Symposium - Diversity belongs to Everyone Together: the importance of different perspectives

Keynote "Thinking Together: the need for diversity", delivered by Chiara Robbiano (ENG). 

Other people around us have different disciplines, perspectives, embodiments and experiences. Behaving as if everyone was our clone is not a celebration of equality, but a missed chance to value diversity. Valuing interdisciplinarity and valuing diversity go hand in hand: thinking together is essential to science and education. But dialogues across differences require effort— I suggest 3 steps.

1) Encountering multiple ways of researching and living and recognizing our perspective as partial can make us lose our ground. The British philosopher Sara Ahmed shows the benefit of “disorientation”, which, I argue, is necessary for “decentring” (my concept, adapted from the Japanese philosopher Dōgen). 

2) When decentring, we become spacious: we neither universalize our framework, nor become relativistic and indifferent to other worlds. We listen.

3) After listening to different ways of knowing and experiencing that might help us get in touch with what is real, we engage in thinking together. In dialogue, we look for what I call “universals for this time and space”, for discourses and actions that seem capable —to all involved— of creating better science, a better world, and, in the words of the African philosopher Bayo Akomolafe “a home that worked for all of us, not just a few above the many”

Choice of several interactive sessions including:

1. Theatervoorstelling Artikel 1 op de werkvloer (Dutch)

   • Bint addresses what is going on in "the undercurrent" in the room. This will highlight the views of the minority and not just the masses. The theatre group will do this through a playful, yet serious, interactive approach, articulating the undercurrent through theatrical expression.

2. Equitable Selection: Equal opportunities and a diverse group? (Dutch)
   • Join Sebastiaan Steenman to discuss the challenges for limited enrolment programmes
3. Better together: Exploring different perspectives in communication (EN)

   • During this workshop, we will explore what diversity is and why it is so important. We will experience what it is like to take a different perspective than your own and how it makes communication easier. But how can this help you communicate more inclusively in informational activities for incoming students? A knowledge bank has been developed to help you get an overview of different tools, knowledge and good practices to attract new students and welcome them in an inclusive manner. During this workshop you will learn to implement this knowledge bank in a practical manner and you will be able to gain the perspective of and exchange ideas with colleagues from other degree programs.