ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for valuing and encouraging first-person intersubjective encounters with other humans under conditions of plurality where one can speak and act with others and each is open to the stance the other expresses. In intersubjective first-person encounters the self emerges in and through, rather than preceding, encounters between the self and the other, occurring in what Topolski calls ‘the space between I and we’. Such encounters open the possibility of a shift from a static or substantial concept of the human subject towards radically new subjectivities, opening potential for as yet unforeseen, more sustainable and democratic ways to be together in the world we share.
The chapter includes theoretical thinking, practical ideas and case studies to explore how such first-person intersubjective encounters can be encouraged in educational contexts. It draws on Memmi’s ‘attentiveness’ and ‘listening first’, Arendt’s conception of ‘visiting’, Rancière’s thinking on dissensus and Masschelein and Simons’ exploration of education as skholé. The chapter also engages with Arendt’s conception of forgiveness and mutual promising, feminist ethics of care and Indigenous thinking on relationality and considers how intersubjective first-person encounters also have potential to be sites of immanent ethical responses.
