The unexpected encounter
1.1 The mirror
1.2 The essential experience
1.3 The connection
1.4 The expansion of the self
2.1 Stories amaze
2.2 Stories shape identity
2.3 Stories are universal
2.4 Stories open windows into new worlds
2.5 Stories spread dominant narratives
3.1 The time and the place
3.2 Preconceptions
3.3 Microaggressions / Everyday Racism
3.4 Technology
3.5 Masks
3.6 It’s never easy
4.1 Listening
4.2 Questions
4.3 An attitude of not-knowing
4.4 Remember the person’s name
4.5 Small acts connect us
4.6 Social objects
Why would you enter into the encounter? The encounter is a reflection of ourselves, an essential experience, and connects us with others and expands the self.
1.1 The Mirror
An encounter with another person is a direct confrontation with ourselves. In many aspects, people are the same: we all have good days and bad days, feel hunger and pain, and sometimes feel happy and sometimes not. We are also different from each other:
Appearance and personality (eye color, clothing choices, whether you’re a morning person or not)
Social background (family size, education, work, income)
Cultural background (religion, foods, norms and values) Views and beliefs (political preferences, principals, ambitions)
An encounter with someone who is different from us in various ways leads us to examine our own beliefs. The encounter is like a mirror in which we get to know ourselves better.
1.2 The essential experience
According to French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, the face of “the Other” is the essential experience of humanity. Levinas (1906–1995), who witnessed two world wars, named mass society and indifference as causes of war and genocide.
Levinas urges us to liberate ourselves from indifference. Take the time to look at the face of the Other. Make space for the Other, and focus less on “me” and “mine.” This results in an essential experience that brings you closer to the universal and to the “human.”
1.3 The Connection
“Two people walk towards each other from a great distance. At first they don’t pay each other any mind, but the closer they get, the more they feel the urge to learn something about each other, and their fear grows too. Once they’re close to each other they seem to be drawn to each other, as if passing each other without speaking would be a terrible mistake.”
Abdelkader Benali
De Vreemdeling
An encounter can be small: a brief moment of eye contact, a joke, or a chat. Places where these kinds of small encounters happen naturally feel more comfortable and familiar. In such places it’s easier to connect with your fellow humans and the environment. This creates an atmosphere of trust, and keeps the world from becoming a place in which everyone retreats into their own indifference.
1.4 The expansion of the self
According to psychologist Arthur Aron, a person’s identity is always in flux: we gain new insights and continue to develop through the people we meet and the relationships we enter into. Everyone brings something new, such as thoughts, points of view, and tools that make us into more complex people. Aron calls this a fundamental human need – not only to survive, but to have a better life in order to achieve things and act more effectively. Each encounter and relationship we enter into is an expansion of yourself.
Marina Abramovic
The Artist Is Present
2010
For three months, performance artist Marina Abramović sat at a wooden table while, one by one, visitors would sit down in the chair opposite her and look into her eyes. Marina connected wordlessly with hundreds of strangers.
Miranda July
Interfaith Charity Shop
2020
Artist Miranda July started an interfaith charity shop with the goal of bringing together the charitable activities of various houses of worship.
Willem Sluyterman (e.a)
Hipster / Muslim
2019
The photo project Hipster/Muslim explores identity by swapping clothing and stereotypes between hipsters and Muslims.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The danger of a single story
An encounter is an exchange of stories, great and small. Stories help us to understand the world and ourselves. Stories are universal, and they amaze us, shape identities, and open up new worlds. Stories are the engine behind the encounter.
2.1 Stories amaze
‘What speaks to us: seemingly, is always the big event, the untoward, the extraordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines. Railway trains only begin to exist when they are derailed, and the more passengers that are killed, the more the trains exist’.
Georges Perec
Approaches to What?
Approaches to What?
Stories are about the small and large events of life. We tell each other about accidents, disasters, and events. But the power of stories lies especially in their ability to show us the beauty in the everyday.
What makes a story a story?
A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are one or more characters and locations, and there is a longing (such as for love) which propels the story forward by way of small or large events.
Stories are told for various reasons: a story can entertain, teach, convey a feeling, inform, or persuade.
2.2 Stories shape identity
“Everyone yearns for identity, to be able to be who you are, and there is nothing wrong with this. This is a universal quest, and is an integral part of the path to adulthood. However, this becomes problematic when you lock yourself into your identity and by doing so, erect a wall. An entrenched identity interferes with a valuable cultural exchange, and is a missed opportunity for better understanding our fellow humans and in so doing, the world. This also interferes with the necessary critical self-reflection with which you hold up a mirror to your identity and which allows you to refine it where necessary. After all, an identity is always a work in progress.”
Lotfi El Hamidi
Over cultuur en identiteit
Identity is formed through the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories others tell about us. We shape our stories to show others who we are. They are influenced by who we’re telling them to: you say different things about your day at school depending on whether you’re talking to your mother or to a classmate.Over cultuur en identiteit
2.3 Stories are universal
When you tell a story, you reveal something about yourself. Other people’s stories contain points of recognition, universal themes we can have a conversation about, and which bring us together.
We all have family.
We are all in love, or have been in love.
We have all been children.
We all feel pain.
We all have a favorite food.
2.4 Stories open windows into new worlds (and single stories show a harmfully simplified version of the world)
Stories have the power to introduce you to different perspectives and to open up new worlds. Stories allow you to reflect on what you considered to be “normal” and cast doubt on deeply ingrained views. At the same time, single stories can reinforce existing preconceptions and create more distance.
“Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my ‘tribal music,’ and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove. What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The danger of a single story
2.5 Stories spread dominant narratives
‘You know that feeling when you are in a meeting with people and you speak, and it is as if people did not hear you? They speak right over you, barely acknowledge you, and at worst you might hear your words echoed by somebody else and then all of a sudden people seem to listen? I bet many have this experience. It might be because you are the woman, the man, the person of color, the disabled, the junior, the senior, etc. in the room. It is not as much about what you represent; it is about the status of the majority of the people in the room, those representing the dominant story.’
Holding Space
Not all stories are listened to equally well. Stories are told in a ‘larger narrative’ formed by, among other things, (colonial) history and other factors that ensure that some stories are given more value than stories that do not or do not fit well into the dominant narrative.
Dominant stories are questioned less and are told earlier, louder and more often. In contrast, non-dominant stories are questioned more often, minimized or even ignored.
This larger narrative influences the way in which our stories are listened to, the space we are given to tell stories and the privileges/challenges we are confronted with on our paths.
Encounters are never easy: they are affected by the time and the place, and by preconceptions, technological developments, and masks. We have little control over many elements.
3.1 The time and the place
Time – When you encounter someone, you never know in advance how someone slept, which personal circumstances are at play, and what happened beforehand. Sometimes the person you encounter is cheerful, loving, and open, and sometimes they are sad, grumpy, or angry. We have little influence over this.
Place – The place where we encounter each other affects the quality of the encounter. Being approached on a deserted train platform at night is experienced differently than being approached in a place designed for encounters, such as a café, library, or clubhouse.
3.2 Preconceptions
“If I had only been able to explain to my classmates at the time that I was just one of them – that we were all Dutch, but that they had been taught to see me as ‘the Other.’ If I had only been able to tell them in all honesty that I had been taught the same thing at home: namely, that they were different.”
Sinan Çankaya
“My Countless Identities” (Mijn ontelbare identiteiten)
“My Countless Identities” (Mijn ontelbare identiteiten)
An encounter is influenced by positive and negative experiences from the past, and stories we hear about each other from the people around us and from the media. Preconceptions are a way of relating to the world. They are always present, and determine our encounters both consciously and unconsciously.
‘In de ogen van een nationalist bezit de Ander slechts een kenmerk, namelijk zijn nationaliteit. Het maakt niet uit of iemand jong of oud is, wijs of dom, goed of slecht. Het gaat er slechts om of iemand een Armeniër of een Turk is, een Engelsman of een Ier, een Marokkaan of een Algerijn. Wanneer ik in die wereld van oplaaiende nationalismen leef, dan heb ik geen naam, geen beroep, geen leeftijd’.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Other
We often use characteristics like appearance, gender, and class to define someone. A person who is tall is quickly referred to as “the tall one,” and a person who is in prison “the criminal.” Such a description conjures up a visible stereotype, but in doing so leaves a great deal unnamed and unseen. We often have no control over the way in which others define us. Encounters can allow us to get to know a person’s unnamed and unseen parts.
3.3 Microaggressions / Everyday Racism
Many daily interactions are uncomfortable and shaped by inequality and racism. They are small attacks on someone's humanity based on appearance and prejudice. Using fragments from the American poet Claudia Rankine, casual remarks and glances, invisibility and keeping distance are touched upon below. These forms of microaggressions are part of a larger spectrum of unequal treatment (everyday racism), for example the inequality between white and black.
Casual remarks and glances
The man at the cash register wants to know if you think your card will work. If this is his routine, he didn’t use it on the friend who went before you’
‘Because of your elite status from a year’s worth of travel, you have already settled into your window seat on United Airlines, when the girl and her mother arrive at your row. The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. The mother’s response is barely audible - I see, she says. I’ll sit in the middle.
Invisibility
‘In line at the drugstore it’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was next. When he turns to you he is truly suprised
Oh my God, I didn’t see you
You must be in a hurry, you offer
No, no, no, I really didn’t see you’
Keeping distance
On the train the woman standing makes you understand there are no seats available. And, in fact, there is one. Is the woman getting off at the next stop? No, she would rather stand all the way to Union Station.
The space next to the man is the pause in a conversation you are suddenly rushing to fill. You step quickly over the women’s fear, a fear she shares. You let her have it.
The man doesn’t acknowlegde you as you sit down because the man knows more about the unoccupied seat than you do. For him, you imagine, it is more like breath than wonder; he has had to think about it so much you wouldn’t call it thought.
When another passenger leaves his seat and the standing woman sits, you glance over at the man. He is gazing out the window into what looks like darkness.
Claudia Rankine
Citizen: An American Lyric
Citizen: An American Lyric
3.4 Technology
Technology changes the way in which we encounter each other and the setting in which this happens.
The screen
Ever more often, the screens of smartphones, self-service checkouts, and computers are replacing small-scale face-to-face contacts. The chat with the cashier is on the way out, and the apps on our smartphones mean we no longer need to ask a stranger for directions. The disappearance of these small moments of contact is resulting in less and less interaction with those around us. If we no longer “practice” having encounters, we run a greater risk of starting to experience those around us as more dangerous.
The capsule
We increasingly move around in self-contained capsules, such as cars. A car has an inwardly focused, controlled atmosphere in which you close yourself off from the outside world. Capsules come in all sizes, large and small: your cell phone can serve as a capsule so you can walk down the street undisturbed, and by wearing earbuds you (un)consciously indicate you are unapproachable.
The (filter) bubble
Much of the content we consume via (social) media is offered to us based on our internet history and algorithms. Posts, articles, and videos confirm our preferences and make it harder for new ideas to reach us. Because it reinforces our personal world views, the filter bubble threatens to push us farther and farther apart until we’re stuck within our own separate worlds. Sometimes it’s good to examine existing views and beliefs.
At the same time, there are also many examples of how apps, games, and other applications bring people together.
3.5 Masks
In our lives we all wear different “masks.” You can alternate between the masks of father, son, student, soccer player, and employee, putting them on and taking them off again. A mask can influence how you dress, move, speak, and behave. The mask can help us present ourselves to the world in the most optimal way. The teacher is strict at school and gentle at home. The employee behaves professionally during the week and exuberantly on Friday night. Masks get tried on, and adapted and changed where necessary.
Sometimes we take off our mask abruptly. The train is late, you arrive at school with a broken heart, or you’re shaken up because of an accident. Such things can cause your mask to crack slightly. When this happens, we often see people in a different light. It takes courage to consciously take off your mask.
3.6 It’s never easy
No matter how well-intentioned you are, sometimes an encounter is awkward. You never know how someone’s day has started or what they’re dealing with. Some factors make the encounter even more complex.
Language
Sometimes we don’t understand each other because we interpret words differently, even if we speak the same language. For example, the word “happiness” means something different to each of us: for one person, happiness is the well-being of their family, and for another, happiness means getting a new car. Language is subject to change, and some words that were used in the past are now experienced as hurtful and outdated.
The group
Have you ever sat in the bleachers at a sports event and watched parents turn into screaming hooligans? When people are part of a group, their tone and attitude changes. A group is less approachable, and there is little room to really connect.
Loud and soft voices
Everyone uses their voice differently. People can talk loudly or softly, react quickly, or need time to formulate their answer. Some people are used to dominating the conversation, while others find it harder to put themselves in the spotlight.
Underestimation
It’s hard to see the humanity of someone you don’t know. And this is why we tend to underestimate other people’s qualities. This is known as the lesser minds problem.
“Basically, it goes like this: Because we can’t see what’s going on in the head of a stranger, we have a tendency to assume that there’s just not much going on in there. Studies have backed this up. We chronically underestimate strangers’ intelligence, willpower, and ability to feel emotions like pride, embarrassment, and shame.”
Joe Keohane
The Power of Strangers
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Untitled 1990 (pad thai)
Rirkrit stages intimate social encounters. Looking at art is generally passive, but he gets the viewers to actively engage. He sees art as something an artist creates together with their audience. “It is not what you see that is important, but what takes place between people.”
Faith Ringgold
American People Series # 8: The In Crowd, 1964
‘American People Series #8: The In Crowd’ shows the hands of white figures pushing black figures down. A white man holds his hand over a black man’s mouth. The work depicts attempts to create inclusion: a seat at the table, but not the equal space for everyone to have their voices heard.
Lindy Hengst
The ultimate social object: taking a Labradoodle to dog training
Encounters are never easy. Listening, asking questions, and assuming an attitude of not-knowing are skills.
4.1 Listening
When you really listen to someone, you give priority to what someone else is saying rather than to your own experiences, views, and beliefs. Listening is difficult and demanding: you set aside your own views and try to put yourself in service of the other.
Speaking – Sharing stories and experiences, views, and beliefs.
Conversation – A mutual exchange involving listening and speaking from each person’s own experiences, views, and beliefs.
Listening – You put the speaker in the spotlight and find out about their experiences, views, and beliefs by listening and asking questions.
The time and the place have an effect on the ability to listen. Sometimes things that happened in the past mean that people are no longer able to listen to each other. Sometimes conversations are interrupted by a ringing telephone or the sirens of a passing firetruck. After a long day at work, it’s harder to show genuine interest than it is at the start of the day. The following guidelines can help to promote real listening:
It’s not about you
When you listen, you put yourself in service to another. In doing so, it’s important not to shine the spotlight of the conversation on yourself.
The 80/20 rule
With the 80/20 rule, you create a framework for a conversation in which you put the other person in the spotlight. You talk about yourself 20% of the time. The rest of the time you listen, and you don’t come with your own views and try not to suggest solutions.
Be aware of nonverbal communication
You are aware of your how your body is positioned, you make eye contact and affirmative sounds, and, as much as you can, you try to give your complete attention to the person you’re talking with.
Silences
Silences are essential to allow the speaker to organize their thoughts. You don’t always need to step in if this feels awkward. Silences are fine.
4.2 Questions
A question is an invitation to share knowledge and stories. Questions have the power to connect as well as to cause division.. Questions can bring you closer together or drive you farther apart. Asking open, connecting questions is a skill.
When you ask a question, your body language and your tone of voice are important. Also think about why you’re asking something: is it because you’re genuinely interested or a result of your own curiosity? There’s a subtle difference here, and has to do particularly with who you’re putting in the spotlight with your question: is this the other person or yourself?
A question can be open or closed (an open question invites the other person to give a more extensive answer).
A question can also involve the senses (How did it feel: What did it taste like? What did you hear? What did you see?).
Following an answer, you can ask follow-up questions (you want to know more and would like to go deeper).
Before asking a question, you can give the other person a “way out.” (Not sure if the question is too personal? You can give them a way out by first asking permission.)
The answer to your question is never conclusive. The answer is subject to factors such as the time and the place where the question is being asked.
4.3 An attitude of not-knowing
“What is the value of your perspective? How reliable is your contribution? Can you, with your specific body and your particular history, possibly know what you’re talking about?”
philosopher Marjan Slob
Well-intentioned questions sometimes turn our conversations towards ourselves rather than towards a real curiosity for the other person.
By putting yourself in service of the other, and especially by asking questions and listening without turning the conversation towards yourself, you allow the encounter to deepen. At the same time, sharing your personal experiences with each other can also work.
4.4 Remember the person’s name
When you ask a person’s name, then say it out loud and remember it, they feel like they matter.
“Sometimes you’ll talk with someone at a party for a couple of hours: you stand there, leaning against the kitchen units, clutching bottles of beer, you watch a stranger’s hands peeling off the label and then picking at the sticky white remains of the paper on the bottle, you just say anything until you’ve settled on a topic you’re both happy to talk about and it isn’t until you’re saying goodbye that you ask: do you mind if I ask your name? Even though it’s more often: what was your name again? – and, sorry, sorry, sorry, only to forget it again afterwards. The answer doesn’t matter and means everything all at once – Irene, Eva, Omar, Karel, Jenneke, Sophie, Soundos, Jan – that name too stands for an ending or a beginning, then it’s like a label, a skin, the first layer.”
Maartje Wortel
Goldfish and Concrete (translated by Michele Hutchison)
4.5 Small acts connect us
Daily life is filled with small acts of kindness, like giving up our seat, helping someone cross the road, or holding the door open for another person. Such moments of face-to-face contact often arise from an unexpected situation in which we need someone’s help, for example, when we can’t reach the top shelf in the supermarket or when our bicycle has a flat tire.
For her graduation project, Lindy Hengst kept track of the number of times someone held the door open for another person at the Hema department store in the Rotterdam city center.
‘Often the door was held open for someone, but this was a very subtle gesture. Sometimes this was even done when no one was walking behind that person, those were beautiful moments. Also a lot of effort was made a number of times, this often happened with people who were a bit less mobile or with the elderly. In rare cases the door was held open by two people at the same time.’
Lindy Hengst
4.6 Social objects
A “social object” is a tangible reason why people interact with each other and social objects are sometimes the center of social networks. Think of objects that you can play with together, such as a football, a chessboard or a bowling ball, or objects that you can collect, such as stamps and Pokemon cards. Objects can also provide a shared experience between strangers, such as looking at the same work of art in a museum or sharing a dish in a restaurant. They help focus our attention on something external, which makes connecting more comfortable. Many social networks consist of people connected through a shared social object
Would you like to make an addition or contribution? Please contact:
Joran Koster: mail / insta
Ellen Oosterwijk: mail
August 2024
Copyright
© 2022-24
Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0
Text:
Joran Koster
Ellen Oosterwijk
Translation:
Colleen Higgins
Illustrations:
Hilde Speet
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