Practising Ethics: Positionality, Spatiality and Subjectivity in Dialogue

Universities tend to have clear guidelines on the ethical procedures involved in gaining informed consent when interviewing subjects, but these often do not consider the subjective experiences and emotional effects of gathering verbal and visual materials.

Geography, psychoanalysis, ethnography/anthropology, political science, architectural design and the visual/performing arts offer a more nuanced and conceptual understanding of the possible spatial, cultural and political settings involved in conversing. Drawing on their own experiences as students, supervisors, practitioners and researchers, speakers will draw out questions around the spatial positions we take up when speaking and listening, how these are informed by the psychic structures of subject-object relations and the power dynamics around seeing/being seen, speaking/being heard, and variations according to practice and discipline.

Speakers include: Dr Lesley Caldwell (UCL Italian), Professor Ger Duijzings (Regensburg University), Dr Sophie Handler (University of Manchester), Dr Mohamad Hafeda (Leeds Beckett University), Dr Sharon Kivland (Sheffield Hallam University), Professor Jan Kubik (Director of the School for Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, UCL), Cecilie Sachs Olsen (Queen Mary), Professor Steve Pile (Open University), Dr Linda Sandino (University of the Arts London/V&A).

This seminar is co-funded by The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and the AHRC-funded LAHP (London Arts and Humanities Partnership), and is part of an LAHP series for PhD students taking place in autumn 2015 entitled ‘Practising Ethics’ co-funded by LAHP and the UCL ESRC DTC.

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Image Credit: Sophie Handler, Civil Twilight (2008). Photograph: Verity-Jane Keefe, Ageing Facilities.