Hotel Room Encounters – A laboratory for transformative pedagogy

Abstract

In this thesis I look at some of the ethical issues involved in one-to-one practices, observing how they offer a uniquely compress example of dialogical, experiential and transformative pedagogy, providing the most obvious representation of the meeting with the Other and with the otherness within oneself. I look in particular at the idea of ‘perceived obligation’, the way we respond to a situation as we think we are expected to by an authority figure. Another crucial concept of this research is that of safe space / brave space, a space where risks are acceptable and even welcome, and where a transformative experience can take place. I use Van Manen, Antila and Arao&Clemens to advocate that a safe space cannot be just a container for rules and that there are no universal procedures that can guarantee safety, suggesting instead a dialogical approach. The proposal is that a caring approach to ethics, combined with the integrity, insight, generosity and sensitivity of the practitioner, and a mutual interest and respect for the material, are the ingredients that create a safe environment for learning through transformation.

I use my artistic project “Hotel Room Encounters” as a laboratory where the issues mentioned above can be observed and studied. Most of this research is based on observing my own personal experience, but also on comments made by the participants during the encounters as well as in the notes they wrote and left to me after the encounter. The project aims to create a situation favourable to the meeting with the unknown and to a transformative experience. In accordance with Rancière’s and Biesta’s idea that in order to learn and grow, one has to move out of one’s comfort zone, I tried to create the conditions for a safe discomfort and for a gentle push of boundaries; a move into the risk zone designed to set the conditions for an unusual experience and potential for learning something about oneself. I also look at the “Hotel Room Encounter” as improvisational and somatic practice, using my experience in such practices to guide me through the experience of meeting the unknown, especially within the format of one-to-one participatory performance, with what I had no previous experience as a practitioner. I also briefly link this work to my experience of somatic practices and eventually reflect on my positioning as a middle-aged white man in society.