HOPE AT LUTHER, NCA INSTITUTE FOR FACULTY, 2004

RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION SEMINAR

Tuesday - July 20, 2004

Julia Wood Introduction:

• Training in group communication and methods.
• Best known for gender & feminist studies, but has never taken a course in this area.
• Primary interests: gender and relationships and issues of power.

Jamaica Kinkaid Lucy - Excellent novel for teaching standpoint theory.
Random Family - Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (Coming of age in the Bronx-great novel).
Fools Rush In - Movie that covers intercultural issues, relational trajectories, corporate aspects, etc.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships - Best relational journal. Best research

Theme for the week: Understudies aspects and understudied relationships

Theoretical Argument: We have studies a small and unrepresentative sample of relationships in the world, and have used those studies to create theories of relationships to apply to all relationships around the world. That isn't the world.

• We don't understand the range of relationships that exist, and we don't understand all the options available in terms of types of relationships available to us.
• Conflict theories are white, middle class conflict theories. We don't have truly representative theories.
• Are we teaching our students theories that don't seem to fit with them because they aren't really representative of all relationships? They may judge their own relationships as bad, or they may feel that they have to make a change in order to fit with the predominant theory.
• Perhaps trying on other styles or ways of life could be beneficial. For example, learning to try on the conflict styles of African Americans or the 'closeness-in-doing' style or men.
• We need to build theory that is truly based on representative samples. Some of the theories we have are classically bad theories.
• Goal: Acknowledge a larger base of what being in a relationship is all about. Create a larger definition of relationship.
• Science is a social enterprise.
• If you think about any science or research as a social enterprise and then think about reflexivity, we are then able to ask some different kinds of questions.
• We are here to ask some different kinds of questions about relationships.
• And if relationships are created in a social context, then you must consider the post-modern nature of the society in which we live that includes co-modification, fragmentation, media saturation, etc. These all tell us to think about relationships in different ways.
• You can't think about going back to the nostalgic 1950s because this isn't the 1950s and we have to move forward. We are in a fast-paced world with quick-evolving and quick-dissolving relationships.
• For example, what are people's experiences in quick, short relationships? Are they really relationships? What are the characteristics of those relationships, etc.

Article #2 Fine and Johnson

Lesbian parents with two adopted black sons.

What is it that Fine and Johnson point out to us that they see because they live outside the lines that society has drawn?

• They have a dual perspective of a mainstream lifestyle and alternative lifestyles.
• A constant tension between the alternative lifestyle and the mainstream.
• Outsider/within - you are an outsider of the system, but you are also an insider. You can see it at two different levels. Also known as "splitting" - being able to see two different ways at once and bring them together, and to recognize and challenge that which has been made to be seen as dominant.
• How to you bring students to being insiders in another system?
  • Students have to want to be exposed and to see something else.
  • Step one is by beginning to see the other's world. And then you can learn about your own. You can no longer see your own world the same way.
• Hyper-vigilence-become SO aware of what is around them. You are over-attentive to those ideas. Ultimately, you get beyond being overwhelmed by the different view, and then you can ultimately learn to take out the lens when you want to use it.
• Help students anticipate the discomfort that goes with sampling a new world. Suspend your own lens, and be uncomfortable, but don't give up your own view.
• Labels-what we name and call things affect the way we see the world. In this article, are the authors lesbians or just parents, etc.
• As instructors, we can create an environment where is it okay to discuss groups that are different than the dominant. For example, using a scenario with Jane wanting to take a job in another town, and Mary not wanting to move. Those on the margin will catch it. Others may or may not.
• Students may feel like the stories or examples are not "real" because they are from a perspective different from that of the student. E.g., a description of conflict between African Americans may not sound real to white students who have never been around black and their style of interacting. Assignment Idea: Have students create their own case studies and then analyze the case. Then students with different backgrounds or perspectives or lens to the world can then share and apply to their own worlds. Perhaps talking about it from one's own experience rather than culture allows students from feeling like they would be the representative speaker for their culture or group.
• Paradox: Life has a great deal of puzzlement, bemusement and mystery. This article deals with those kinds of issues.

Wednesday - July 21, 2004

Books on Family:
Kath Weston - Families We Choose (about gay and lesbian families and about their communities).
E. J. Graff - What is Marriage For?
Penelope Leach - Children First
Jeffrey Eugineddes - Middlesex (about the artificial bifurcation of gender)

Everyday Conversation

Students miss much because there is very little about the everyday interactions in the current text books. Students learn everything about how to handle the big stuff, but they don't learn much about the everyday interactions that sustain relationships.

Book will have 3 sections

• Intro
• Intimate personal relationships-marriage, sibling relationships, family traditions
• More social relationships-casual friendships, instant messaging,
• Relationships in the workplace-mentoring, workplace relationships and talk and how talk define race and ethnicity, social worker story, work-family tensions

Every chapter is a story. Much ethnographic work, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, etc. Each chapter is limited to 15 pages. The analysis is also in a conversational manner so that it is accessible to undergraduates. Unlike the case study book, this book provides an analysis of the various cases/stories. Goal-for this book to be a supplement for other texts. The book can be used in a wide variety of courses.

Wood and Braithwaite-Case studies in communication.

What does the daily everyday interaction do for the relationship?

• maintain connection
• maintain roles-reinforce roles/or help change roles provides recognition and acknowledgment
• demonstrates interest of one person by another
• Regulates the structure of work or family or . . .
• Perpetuates culture, values, beliefs, . . .
• Maintains routines which provides comfort and consistency to peoples' lives
• Identifies people as insiders and outsiders
• Leads to metacommunication and potential changes in interaction
• Helps people confirm/change their own personal identities
• Provides cushioning and breaks from the intense interaction-conversational relief

Everyday interaction is NOT the same as small talk. Everyday interaction includes the nonverbal components, etc.

Identify the patterns, and then how is the interaction working. E.g., Joanna saying to her husband "hurry up" several times, and he registers nothing. So what would signify to her husband a 'hurry up' message? Or the exchange student that said he knew no one was leaving until Joanna had said "hurry up" at least 10 times.

"You are never a prisoner of your patterns unless you choose to be." The chit chat isn't important now in terms of content, but it is necessary as a foundation for the bigger challenges that come along in the future. But without the foundational relationship, people are less able to handle the bigger issues.

What about dysfunctional families and the everyday interactions that maintain the dysfunctionality?

• more evidence that the everyday interactions maintain and perpetuates the culture, values and beliefs of the relationship.

How do we teach this?

• Have students tape and analyze conversations and have them look at the interaction.
• Have them look and find concepts.
• Give them the carrots article and have them go out and support, contradict or elaborate on the ideas that are presented.
• Might it work to tape a class and discuss what the interactions do for the class? For the people in the class? For peer relationships? For faculty/student relationships?

Assignment from Julia:
Pay attention to conversations between today and tomorrow. Don't report back on anything that happens after heavy drinking or 10:00 p.m. No major disclosures!

Thursday July 22, 2004

Class Business-
Used as a way to open the class and to talk about things that weren't on the syllabus. Perhaps it is a story or event in the news, or a reflection on the last class period, and announcement about an event taking place on campus, etc. Set a limit on the amount of time that the class business can take.

"Everyday Talk" can be programmed and scheduled-for example, with teens-in order to maximize the interaction. For example, talking while driving in the car or during the evening preparing dinner, etc.

Cocktail Party Drivel is NOT the same as everyday conversation. It can be one part of everyday conversation, but it isn't the totality of everyday talk.

Standpoint Theory

Definition: Standpoint grows out of the social, symbolic, and material conditions common to a group. These conditions shape the experiences of group members and also members' knowledge of self, other(s), and the social world.

1. Grows out of these conditions-it is NOT these conditions. It grows out of the social, symbolic and material conditions.
2. Standpoint is not something that is naturally given/innate. Standpoint is the outgrowth of the social, symbolic, and material conditions COMMON to a group. Not every member of a group is going to experience the world in the same way; not everyone is affected the same way.
3. Standpoints are always multiple. People belong to many different groups. For example, a black, upper SES, lesbian will have a different standpoint than a black, working class, heterosexual women. So two black women don't necessarily have the same standpoints. Standpoint cannot be essentialized.
4. Students want to individualize a standpoint. Individualization is not an accurate use of standpoint. And it isn't about any group. Standpoint is not just a perspective. It is a politicalized/ideological knowledge of the members' knowledge of self, other(s) and their place in the social world.
5. To be a standpoint, it must be oppositional. It is ALWAYS in resistance to a dominant culture. They do not accept the way in which the dominant group defines the minority's group. It is an understanding of how the dominant group has marginalized us and where they place us in the social order, and the minority group doesn't like the current definition/condition.
6. There isn't a black standpoint or a woman standpoint. Standpoint isn't a characteristic of a group. It is a disagreement of and understanding of their place in the world.
7. Standpoint is constructed through social interactions and the material world.
8. Standpoint is a tool to deal with social conditions.
9. Liminal spaces-the blurry spaces between membership in various groups. The outsider/within. People can move into and out of a particular standpoint. People have a double vision of the spaces in which they inhabit. The multiplicity allows for insight into the social order and how the social order constructs people. It is referred to as the privileged position. You can understand the other well enough to begin to work with the possibilities.
10. Standpoint does not try to erase the individual. It says that for a variety of reasons or influences, you claim the standpoint as an identity, and that identity may have a political relationship.
11. People adopt a standpoint, not to give up agency, but to use that standpoint in order to change one's position.
12. Can you have a standpoint on behalf of a group? For example, a group doesn't see themselves as oppositional, but someone outside the group sees them as being oppressed, is it a standpoint?
13. Standpoint begins with the assumption that not everybody is the same in society-that there is a hierarchy and people do occupy different social positions within that society. All positions are partial, but some are more partial than others (partial = incomplete). All positions are incomplete, but some are more incomplete than others.
14. A dominant partial perspective is less whole than an oppressed group's standpoint. The dominant group doesn't want to have to know about the other side.
15. Can you have a standpoint on behalf of a group? Yes. Harding and others believe that it is possible to do world traveling and border crossing as long as you don't appropriate it. You can't speak up for that group. One can only speak for oneself unless she asks permission to speak on behalf of another. And sometimes we need to speak for the oppressed to help them learn how to speak for themselves.
16. Marsha Houston-why dialogues between black and white women is difficult-an essay. We have to be careful about saying that you can understand another's experience unless you are a member of that group. But Standpoint theorists say that you can learn about another's perspective, but you truly can't be there because you can walk out of that experience. But people learn about the other by listening and letting the other teach them about the culture. It isn't a COMPLETE understanding, but it is closer than the outsider.
17. One's viewpoint on an issue that is oppositional to the dominate situation is not speaking on behalf of the other's standpoint. It is merely offering a position. One's viewpoint is not the same as speaking for them about their reality.
18. Who is the dominant group? Conservatives or liberals? And which group really has the standpoint? Both groups claim to be the minority and have the standpoint. The social hierarchy is not fixed. It is always in struggle. The dominant perspective and its placement changes because no position is truly monolithic or homogenous. There is always struggle within the perspective.
19. We have been talking about standpoint theory vertically. Can we talk about standpoint theory horizontally? Or on the same plane? Yes.

These groups below are connected by dotted lines rather than solid lines. And some of the minority groups have connections with other groups. All lines in these diagrams are permeable, and that is how change can occur. If the boundaries were not penetrable, change couldn't occur. But change can and HAS occurred, and will likely continue to change in the future. But change doesn't happen quickly.

1. Within the dominant groups, there are layers. For example, Christianity is the dominant group. Within Christianity, there are Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, etc. Some of these denominations are more dominant than others.
2. A pinch can occur when a person's two standpoints conflict. For example, when religion and sexual orientation conflict, for example.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hofschild - Global Warming.

Gloria Anzaldua-Chicana author who writes about crossing borders and how she is a woman and American and Chicana and her reality is that she is nowhere. Her identity is as being not anchored in any one place. Examines the tensions of being in a variety of different groups and how each of these groups is viewed within the social world.

Friday July 23, 2004

Class Business: Return to Lynn's question: Can a dominant group have a standpoint? Hartsock reading: A standpoint must be oppositional to a dominant ideology (pp. 284-285)

You can have a perspective of the dominant group, but a standpoint is different in that it is in opposition to a dominant ideology. There has to be that duality in order to have a standpoint.

The one who can see both sides because s/he is in the minority can have the standpoint.

Dominant groups always claim that they understand what the minorities experience and need, but their understanding of needs is based on what will make life more comfortable for the dominant group.

The unspoken center doesn't need the other to define itself. The other needs the unspoken center and it is in relation to the unspoken center that the other sees itself.

A standpoint must not only be oppositional, but it must also have duality in that it sees the dominant and knows the dominant, but also knows the world from the oppressed view and is opposing that oppression.

Book about Class Differences - So Far From Home

Intimate Partner Violence:

There are cases in which men are the victims of abuse. Wives abuse husbands, and there is violence in homosexual relationships.

The predominant type of interpersonal violence is against women. And men are the usual perpetrators of interpersonal terrorism.

Talking about interpersonal violence in the classroom allows students to have a vocabulary to discuss these issues, points out that these behaviors are wrong and unacceptable, and provides people a potential opportunity to be validated and willing to go get help.

Putting up the name and number of a counselor who is qualified to help keeps the faculty member from having to step in about being a "counselor."

Perhaps have students make the call from your office so that you know the call has been made. Gives the student privacy to make the call.

The faculty has the responsibility to make sure that someone is lined up to work with potential students who have issues.

Too often, intimate partner violence is perceived as an interpersonal problem when, in reality, it is a social problem. It is NOT only a couple problem. It MUST be understood in the context of the social scripts that legitimize and esteem the behaviors.

What is it about society that makes it okay for intimate partner violence? We encourage aggression in sports and activities, yet we are surprised that men use violence in relationships. Intimate partner violence is a product of the cultural norms.

You must take a culture's values into consideration in order to understand how violence fits into their lives.

Classic model of violence:
         Tension
    Honeymoon
Remorse
     Explosion-violence

Classic Cycle of Violence. These are a circular set of experiences.

Tension:
Man's home is his castle
Disrespect
Men are entitled and women should provide a haven

Explosion:
It's okay for men to be angry
Boys will be boys
Boys are stronger
Men are not good with words
For women, they don't hit or fight back
Many women believe they have done something to deserve it
Many women believe it means he loves them/jealousy
It is the woman's job to "tame the beast"
A man's right is to punish his woman

Remorse:
Boys shouldn't hit girls
Love conquers all
Religious commitment
Control is so important
Doesn't everyone makes mistakes

Honeymoon:
The knight in shining armor who saves the damsel in distress
Love conquers all
What he did to her isn't as bad as what other people endure
Reinstallation of hope

Friday July 24, 2004

Research ideas that have emerged during this week:

Mirerza - research on the oppositional in Standpoint theory. The notion of the oppositional is political. A political piece on why we cannot not be political on the notion of standpoint and the need to recognize and acknowledge the political in order to understand the validity and legitimacy of the other.

• Suggestion to focus on Latina or Chicana feminism. (from Julia)

Alaina - prenuptial agreements and how standpoint can help work through and understand the differences or oppositional regarding marital negotiations. A resistant action to convention.

• class issues exist in the homes, especially with adoptive or foster families.
• How do you begin to get the vocabulary of class in the field.
• Go to human services as a starting place to gain contact/access.
• What are the issues of class?