Project Syllabus
The discourse on tolerance has become axiomatic for political and cultural life in the era of (post-)liberal modernity. In the event of any form of violence, the discourse is invoked as a ‘solution’ to ‘intolerance’. But what if we considered the tolerance discourse itself as an axiom of violence? Its discursive labour creates configurations of power relations that transform the existing human affairs and relations into fixed conditions and categories of difference. Instead of taking tolerance as an analytical proxy, this paper ethnographically elucidates how the tolerance discourse is refused and resisted with the social grammars, practices and ethical vernaculars of care, mercy and solidarity. By focusing on the spaces of public kitchens in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ethics of immediacy they engender, I explore the actually existing forms of living with difference beyond the threshold of tolerance discourses.
Roger Mac Ginty explores everyday peace-or how individuals and small groups can eke out spaces of tolerance and conciliation in conflict-ridden societies. Drawing on original material from the Everyday Peace Indicators project, he blends theory and concept-building together with contemporary and comparative examples. This exploration of bottom-up and community-level approaches to peace challenges the usual concentration on top-down approaches to peace advanced by governments and international organizations. Indeed, the book goes to the lowest level of social organization - individuals, families and small groups of friends and colleagues - and looks at everyday interaction in workplaces, the stairwells of apartment buildings, and the queue for public transport.
Mac Ginty, Roger. 2021.
Everyday Peace: How So-called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict
Today’s headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world. Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.
Makdisi, Ussama. 2019.
Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World
In Southeast Europe, the Balkans, and Middle East, scholars often refer to the “peaceful coexistence” of various religious and ethnic groups under the Ottoman Empire before ethnonationalist conflicts dissolved that shared space and created legacies of division. Post-Ottoman Coexistence interrogates ways of living together and asks what practices enabled centuries of cooperation and sharing, as well as how and when such sharing was disrupted. Contributors discuss both historical and contemporary practices of coexistence within the context of ethno-national conflict and its aftermath.
Bryant, Rebecca. 2016.
Post-Ottoman Coexistence: Sharing Space in the Shadow of Conflict
Seligman, Adam; Wasserfall, Rahel; Montgomery, David. 2016.
Living with Difference: How to Build Community in a Divided World
Whether looking at divided cities or working with populations on the margins of society, a growing number of engaged academics have reached out to communities around the world to address the practical problems of living with difference. This book explores the challenges and necessities of accommodating difference, however difficult and uncomfortable such accommodation may be. Drawing on fourteen years of theoretical insights and unique pedagogy, CEDAR—Communities Engaging with Difference and Religion—has worked internationally with community leaders, activists, and other partners to take the insights of anthropology out of the classroom and into the world. Rather than addressing conflict by emphasizing what is shared, Living with Difference argues for the centrality of difference in creating community, seeking ways not to overcome or deny differences but to live with and within them in a self-reflective space and practice. This volume also includes a manual for organizers to implement CEDAR’s strategies in their own communities.