Novees

• Main Author: Cheung, Joyce Christina
• Other Authors: Nanci Takeyama
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::General::Social aspects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/77985
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We live in a world of ‘Others’. Increasingly more than ever before due to globalisation. How then is one expected to navigate and interact with ‘the Other’? Echoing sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman: “The question is no longer how to get rid of the strangers and the strange, but how to live with them, daily and permanently. Whatever realistic strategy of coping with the unknown, the uncertain and the confusing can be thought of, it needs to start from recognizing this fact” (Bauman, 1995). This means that we first have to recognise that Others exist, and that it is inevitable that we, and our respective Others, will cross paths regularly. Therefore, the crux of the matter lies in how we learn to meet and interact with the stranger, the unknown. Enter ‘Novees’—an educational website about Otherness masquerading as the ‘official tourism website to Monster Country’. It is intended as an aid for lower secondary school students to learn about differences such as in race, religion, culture and social class; about Otherness. Novees, however, takes a slightly different approach to the topic. Instead of an information-based methodology typically found in traditional teaching methods that promote knowledge, this website promotes understanding the Other by means of temporarily withholding judgement. Primarily targeted at lower secondary level, the practice of withholding judgement is encouraged through interactive narratives that evoke empathy for the Other. Activities and discussions are suggested to provoke deeper thought on the subject matter, not as accumulating secondary information about the Other, but by encouraging thoughtful practice when encountering Others, so that students can intentionally create a safe space for the Other to express and reveal themselves, hence laying the groundwork for exploration and better mutual understanding.