An Ethics of Production Opposed to Conformity

In this symposium speakers considered how ethics is practised from the perspective of 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 affects 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 drew 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 power dynamics around seeing/being seen, speaking/being heard, and vary according to practice and discipline. Speakers: Professor Lesley Caldwell (Psychoanalysis Unit and Department of Italian, UCL), Professor Ger Duijzings(University of Regensburg), Dr Mohamad Hafeda (Febrik and Leeds Beckett University), Dr Sophie Handler (University of Manchester), Dr Sharon Kivland (Sheffield Hallam University), Professor Jan Kubik (Director of the School for Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, UCL), Cecilie Sachs Olsen (zURBS and Queen Mary, University of London),Professor Steve Pile (Open University).