As part of addressing the exchange or interaction part of my “how can cross-disciplinary exchange be supported” thesis question, I’ve been reading the book Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation by Richard Sennett about the notion of cooperation.
He discusses that cooperation needs to be developed and deepened, that cooperation is a craft. Responsiveness to others, listening in conversation, mutual support, respect and pleasure mean that all participants benefit from the encounter—he mentions that people keeping a conversation flowing is an example of an informal form of cooperation.
Sennett talks about the difference between dialectic and dialogic conversations. In a dialectic, the goal is detecting what might establish common ground, with a “verbal play of opposites gradually build to a synthesis” (p. 18) with responses picking up what another assumes. Dialogic is a term made popular by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin and is a “discussion which does not resolve itself by finding common ground…through the process of exchange people may become more aware of their won views and expand their understanding of one another” (p. 19).
I love this distinction as dialectic is used frequently in academia and can be a form of flattening if disparate experiences aren’t coming together coherently. Dialogic conversation doesn’t mean not finding points of agreement but rather managing disagreement and behaving tactfully.
He also discusses how the subjunctive mood (using words like “possibly” and “perhaps”) can open space for experimentation, that tentativeness can issue an invitation to others to join in by opening an indeterminate mutual, social space.
I also appreciate this point, as it is a tactic I try to use but haven’t had the theoretical grounding to understand why it might be effective.
Siloing inhibits cooperation, he says, and “we are losing the skills of cooperation needed to make a complex society work” (p. 8). The core of the emphasis on the dialogic over dialectic and opening mutual space to explore differences is that he thinks that in order to get along together, we all need to attend to mutual differences and dissonances.
These dialogic social experiences are all forms of embodied social knowledge. ‘Embodiment’ here is more than a metaphor: like making a social gesture, behaving with minimum force is a sensate experience, one in which we feel easy with others physcially as well as mentally because we aren’t forcing ourselves on them
Sennett, p. 211
There is obviously much here that is directly applicable to the work that I’m doing convening people and discussing ways exchange can happen in the university. I think the importance of appreciating differences and dissonances in the exchange needs to be remembered and emphasized.