335.
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