A call for expressions of interest in attending this Lorentz Workshop – deadline 15th May.

Topic

• Othering’ and polarisation have immediate and potentially severe consequences for politics across Europe – in terms of Populist denigration of sub-groups but also when politics is so divided that each side will not listen to the other (e.g. Brexit in the UK).
• Unfortunately, relevant theory, knowledge and perspectives on these phenomena are splintered across many disciplines, ones that normally do not talk to each other.

Invited speaker

Jo Berry, founder of Building Bridges for Peace, will give an invited talk. For more about her amazing story see here

Format

• 5 days of intensive time together, discussing and working at this topic as well as socialising and relaxing
• This extended time together is necessary in order to overcome disciplinary/cultural barriers and reach some mutual understanding of what each knows about this topic.

Who it is aimed at

• This workshop would bring together researchers from many disciplines covering social, political, psychological, economic and cultural aspects.
• It also includes researchers with interdisciplinary bridging skills, including participatory approaches, philosophy and social simulation. As well as plenaries and group discussions the workshop will utilise world café and fishbowl sessions to encourage connections.
• We are particularly keen that practitioners as well as researchers should come and contribute.

Workshop aims

• It has the ultimate aim of building a more complete and nuanced understanding of the phenomena, but the workshop would only be the starting point for this.
• The workshop will work to produce (a) a ‘map’ of how the different contributions from these fields ‘fit’ together (or otherwise), (b) a list of identified research challenges © an agreed joint plan of work and (d) early prototypes of integrative agent-based social simulations to try to bring the aspects together within some dynamic frameworks.

After the workshop

We hope to build on the progress made in this workshop in terms of future joint grant applications, publications and other initiatives.

If you want to physically attend

Email Bruce Edmonds , with answers to the following questions by the end of Sunday, 15th May 2022

• Name
• Email address
• One short paragraph on why you are interested in this topic
• Your field/background/experience
• Country
• Gender (describe this as you wish)
• Are you an Early Stage Researcher (within 4 years of PhD)?

(If you have already emailed me you do not have to do so again)

If you want to virtually attend

Look out for and respond to a second announcement later, once we have worked out which sessions might be amenable to this (it will be a more limited selection than the full programme).

For more details about the event, see here

Blog for news about the event is at: otheringandpolarisation.org . There is also a Slack space for discussion – email me (BE) if you want to be part of that.