Everyday boundaries

This image is a portion of a photograph taken during the course of my fieldwork. My research explores the conditions necessary for successful interfaith dialogue. These conditions extend beyond the psychological, and into the material and the symbolic. An item as innocuous as a chair can serve to hinder or facilitate dialogue, serving as a physical or symbolic barrier between groups or an invitation to blur them. I particularly like this image because it reminds me to strive to make the familiar strange.