United Negotiations of Otherness
2018, M.A. thesis
“Here, […] we find a Western industrialised model that needs ‘developmental assistance’ against seemingly unquestionable conditions of relating to collective experiences of otherness. Here, we learn from ‘the other’ coming from the South or the East. Here, we ask for considering conflicts not only as something that generates division, but in speculating on possible encounters. […]
Where previously developmental assistance nearly exclusively concerned Western standards of living and economic reasoning in so-called conflict regions of the Global South, the United Negotiations of Otherness (UNO) seeks to support Northern ‘underdeveloped’ communities in their struggle with the ‘chaotic’ and ‘primitive’ neglect of otherness. The presented paper is their first report that evaluates a program framework.“*
The work takes an artistic research approach concerning indirect communication strategies to elaborate on new ways to dialogue across ideological boundaries. The research explores, if performativity – depict as political process as well as artistic practice of role-play and embodied experience – can envisage a culture that appreciates both similarities and differences to move beyond perceived social divisions.
The thesis as part of the MFA at Design Academy Eindhoven, Department Social Design establishes the UNO as a blurred stage between reality and fiction, theory and practice. ‘The Other – Paper No.1’ evaluates on a program framework using embodied practices – from mass protests to artistic interventions – as an entry point and speculates on ways to challenge predominant ‘felling rules’, like anger and rage against the perceived “other” through empathic resonance. By approaching indirect communication strategies through several new concepts, terms and methods the speculative initiative seeks to challenge pre- dominant conceptions of division and power relations between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ on multiple levels – from North and South, Left contra Right, rational versus irrational, reason versus emotion.
*Excerpt from the Introduction of the Master Thesis
„United Negotiation of Otherness, The Other Paper No.1”,
June 2018.
Abstract:
Xenophobic ideologies have moved into the centre of civil life, attesting a worrying de-humanising development and Multiculturality as a failed project. Events of hate, yell, protest and defamation emphasise on the challenges of ethical and cultural disorientations, where the constructed and homogenised identity of political ideologies seem to become the last lifeline. In this intense atmosphere of distance and confrontation we have to ask: Is it the socio- cultural disorientation or the filter bubble of similar ones, in which we communicate that caused the re-establishment of nationalistic ideologies? This work takes an artistic research approach concerning indirect communication strategies to elaborate on new ways to dialogue across ideological boundaries. Can performativity – depict as political process as well as artistic practice of role- play and embodied experience – envisage a culture that appreciates both similarities and differences? Moreover, how do we assume a politics of everyday life that creates empathic and unbiased forms of communication and deconstruct the notion of an enemy? Considering conflicts, as a valuable source of information to learn from, can we describe notions of community not as a stable and enclosed entity, but as a multifarious process of negotiation between people?