Is it ‘natural’ to be suspicious of strangers and their strange ways? Is it natural for groups of people to feel hostile and antagonistic towards other groups of people? Is ‘difference’ and ‘ignorance’ the source of the problem?

At the next event of the Transylvania Lectures series Dr. Farhad Dalal will take up these and other similar questions to argue that human groupings are not found but made. He will argue that power-relations are critical to these processes, because they inform the ways that emotional and cognitive mechanisms are mobilised, to both produce and sustain, ‘us’ and ‘them’ groupings. He will engage critically with Multiculturalist, Anti-Racist and Diversity discourses and their ways of thinking about these issues.

Dr. Farhad Dalal is a British psychotherapist and group analyst, working with individuals, groups, and organizations. He has been in independent practice for more than thirty years, initially in London and now in Devon. Dr. Dalal writes, teaches, and lectures in Britain and internationally. With colleagues, he recently started delivering a group psychotherapy training in India. He has published four books to date: Taking the Group Seriously; Race, Colour and the Processes of Racialization; Thought Paralysis: The Virtues of Discrimination; and CBT – The Cognitive Behavioural Tsunami: Managerialism, Politics and the Corruptions of Science.

His partner in this discussion will be Dr Anca Simionca, lecturer in the Sociology Department and vice-dean of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at Babeș-Bolyai University. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology awarded by the Central European University. As a researcher she is interested in organizations, work and social critique. As a teacher, beyond transmitting knowledge and information to students, she strives to inspire them with an attitude of genuine curiosity for what reality looks like and to encourage their desire to contribute to a more just world for all. 

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