Curious about Others

Relational and Empathetic Curiosity for Diverse Societies

Bibliographic Data

ID20187546
AuthorsRichard Phillips (0000-0003-4630-4555, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume88
Issue88
Pages123-142
Publication date2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Formations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-2378 • E-ISSN: 1741-0789
PublisherLawrence and Wishart (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3898/newf.88.02.2016
OpenAlexW2485844054
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited14

Sociable curiosity - wondering and finding out about others (empathetic curiosity), and being curious with them (relational curiosity)- can draw people together, bridging differences and social distances. This promises more than the distant connections that are increasingly recognised and endorsed as mechanisms of coping with diversity and living within societies that have been characterised as diverse. It reaches towards more active and definite engagement with others. But curiosity - associated as it is with taxonomy and therefore with exploring and sometimes disrupting and recasting categories - can also be a vehicle for more fundamental explorations of social difference. Understandings of sociable curiosity are distilled in this paper through readings of theoretical literature on curiosity, wonder and taxonomy, and through a series of more tangible encounters, drawn from experiences of anti-war activism and museum projects in the UK, which bring sociable curiosity into focus

Aesthetics · Curiosity · Epistemology · Sociology · Global Health and Surgery · Philosophy · Psychological and Educational Research Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

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