In Other Words. Coming to grips with critical, creative, inter-/crosscultural dialogue across space and time. A methodological workshop to explore the role of keywords in (re)producing or problematizing Otherness

Abstract

How is a specific keyword used in a specific context to (re)produce different forms of Otherness? What critical, intercultural and creative practices can be developed to challenge and subvert such dissemination of stigmatizing and stereotyping language? Based on our collective and ongoing work on the online dictionary In Other Words, our Workshop will address these questions referring to the three paradoxes illustrated in the Call to demonstrate how a critical, creative and collective approach can challenge redundant monologues, enhance the plurality and diversity of perspectives, and promote inclusion - rather than reproducing exclusion - by offering alternatives to manipulative rhetoric and discriminating language against individuals and groups. Our Workshop invites participants to explore methodologically how dialogueshared experiences of inter-/cross-linguistic and inter-/cross-cultural practices can develop across time and space by adopting a multilingual perspective and a multi-level dialogue among researchers, practitioners, activists, educators, and artists. Theoretically, we ground our practice on discourses of exclusion and discrimination (e.g., Reisigl & Wodak, 2001; Wodak, 2015), showing how the construction of Otherness emerges as the result of several intersectional factors which are about relationalities and positionalities that are time- anchored and context-dependent (Praxmarer, 2016), as well as basically defined by different hierarchies of power – who has the power to define ‘the Other’ as such, from which position, for which purposes, and under which socio-cultural and historical conditions. We thus understand the process of the political construction of Otherness as Othering (Spivak, 1985), where dominating in- groups stigmatize real or imagined differences to motivate discrimination (Staszak, 2009). The Workshop is designed to engage participants in various activities and discussions of keywords. Before attending the Workshop, participants are invited to read four keywords of their choice from the IOW dictionary: three keywords from the main section and one from the Covid-19 section. Participants in the Workshop are also asked to bring an artefact that usually represents their region/country such as a keyring, fridge magnet or something similar for critical consideration and discussion. The Workshop aims at involving participants in critical thinking and creative activities to problematize the issue of Otherness by proposing and discussing some keywords not yet present in the dictionary, following the format seen on the website (etymology, problematization, communication strategies, subversion, and discussion), and to promote a dialogue on how online practices, when developed through a collaborative, collective and inter-/cross-cultural perspective, have the potential to create genuine interpersonal bonds and active participation across time and space