{"id":118,"date":"2013-10-17T09:31:35","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T09:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cf.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/?page_id=118"},"modified":"2024-10-09T15:43:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:43:42","slug":"reflections-on-the-second-cardiff-philosophy-cafe","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmentalfuturesdialogue\/reflections-on-the-second-cardiff-philosophy-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Philosophy caf\u00e9 2 (Cardiff)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A further Cardiff Philosophy Caf\u00e9 on 23rd<\/sup> July was organised by the AHRC \u201cmaking sense of sustainability\u201d network to take forward creative and collaborative explorations on this topic through promoting events and involving performance artists, social scientists, and members of the public in environmental futures dialogue<\/em>.<\/h2>\n

\"T<\/a>At this event the topics of emotions, the future and uncertainty\u00a0 – that were initially considered at the 16th<\/sup> July caf\u00e9 – were pursued further by considering the caf\u00e9-style discussions as a potentially rich source of locally and globally relevant narratives<\/em> that people and communities can create, drawn on,\u00a0 and mobilise to help them think though intractable social issues such as sustainability. Narratives are personally engaging, cultural resonant sense-making resources that make it possible for people to engage with one another at the level of ideas, while also bringing to the surface discussion of the feelings \u2013 and strength of feeling – that might arise in the process about matters of (environmental) risk, uncertainty and the future.<\/p>\n

Narrative inquiry is one approach within interpretive social science research that makes it possible to investigate the interpretive circuits in which people\u2019s beliefs, perceptions and concerns about risk and uncertainty, and the associated feelings or affects they generate, circulate.\u00a0 Scientific knowledges are part of these circuits too:\u00a0 but interpretive social science does not simply raise questions about what people may or may not know about risk and its uncertainties (with the attendant problems of assuming a public in knowledge deficit). Interpretive risk research is interested in the effects of what might be called risky knowledges:\u00a0 i.e. the effects – good or bad – that are bought into being when world-making agents put to work their knowledge and feelings about risk, uncertainty and futures at different times and in different places, through their own narrative accounts and stories, and through the medium of the protagonists (voices or speaking subjects) who are involved in those stories.<\/p>\n

In our \u201ccreativity caf\u00e9\u201d an initial arts performance started proceedings though creating an encounter for the audience with an embodied, linguistically and visually rich \u201ctold story\u201d.\u00a0 The performance had a strong focus on world-making and put into circulation a portrait in words of contemporary fears generated in the context of risk knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"t2\"<\/a>As an audience\/public participation event, the encounter was necessarily situated\/located , framed\/mediated, contingent and dialogic i.e. it involved performer and audience in meaningful exchanges of thoughts, ideas and feelings, embodied forms of knowledge, imagined (dis)connections, and affective flows \u2013 all mobilised in the space(s), time(s) and specific situation they found themselves in. It took the subsequent caf\u00e9-style discussions and plenary feedback session to be able to trace through, and elaborate on, some of the tangible and intangible meanings and affects that were engendered by the performance, and its immediate effects in the caf\u00e9 setting.<\/p>\n

Pertinent questions arising encapsualting the interests and activities of the network are many:<\/p>\n