Imagined encounters, transformative potentials

Abstract

Encounters do not start with physical meetings, but rather with the affective attributions of producing or developing knowledge of another person in advance of meeting them. Certain encounters are more desired than others, solidifying pre conceived notions of difference or helping to divert them. Even encounters that have not (yet) happened can create an affective space filled with strong emotions such as fear or desire. It is the affective complexity of just such an unrealistic encounter that this article addresses, based on fieldwork amongst a Vienna-based Arab collective of artists. Consisting largely of artists who were recently arrived as forced migrants, the collective sought to overcome the power asymmetry inscribed in their day-to day interactions by creating new forms of artistic engagement with the Austrian public. As I discuss, this desire came to influence their self-understanding, event planning, and internal knowledge production. By focusing on the potentiality inherent in encounters, this contribution asks how the imagining of desired encounters shapes subjectivities even when those encounters have not (yet) materialised.

Keywords

• encounter
• difference
• refugee studies
• integration
• affect