Conviviality depends on structural tools rather than user character.
Evidence
Illich focused on the ‘structure of the tools, not on the character of the users’ (1973/2009, p. 15). Back and Sinha build on Illich’s formulation to question what kinds of convivial tools and capacities help people ‘make space to live within a city that remains divided by racism’ (Back & Sinha, 2016, p. 523). Through ethnographic research with young migrants living in London, they identify five broad convivial tools and capacities, which can be summarised as: fostering attentiveness and curiosity; care for the city and a capacity to put yourself in another’s place; worldliness and making connections beyond local confines; developing an aversion to the pleasures of hating; making connections and building home. — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 58
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies Illich’s distinctive framing that conviviality is a property of tools’ structure, not of users’ character, plus the five concrete convivial capacities.
- QUESTION: The five convivial tools/capacities, especially ‘aversion to the pleasures of hating,’ deserve deeper exploration of how they are practiced concretely.
- corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 58
- XREF: connects to: Structuralism holds that culture speaks the subject rather than the reverse. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 195; Ambiguous environments let personality shape behavior while structured ones constrain it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1141
Broader Connections
- Structuralism holds that culture speaks the subject rather than the reverse.
#corroborates(0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 195 - Ambiguous environments let personality shape behavior while structured ones constrain it.
#expands(0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1141