Difficult conversations

Completing a hectic month of travel, Ros gave a talk at the Difficult Conversations symposium at Essex University on May 30th, organised by Isabel Crowhurst and Roisin Ryan Flood. This wonderful symposium reflected on topics that are difficult to discuss in feminist spaces, with Ros talking about the need to be able to engage in dialogue across our differences, and  the urgent need to be able to disagree without the world somehow falling apart. Building on Meg-John Barker’s discussion of ‘compassionate critique’ she talked about the ethics of disagreement, about ‘critical respect’, and about ‘difficult solidarities’, a term she has developed from conversations with Gail Lewis.