Objective
We are witnessing unprecedented levels of mobility (within and beyond the European Union) and population change. In this context, how we develop the capacity to live with difference is the key question of the 21st century. It is this fundamental research question which this proposal addresses (an issue that is particularly pertinent given rising levels of insecurity generated by post 9/11 terrorism and the current global financial crisis). This will be achieved by the generation of a new body of information and understanding about the extent and nature of everyday encounters with difference through five inter-linked projects, each collecting original empirical data in the UK and Poland. My vision is to advance the theorization of meaningful contact by using this data about spatial practices of encounter and intersectionality to shed new light on mostly unevidenced interdisciplinary theories of cosmopolitanism; and to develop further an innovative social topographic approach for transcending conventional comparative research perspectives by producing a sophisticated model of the complex webs of connection across the research locations, integrating the findings from a post-colonial and post-communist state. I will develop new horizons in methodological practice through the development of biographical timelines, and audio diaries to capture qualitative longitudinal data; video-elicitation of encounters with difference; and radical spatial experiments to create meaningful contact. The findings will provide an integrated evidence base about everyday understandings of difference and spatial practices of encounter that will inform, and nuance, European policies and strategies for living with difference. This programme will be unique internationally and will open up new directions in the interdisciplinary study of cosmopolitanism.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
ERC-2009-AdG
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
ERC-AG - ERC Advanced GrantHost institution
S10 2TN Sheffield
United Kingdom