complex creatures are we

Despite the bone-dry textbook style of “The History of the Study of IC," Martin and Nakayama put forth some definitions that could benefit me, and certainly our class discussions, in a big way. I appreciated the section where they explained the three approaches to intercultural communication: social science, interpretive, and critical. I had never seen them spelled out quite this plainly, and was especially interested in the critical approach’s focus on macrocontexts (14). I guess it gave me a name for the disturbing distance that I notice in academic research between “expert” and “subject.”

While I tend to view social issues on a systemic level, I also believe that the up-close-and-personal human interactions tell us far more than what we are capable of learning from our office in the sky. For a year, I worked as the director of a homeless lunch program in Seattle, and there’s something profound and invaluable to me about my ability to vividly remember the voices, sights, and smells of that particular “contact zone.” While I was aware of the broader societal causes at play, it was the close-quarters, in-your-face reality of it all that led me to deeper, more compassionate understandings of what it means to be homeless.

I must admit that Martin and Nakayama lost a little credibility when I laid eyes on the contrived photo of an overly eager woman interviewing a member of the Brethren Order. Remember the one? The caption read: “One way to study and learn about cultural patterns is to interview other people” (12). Wait a minute… do they mean I should actually communicate with people I’m curious about or studying? What a concept.

As for Holliday, Hyde, and Kullman… I’m fascinated by this concept of our multi-dimensionality. We are complex, vast, and varied, and the more we try to essentialize one another, the more we bust out of those constructions. They suggest that we see ourselves as “members of several communities,” (58) and are, therefore, much more adaptable than we let ourselves believe. We are living contradictions and mergers, which can be a beautiful thing. If I were asked to describe my father, I’d say he is a veterinarian and a hunter, an animated story-teller and an anti-social stoic, a singer of harmonies and a believer in all things masculine. And that’s just one human.

The “real Indian” argument in Wieder and Pratt kinda made me wanna ralph. How’s that for an intellectual analysis? Honestly, I felt like I couldn’t absorb the substantive info (if there was any) because I couldn’t get past the objective, cold, presumptuous tone. It felt like it came from a "push to publish" place rather than from the writers' natural curiosity. A gigantic contrast to this was "Concerted Cultivation," which I found to be humble, thoughtful, and up-close.

Pratt et al

I paused at Pratt's definition of transculturation and read it a few times: "processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or metropolitan culture." The concept sounded familiar, and then I remembered reading Juan Guerra's, a professor at UW, attempt to take transculturation a step further through something he calls transcultural repositioning. He suggests that the repositioning piece speaks to the change, or newfound awareness, that happens within people after they make their selections and inventions. In other words, "marginal groups" sort through both the gold and the hogwash they've been dealt from the dominant culture and reposition themselves (and their self-perceptions) accordingly.

Guerra and Pratt agree that this is not an easy concept to make space for in the classroom. It's not comfortable. It's not simple. It requires facing horrific historical realities and it refuses the allowance of hiding behind niceties. As Pratt says about the new course she taught, "No one was excluded, and no one was safe." If only we could all teach with this as our motto! I'm getting fired up now, but I think that's a brilliant way of viewing a classroom's energy and potential. While I hope all students feel safe, I'd rather have the entire class feel a bit unsafe than have one international (or "other") student feel alienated. That way, transculturation would no longer be the burden of students who've traditionally been left out, but instead all students would be called to practice it. Make any sense? It does to me, but maybe I'm just drunk on Blogg (oh wait, that was Glogg, a Scandinavian mulled wine I had at Christmastime).

Intro and Expectations

I am a first-year MA student in Rhet/Comp. I have a BA in print journalism and a minor in sociology, which led me to a bit o' newspaper writing. When pumping out a handful of shallow, rushed stories each week proved to be an enormous disappointment, I fled. For my sanity. For my unborn children. For your unborn children's unborn children. I wanted to be involved in real stories with people who cared about more than spitting out blippy sound bites on highway construction and zoning laws. Zoning laws... sounds like zoning... sounds like contact zones...

I'm interested in looking at the realities new immigrant students face as they enter U.S. universities. I'm interested in analyzing the classroom as a cultural space where power, politics, and customs merge and collide. I'm interested in taking a critical look at the mixed messages we send students in our comp. classrooms regarding voice, language, and expression. I'm interested in moving from theory to practice when it comes to honoring home languages, but I'm not even sure how that would look yet. Enter classmates, curriculum, and Dr. Monroe!

day one verdict: blog time = good time

I wasn't so sure about this blogging business, but now that I've dipped my toes in, I've gotta say it's almost as satisfying as a wild blueberry smoothie. Yums.

Class expectations and proper introduction to come...