Caring for Conflict

Caring for Conflict acknowledges that conflicts are everywhere and everyday experiences. This is unavoidable when living together in a society marked by multiple differences, e.g. origin and cultural upbringing, gender, class, religion, capabilities, opinions, interest, values. However, conflict does not have to be a problem – what we need are new forms of living with conflict, rather than hoping for a social life that is free of conflict. By proposing the term cultures of conflict, we want to ask how feminist ideas of care, or queer understandings of relationships help to develop new ways of dealing with conflict. We also believe people have very different experiences with and strategies of handling conflict. Can we learn from each other how to turn these multiple experiences into shared practices? …practices that challenge inequalities, injustices, exclusions, and the violence of rigid norms?

Caring for Conflict is a cultural education project for those aged 12-27. We are collaborating with schools and youth clubs, some focusing explictly on feminist, queer, and anti-racist empowerment, all of them having a clear understanding about intersecting differences and power relations. For the activities see our blog.

Caring for Conflict (2017/2018) consists of three workshop formats (Secret Languages – Common/Mean Languages, Kitchen Worlds, Night Sweats, and Alphabet of Conflicts); a series of public events called Saal Lun*s; mobile interior architecture designed and built by Streitbauten (Quarrel Constructions); and an online publication. Caring for Conflict (2018/2019) introduced three further projects: Radiokörper, Urban Caring – Wem gehört die Stadt? and N*A*I*L*S hacks*facts*fictions.

After each year a KLIRRRRR festival (2018) (2019) presented and celebrated the current work.

Caring for Conflict is a joint project between the Institute for Queer Theory (iQt) and District Berlin. The project includes collaborations with Alfred-Nobel-Schule (Neukölln), Rückert-Gymnasium (Schöneberg), KontextSchule (stadtübergreifend), Alice Salomon Hochschule (Marzahn-Hellersdorf), Cafe Maggie / Gangway e.V. (Lichtenberg), MÄDEA – Interkulturelles Zentrum für Mädchen und junge Frauen (Mitte / Wedding), Fresh 30 (Schöneberg), i-Päd – intersektionale Pädagogik (stadtübergreifend), Hella Mädchenclub (Marzahn-Hellersdorf), Schokofabrik (Kreuzberg), KontextSchule, Le Nails Ausbildungszentrum (Lichtenberg), AWO Falkclub Neukölln, Universität der Künste Berlin, and DAMN- Deutsche Asiat*innen make Noise.

The contributors include Qwigo L. Baldwin, Leah Bretz, María do Mar Castro Varela, Aïcha Diallo, Antke Engel, Janine Halka, Naomi Rincon Gallardo, Ed Greve, Suza Husse, Anika Lachnitt, Mindj Panther / Sandra & Simonida Selimovic, Andrea Caroline Keppler, Lorenzo Sandoval, Eva Storms, Ferdiansyah Thajib, Tali Tiller, and others.

Funded (from 2017 to 2019) by Projektfonds Kulturelle Bildung.

For documentation see website and blog.

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