News 28/05/2021

An ‘unignorably’ fun Exploration!

The third webinar of the Stockholm Explorative Talks series explored various perspectives around the topic – ‘The Art of Ignoring: Understanding the space between knowing and not-knowing’. The explorers – Anna Essén, Jens David Ohlin, Pallabi Chakravorty, Ramón López de Mántaras and Sabina Čehajić-Clancy – discussed the differences between ‘ignorance’ and ‘ignoring’, and how the latter is often systemically manufactured and strategically sustained. As Stockholm Explorative Talks keeps growing and reaching across to a wider audience, this exploration saw attendees from 18 countries (Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, USA, Denmark, Sweden and Finland), representing 42 universities and a variety of academic and professional backgrounds.

The exploration investigated the topic from different interdisciplinary positions of institutional/human agency and choice, law, performing arts, artificial intelligence, and social psychology. The discussion addressed points such as – what prompts systemic de-escalation of potentially problematic issues, factors governing the area between ‘ignorance’ and ‘ignoring’, how collective structures and social narratives dictate disengagement strategies – and many more. Further, the exploration touched upon how artificial intelligence systems use semantic networks to attribute meanings to objects and then forget what is deemed unnecessary information. The role that national/cultural identities play in shaping behavior (in the context of performing arts), and the significance of social contexts in the construction of habitual patterns were also examined. Lastly, the explorers talked about the flipside of the argument i.e. the benefits of ignoring as a practical way of getting through life, and the importance of retaining one’s democratic right to ignore, in today’s world of information overload.

Here’s something we think you shouldn’t ignore – the next webinar of the Stockholm Explorative Talks series is coming right up on 18 June (Friday)! A new group of explorers will discuss a very pertinent issue: ‘Growing up during a pandemic: mental health among a ‘lost generation’’! Check out our event calendar and join us in exploring the future together!    

 

Anna Essén is Assistant Professor at the House of Innovation at Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. She leads projects about the art of ignoring and its structural enablers.

 

 

Jens David Ohlin is Professor of Law and Interim Dean of Cornell Law School, USA. His scholarly work stands at the intersection of four related fields: criminal law, criminal procedure, public international law, and the laws of war.

 

Pallabi Chakravorty is Professor of Performing Arts at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, USA. She is also an accomplished dancer, choreographer, and visual anthropologist.

 

 

Ramón López de Mántaras is Research Professor of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and founder and former Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of the CSIC. He is a pioneer in artificial intelligence in Spain.

 

Sabina Čehajić-Clancy is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Stockholm University, Sweden. She specializes in the field of intergroup relations, specifically on reconciliation in post-conflict societies.

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