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This paper is located within work in urban studies about the significance of contact with difference as a means for reducing prejudice and achieving social change. Recent approaches, influenced by theories of affect, have emphasised non-conscious everyday negotiations of difference in the city. In this paper it is argued that such approaches lose sight of the significance of the subject: of the reflective judgements of ‘others’ made by individuals; of our ability to make decisions around the control of our feelings and identifications; and of the significance of personal pasts and collective histories in shaping the ways we perceive and react to encounters. Rather, this paper uses a biographical approach focusing on interviewees’ narratives of encounter. Through its attention to processes of mobility and emplacement, it contributes to debates about when contact with difference matters by highlighting the importance of everyday social normativities in the production of moral dispositions.

This paper draws on empirical research conducted as part of a European Research Council funded study to explore how individuals understand and live processes of social differentiation. Specifically, it draws on a case study life story narrative to examine how social identifications unfold across biographical time, examining the spatio-temporal complexity of experiences of differentiation, and the marginalization of self and/or others.In doing so, it contributes to the geographies of encounter literature by exploring the implications of insights from an individualÕs narrative of lived experiences of difference for group politics and the management of prejudical social relations.Key words: social difference, encounter, life story, moral disposition, transversal politics ! ! Lived difference: a narrative account of spatio-temporal processes of social differentiation Reflections on geographies of encounterWe are witnessing unprecedented levels of mobility within and beyond the European Union and population change. In this context, Stuart Hall (1993) has argued that how we develop 2 the capacity to live with social difference is the key question of the 21 st century. It is an issue that is particularly pertinent given rising levels of insecurity generated by post 9/11 terrorism and the current global financial crisis because in times of trouble attitudes towards minorities tend to harden. Given the implicit role of shared space in providing the opportunity for positive encounters between strangers, geography, urban studies and planning have paid increasing attention to this question, notwithstanding the longstanding interest of social psychologists in ÔcontactÕ theory (Allport 1954, Hewstone and Brown 1986) Here, some authors have observed the potential for ÔdifferenceÕ to be dissolved through a process of mixing and hybridisation of culture as a result of everyday encounters and interactions in public spaces (such as in cafes, on buses, at community events and sports clubs) where there is an accommodation of otherness because the proximity of strangers necessitates a pragmatic engagement across categorical boundaries (Amin 2002, Laurier & Philo 2006, Noble 2009, Wise 2009, Wilson 2011. Drawing on examples from a range of studies of hospitality spaces Bell (2007: 19) argues that food and eating create a feeling of being involved with others, providing consumers with a license to talk to each other which can facilitate positive encounters such that commensality Ôcan Ébe about social identification, the sharing of not only food and drink but also world views and patterns of livingÕ. Likewise, in a study of cafes Laurier & Philo (2006a, 2006b) argue that people have a different sense of social responsibility in a space like a coffee shop compared to the street. They employed a camcorder and participant observation to capture and study mundane interactions in these 3 public spaces, using microspatial analysis of gestures to explore how Ôthe work of conviviality In doing so, this work makes unacknowledged tem...

Students of Uganda's Makerere University currently find themselves in the middle of an emerging clash of sexual ideologies, perpetuated by different peer groups. Transactional sex is one of the most evident social dynamics around the campus. For most women, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, having sex with often older, wealthier men is the quickest and easiest way to secure the material goods and lifestyles exemplified by their wealthier peers. This dynamic, known as 'detoothing' , whereby a woman will analogously extract a man's teeth one by one until he is left with nothing, appears the most salient determinant of sexual behaviour amongst university students. This paper aims to examine how the increasingly popular theologies and social structures of Pentecostalism are creating new 'born-again' peer groups with their own standards for social and sexual behaviour. The promotion of sexual abstinence and an anti-materialist rhetoric challenge the central tenets of the prevailing sexual patterns amongst students. However the impact of the bornagain discourse on actual sexual behaviour is complicated by broader socio-economic dynamics that influence the ways in which theologies are received and acted upon by church members.