Ronald L. Jackson

White space, White privilege : Mapping discursive inquiry into the self

This study explores the role of communication in the strategic self‐definition of whiteness. The transcripts from two focus group interviews (with Whites from two Historically Black Universities) are used to map the discourses of “White” participants concerning the nature of whiteness. The maps, when analyzed, uncovered significant commentary about White space and White privilege. Five strategies of representation emerged from the discursive territories. They identify whiteness as: (1) incompletion, (2) uninterrogateable space, (3) metaphor for the universal insider, (4) guilty and fair space, and (5) situationally immutable. The results imply that the space that Whites occupy is unclearly constructed and defined, and therefore is enigmatic.

Shifting Academic Landscapes: Exploring Co-Identities, Identity Negotiation, and Critical Progressive Pedagogy

After reviewing issues of The Speech Teacher and Communication Education from inception through 2003, the authors note the absence of any prolonged, systematic investigation of the influence of race or the interplay of multiple cultural identities in academic settings. This introductory essay articulates the importance of acknowledging the existence of multiple identities in our classrooms (some visible, others not) and assessing our biases towards these cultural markers as we teach our courses. Critical pedagogy is offered as a viable option allowing educators to function as change agents deconstructing and replacing restrictive pedagogy with more progressive approaches to teaching and conducting research.

Cultural contracts theory: Toward an understanding of identity negotiation

This essay introduces a nascent paradigm for exploring identity shifting and identity negotiation. Cultural Contracts Theory metaphorically explains the attitudinal and social predispositions interactants have when relating to others within and without ones own culture

In the deep valley with mountains to climb: exploring identity and multiple reacculturation

Abstract It is rare to find studies that focus on the multiple reacculturation of travelers who regularly alternate residences between their homeland and a host foreign country. These travelers are best described as intercultural transients. It is difficult to exactly say how many transients exist today because of the lack of accurate data. What is clear, however, is that the number is increasing because of improved global transportation and the large economic gaps between nations (World Telecommunications Development Report, Author, 1994). In an effort to extend general knowledge as well as consequences of intercultural adjustment, this conceptual-theoretic study facilitates understanding of the complex experience of these individuals who live on cultural borders negotiating both frequent cultural transitions and their cultural identities (Cultural Studies, Routledge, New York, 1992, pp. 96–116; Communication and Identity Across Cultures, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1998, pp. 34–55). Within this essay, first, we review the acculturation and reacculturation literature within the discipline of communication and note what is missing in this literature. Then, we present a new concept called “cyclical curves” to explain multiple reentry. Additionally, we offer one example of a typical intercultural transients experience followed by a proposed taxonomy of intercultural transients. Also, we review several theoretical notions that help us understand the process of identity negotiation experienced by intercultural transients, while identifying coping strategies that may facilitate identity negotiation. Finally, we re-introduce a theory that has only recently emerged in intercultural communication studies—cultural contracts theory (African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture, 2nd Edition, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2002; Communities, Creations, and Contradictions: New Approaches to Rhetoric for the Twenty-first Century, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, MI, in press-a; Commun. Quarterly, 50(4) (2002); Howard J. Commun. 12(4) (2002) 43–57; J. Rural Commun. Psychol. E4(1). [Online Journal]. http://www.marshall.edu/JRCP/ )—to conceptually frame the ontological nature and problems confronted by transients.

White Student Confessions about a Black Male Professor: A Cultural Contracts Theory Approach to Intimate Conversations about Race and Worldview

In the present investigation, we seek to explore racial relationships in a meaningful way that opens discussion about racial and gendered beings, particularly Black males. We qualitatively examine White student responses to their Black male professors presence and pedagogy in the classroom during a required course titled “Intercultural Communication.” The results indicated that the White student participants tended initially to be more critical toward their Black male professor, and over time were more accepting and trusting of him, yet not so willing to forfeit their fairly conservative views on social reality.

Tracing the Evolution of ''Race," ''Ethnicity," and ''Culture" in Communication Studies

In the 1960s Clyde Kluckhohn recognized the ambiguous implications and usage of race, ethnicity, and culture within scientific inquiry; furthermore, he commented about the frequency and significance of this phenomenon. Even in the 1990s this conundrum persists. Prior research has not critically examined the tendency to freely substitute race, ethnicity, and culture as identity prefixes within communication studies. Much of the extant literature assigns the origin and meaning of these constructs to anthropological and/or social psychological studies rather than to the discipline of communication. This is not to suggest that identity studies be limited to a communication purview but that all cultural-studies scholars carefully scrutinize what is meant by these frequently used and loosely defined labels. Although there may be no universal agreement across disciplines, cultural communication studies will be enhanced by the clear differentiation of terms. This article is an initial exploration (not a definitiv...

Exploring African American Identity Negotiation in the Academy: Toward a Transformative Vision of African American Communication Scholarship

Within this article, I have three simple objectives: to explain (1) where we are as African American communication researchers, (2) how we arrived at this point, and (3) where we should go from here. In explaining where we are, I assess the state of African American communication research. Then I introduce the cultural contracts paradigm to facilitate strategies of transformation and gradual agency over the politics of identity, which continue to restrict African American communicology. Finally, I discuss both my visions and an agenda for the future of African American communication research.Within this article, I have three simple objectives: to explain (1) where we are as African American communication researchers, (2) how we arrived at this point, and (3) where we should go from here. In explaining where we are, I assess the state of African American communication research. Then I introduce the cultural contracts paradigm to facilitate strategies of transformation and gradual agency over the politics of identity, which continue to restrict African American communicology. Finally, I discuss both my visions and an agenda for the future of African American communication research.

Black “Manhood” as Xenophobe An Ontological Exploration of the Hegelian Dialectic:

Often the history of our struggle as Black people is made synonymous with the efforts of Black males to have patriarchal power and privilege.... Until Black people redefine in a nonsexist revolutionary way the terms of our liberation, Black women and men will always be confronted with the issue of whether supporting feminist efforts to end sexism is inimical to our interests as a people. (hooks, 1989, p. 178)

Octalog III: The Politics of Historiography in 2010

The field of rhetoric has historically been defined by competing visions of language and education—and by the conviction that these debates have significance for public life. James J. Murphy highlighted this point at the beginning of Octalog I (1988) when he noted the field’s consistent engagement with the idea that “what is at stake . . . ought to be discovered for the good of the community” (5). The Octalogs have provided a space for exploring varied notions concerning rhetoric’s role in serving a common good and assessing the contentious nature of that undertaking. These conversations have included a wide range of perspectives concerning rhetoric’s role in public and private life, methods of researching and writing rhetorical history, and the values that surround our work. They have suggested that our field’s notion of “truth” is multiplicitous and incomplete. Octalog I sparked new scholarship by asking us to uncover and recover histories that have been neglected or hidden. The panelists highlighted assumptions about power, knowledge, and struggle that are embedded in every construction of history. They discussed the importance of creative research methodologies, what constitutes evidence, who and what should be included in our histories, and how researchers’ positions and goals affect their interpretations. Octalog II (1997) extended these discussions by pointing us toward the importance of local, contested, and marginalized histories and rhetorical practices and encouraging us to listen for the silences that have been left out of well-known historical accounts. The discussions urged a continued awareness about how moving the margins to center revises our sense of rhetorical history.

Civil Discourse in the Face of Complex Social Issues

Today, as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century, national and global social issues continue and emerge at a challenging pace. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tsunamis in Asia, Hurricane Katrina, genocide in Darfur, the global economic crisis, driving while black and brown, the earthquake in Haiti, floods in Pakistan, the burgeoning prison industrial complex, the repeal and reinstatement of the ‘‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’’ policy, disappeared women in Juarez, Mexico, and tensions between North and South Korea*all of these environmental, economic, political, and social events, and many more like them, confront humans here and abroad in profoundly significant ways. Some might even go so far as to say philosophically that taking care of ourselves collectively is a necessary part of being human. At the same time that these social events have erupted, a 2.0 technological revolution has been underway. We are now witness to a transformation of the global communication infrastructure, ranging from the broad ‘‘digitalization of communication’’ to the more specific emergence of, for example, reality television, mobile media and telephones, wireless technologies, blogs, and social networking sites, all of which have made communication as it relates to social life vastly more complex*for some, more interesting; for others, more challenging*increasing not only the ways we communicate and the amount of information and the quality and kind of information we receive, but also the social challenges and possibilities we must face. And, thus, the transformation in the ways we communicate affects what we can do collectively to address humanity’s problems. Given that many powerful and devastating social issues and events are not yet behind us and the likelihood that more events of both lesser and greater magnitude and frequency are yet ahead of us, this special issue addresses the role of civic and civil discourse as it relates to social issues in the public and in scholarship*today and into the future. Additionally, we suggest, part of the problematic of conceiving of civic and civil discourse about social issues has to do with the massive emergence of new media, and hence the dramatically transformed communication environment that exists. Ostensibly, conceiving of a civic and civil discourse about social issues and events within such a communication environment is complicated and, while helpful in some ways, may also be more difficult than in the past.