Difference is relational, embedded in power, and generative.
Evidence
Difference is always relational – it entails a form of non-equivalence within the context of particular relationships. Forms of difference emerge within relations of power – such as those between states, or nativist narratives, and migrant or racialised populations – but they also do so across everyday life, in countless, endlessly shifting ways. Difference, in this sense, is an inescapable facet of the world and is deeply generative – of friendship, conflict, creativity, care, opacity, and countless other possibilities. Rather than asking whether we can live with difference, we would do well to explore questions of what we might become, together. — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others, 88
Categorization
- DEFINE: Frames ‘difference’ as relational and generative rather than a property of groups.
- CANDY: ‘we would do well to explore questions of what we might become, together’ — a crisp, shareable reformulation of the conviviality question.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 88
- XREF: connects to: The ontological difference distinguishes specific entities from the Being they have.; Difference is better studied relationally than as exclusionary categories. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 291; Difference is a situational phenomenon with directionality and perspectivism (+1 more)
Related
- Difference is better studied relationally than as exclusionary categories. (similarity 0.90)
- Specific relational modes offer more analytic traction than generalized conviviality. (similarity 0.86)
- Difference is a generative relationship, not a fixed property of things (similarity 0.85)
- Researchers should ask which differences matter before defining difference itself. (similarity 0.83)
- Identity relations involve more than a single sameness-difference axis. (similarity 0.80)
- Emphasizing or de-emphasizing social boundaries each yields distinct relational possibilities (similarity 0.80)
- Producing sameness requires creating and externalizing difference (similarity 0.79)
- Relation arises from successive perceptions and identity is negation of diversity (similarity 0.78)
- Tolerance of difference may result from social homogenization that erases real difference. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Difference is a situational phenomenon with directionality and perspectivism
#qualifies(0.85) - Difference is better studied relationally than as exclusionary categories.
#corroborates(0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 291 - The ontological difference distinguishes specific entities from the Being they have.
#expands(0.72)