Discomfort: Transformative encounters and social change

Wilson, Helen F.

Abstract

In the context of debates on ontological risk, ‘border work’, and the transformative potentials of encounter, the paper offers a critical examination of the workings of discomfort to ask what is at stake in both its embrace and refusal. Focusing in particular on the deliberate production of discomfort and its perceived political, ethical, and pedagogical potential, the paper draws on ethnographic research on ‘staged encounter’ programmes, which are designed to push people out of their ‘comfort zone’ in order to address conflictual issues and forms of discrimination. Through such an account, the paper traces the different forms that discomfort takes – bodily, ontological, personal, collective – and examines their implications and differential affects as they variously open up and close down the possibility for social transformation.

Citation

Wilson, H. F. (2020). Discomfort: Transformative encounters and social change. Emotion, Space and Society, 37, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100681

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 12, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 13, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2021
• Journal: Emotion, Space and Society
• Print ISSN: 1755-4586
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 37
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100681
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1242781