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PROJECT
1: The Problematic Moment Approach
Paper
presentation for 2000 ISPSO Symposium
James Cumming and Evangelina Holvino
DRAFT
5/15/00
USING THE
PROBLEMATIC MOMENT APPROACH TO ACCESS REPRESSED DISCOURSES AND
EMOTIONS IN GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS
ABSTRACT
A
problematic moment is a moment, typically a moment of silence, experienced
by a group that marks a disruption to a particular discourse of
values, beliefs, assumptions, and affect being constructed by the
group. The theory of problematic moments draws on the work of:
- Fairclough,
who brought together language analysis and social theory by
combining the social-theoretical approach of discourse with
the text-and-interaction approach of linguistically oriented
discourse analysis;
- Holvino,
who has integrated theories of group dynamics from the Tavistock
and National Training Laboratories (T-group) traditions; and
- Billig,
a discursive psychologist, who has reformulated the idea of
repression to show how it depends on the skills of language.
The
Problematic Moment Approach helps access the unspoken and silenced
discourses and emotions that conscious and unconscious power dynamics
may repress in a group and an organization. The Approach was used
to track the discourse of a two-day conference on issues of gender.
Three moments that occurred during the conference were identified
as problematic. A videotape of those moments, which we will show
in our presentation, was played back to conference organizers
who identified dominant and repressed conference discourses.
Further
analysis identified four unspoken norms operating during the conference.
Each problematic moment helps show how the rhetorical device of
replacement helped to repress the emotions that arose in conference
participants when there was transgression of those norms.
Paper presentation for 2000 ISPSO Symposium
James Cumming and Evangelina Holvino
DRAFT
5/15/00
USING THE
PROBLEMATIC MOMENT APPROACH TO ACCESS REPRESSED DISCOURSES AND
EMOTIONS IN GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS
In
fact, my whole outlook on social life is determined by this
question. How can we recognize the shackles that traditions
have laid upon us? For when we recognize them, we are also able
to break them.
Boas
Introduction
to the Problematic Moment Approach
A problematic
moment is a moment, typically a moment of silence, experienced
by a group that marks a disruption to a particular discourse of
values, beliefs, assumptions, and affect being constructed by
the group. Individual group members may not appreciate the significance
of the moment as it happens.
However, at
a later date a videotape of those moments can be played back that
enables participants to reflect in tranquility on the meaning
of the moments and to generate hypotheses about the nature of
the values, beliefs, and assumptions being contested. At another
level, it also allows participants to re-evaluate habitual responses,
particularly emotional ones, that may be triggered at such key
moments.
The value
of the problematic moment approach is that it allows access to
the unspoken and silenced discourses and emotions that conscious
and unconscious power dynamics may repress in a group. In other
words, the approach gives members of a group the opportunity to
see what the dominant discourse may have accomplished by the repression
of alternative discourses in an organization, perhaps seemingly
through processes of "rational" dialogue. Organizational members
also have the possibility of learning how some ways of thinking
about; talking about; and accomplishing the organizational tasks
get more attention than others.
Applying the
Approach
The authors
of this paper were asked by a Graduate School of Management (GSM)
in the USA to use the Problematic Moment Approach to track the discourse
of a two-day conference held in June 1999 for about one hundred
people, most of them white, US American women. The aim of the conference,
Gender at Work: Beyond White, Western, Middle-Class, Heterosexual
Professional Women, was:
To structure
a dialogue through which participants can surface and "unpack"
assumptions about gender in organizations that implicitly or
explicitly are based on the norm of white, Western, middle class,
heterosexual, professional women.
A team of
three conference participants was briefed to note the time when
problematic moments occurred in the conference. From this data,
three moments that occurred during the two conference days were
identified as problematic. The videotape of the conference was
edited to produce a videotape just containing these particular
moments. The edited tape was played back to a meeting of members
of the GSM who had participated in the conference for analysis
and discussion.
For the rest
of this paper I will refer to this group of people as "the Group."
As a result of their analysis, the Group identified concrete ways
to ensure that repressed discourses, emotions, and identities
are more present in future conferences.
The dominant
and repressed discourses identified by the Group for each problematic
moment are outlined in table form below. After that, a detailed
analysis of one of those problematic moments done by the Group
is presented. Then we present the theory of the Problematic Moment
Approach, which has particular relevance to emotions in organizations,
and use it to revisit the problematic moment analyzed in depth.
Overview of
the dominant and repressed discourse in the conference entitled
Problematic Moment #1: A Moment of Complicity
This
problematic moment occurred when the white female South African
panelist had run out of her allotted presentation time. In the moment,
she tries to negotiate with the leader of her panel, a colored South
African, and the audience for extra time to show a slide. The audience
supports her in opposition to the leader of the panel in gaining
more time for her presentation. Possible dominant and repressed
discourses at play here are outlined in the table.
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Dominant
Discourses
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Repressed
Discourses
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Idealization
of black South African women by the white female South African
panelist.
Negotiation
over time between white South African woman and a colored
South African woman "interrupted" by the audience of mainly
white US women. Their "whiteness" enables the white South
African woman to gain more time to talk.
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The
fear of the power of black women in the lives of white South
African women.
Visceral
responses of disapproval by the audience to the story of
the white South African's "black maid". White US American
women not owning their fear.
Complicity
between white women, black men, and women of color to challenge
a woman of color's leadership.
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Problematic
Moment #2: A moment when anguish was avoided
This
problematic moment occurred when an Indian woman in the audience
is the first to speak in an open discussion time after the panel
and the discussants have presented. She takes up a theme of the
pain and anguish that is always involved in social change - a
theme that develops from the content of the South African panel
and a female Indian discussant. There is a long silence after
she speaks. The topic of conversation moves to an announcement
about an economist's Web site.
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Dominant
Discourses
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Repressed
Discourses
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Academic
discourse re-asserts itself.
Move
into a discourse of economics.
"Language"
of analysis and outside observer.
Context
of "American soil" and business school re-established.
Unacknowledged
pain of white lesbian women competes with the pain of "others".
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Personal
feelings of anguish not responded to by the audience.
Connection
between women from the South (India and South Africa) stopped.
First
person "language" of personal experiences and joining with
the experience of others not engaged.
Participants
from the South become "guests".
Pain
of women from the South not discussed.
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Problematic
Moment #3: A moment when women of color are blatantly disappeared
This problematic moment occurred after a Latina presenter and
two discussants have talked about the "Disappearing dynamics of
women of color." Immediately on opening up the discussion to the
audience, the black male discussant thanks a white female for
the contribution she has made to his professional development.
For
the next twenty minutes the topic of conversation is between another
black male and different women in the audience on "fixed categories."
Dominant discourses Repressed discourses Black/white oppositional
dynamics established (no room for the "in-betweens," such as Latinos
and Asians). Academic discourse on "fixed categories".
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Dominant
Discourses
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Repressed
Discourses
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Black/white
oppositional dynamics established (no room for the "in-betweens,"
such as Latinos and Asians).
Academic discourse on "fixed categories".
Theme
of "change agents" discussed. Identified as a possible theme
for next year's conference. Discussion moved from the here-and-now
to the future. .
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Latina
presenter disappears.
Presenter
says, "I want to go home."
Her
presentation on how to avoid "fixed categories" has been
ignored.
Discourse
of protecting white women (not talking about their privilege
and their oppression which is the unarticulated pain of
white women).
White
women's pain avoided.
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Detailed
analysis of Problematic Moment #2
Context
of Problematic Moment #2
The
first person you see on the videotape of Problematic Moment #2
is Aruna, an Indian working in the US, who is a discussant for
a presentation made by a panel of people from South Africa. Prior
to the concluding comments she is making here, she focused primarily
on the importance of placing organizational change work in a social,
political, and economic context.
She asked
participants to reconsider some of the fundamental questions of
race, class, and gender change work: How does the experience of
organizational transformation inform the work we do as practitioners?
What are the specific gendered structures in organizations that
we're trying to change, and how are they connected to race and
class?
In the U.S.,
the split between work in organizations and family and social
life is difficult to bridge. It is also difficult to challenge
the myth of the heroic individual. She reflected that, while South
Africans tend to speak about the political context of their work
and to locate themselves within it, U.S. organizational change
work tends to be acontextual.
How, she asked,
does external context shape the deep structure of organizations?
For her, the most critical question in our efforts to deconstruct
race, class, and gender is "So what? Where do we go without a
social vision?" The conference now moves to a general discussion.
General
Discussion
The
first person to speak in the general discussion was Indira, a
professor from the Indian Institute of Management:
"I'd like
to make an observation. Make a personal statement. The kind
of, my visit to Africa, South Africa, has left an everlasting
impact. Because what I experienced then took me back to what
my country would have grappled with fifty years ago. It was
right there happening so it has made a very lasting impact.
"Listening
to the papers, what came through, and I'm listening to the themes
rather than individual papers, the questions are about being,
in the context of the kind of transformations, how is the societal
pathos going to be addressed. And one of them being the gender
issue. Because there is a pathos, there is a sadness, behind
what has happened.
"There
is also an anguish, that's what I heard you speak, a sort of
anguish came through of the past experience, of resentment,
anger, helplessness, of one group of people and another group
of people.
"But
you are carrying this. But there is, each citizen is carrying
that anguish, whether the elite or otherwise. The hardest being
there is also fear of change and there is a hope and aspiration
for change.
"There
is also being a celebration that a whole lot of new parts are
beginning to occur, a lot of new steps are being taken, but
many problems remain with the present system. And the point,
which I see is the strength, is the spiritual strength that
both men and women carry in this society, and how is that going
to be translated into dignified action?
"And
these are the issues, which rang through my mind as I listened.
Because with any transformation, there is a price to be paid.
And how that price is going to be opted for is a very specific
issue that I address in my work. ... that if transformation
is to occur in individual lives and in the organization, what
choices are you going to make, because in any choice there is
going to be a price."
Her comment
is followed by a silence of 10 seconds: Problematic Moment #2.
A professor
from a University Department of Economics is the next to speak:
"Well this
is changing the subject slightly from the last kind of. My name's
Lee, and I teach at the University of Massachusetts and I am
one of those feminist economists who would love to have a dialogue
with people who study organizations. So I just invite you to
check out the Web site, if I can remember the address (laughter).
It's the International Association for Feminist Economics the
University of Massachusetts.
"I
was going to give you a couple of example of places where I
think we can to think about things that are complimentary and
contradictory even. One was at our conference in Ottawa a week
or two ago. We had some people, some were from South Africa,
from Southern countries, who talked about the gender analysis
of budgets and a lot of what they had to say had to do with
how do you get these into organizations, how do you get them
taken seriously, how do you get the tools you need to actually
undertake that kind of analysis.
"So
that's something that the economist can sort of say here's what
you need when you get there but we're not really sure how to
get it in there to begin with and what to do with it from there.
The second thing that always runs through my head was we'd talk
about diversity and the value of the companies and that sort
of thing and all the theories that economists have about the
proper imperatives, so we need that.
"Sometimes
diversity serves its purposes and sometimes the inviting groups
taking advantage of things serve that purposes much more clearly
than does promoting and accommodating diversity. So that's just
a general comment and I actually wanted to raise a second issue
which is sort of missing from the overall discussions by what
I can tell it's in the title but it has to do with sexuality
and there's no one here speaking on this but folks from South
Africa, a couple of them alluded to this, it seems to me that
that's a very interesting example, maybe a counter-example of
some kind, to where the Constitution also protects against discrimination
against, on the basis of sexual orientation, but doesn't seem
to have either the same kind of constituency or the same sorts
of applications that the interest in gender equality has and
I'd be interested in hearing more from you all or from other
speakers throughout the conference on this issue."
Followed
by:
"I'd like
to piggyback on a couple of things that you just said. My name
is Laura. I'm from Catalyst and we're non-profit research and
advisory services consulting agency. And with regards to the
sexual orientation piece which hasn't been discussed much, we
find in organizations that it's the one thing that...."
For the rest
of this session, the discussion focuses on issues of sexual orientation
and the lack of attention to that issue in the conference.
Interviews
with Indira and Lee
James
Cumming was one of the trackers of the conference discourse. He
noted the silence described above as a possible problematic moment
and was able to interview the two key people involved immediately
after the session:
Indira:
"I felt I had gone too deep too fast, because I went into the
feeling tonality of the world and I think the feelings are not
necessarily really much a part of living reality here."
James: "What in this context here?"
Indira: "No this context definitely has a lot of emotions
and experiences because we are dealing with a topic that has
this. But talking about that personal anguish somehow it seemed
difficult in the Western context. So when it came abruptly,
for a while I thought maybe I did not connect, but then I felt
I was so into it and the way I work in my country this is so
real and people talk about the deprivations and the discriminations
and the helplessness. It evoked a lot of similarity of responses
so I stated that."
James: "Did you feel that the next person changed the
topic?"
Indira: "Yeah, I did. It also created anxiety when you
talk of this. At least I know it does."
James: "Did you feel then that there was anxiety created
in the room at that moment?"
Indira: "I felt that people did not ex�, that there was
a hushed silence and a very quick change of topic. So I thought
it was more avoidance. That's what I thought."
James'
interview with Lee immediately after the session
James:
"I thought there was a change in the topic."
Lee: "Oh there was definitely a change in the topic."
James: "Now what was going on for you at that moment?"
Lee: "At that particular moment?"
James: "Yes."
Lee: "Umm, well I had been thinking about raising this
issue for a while and so I wanted to, and I paused to see if
anyone else was going to say something that was more directly
responsive to her and when no one did, no one raised their hand
at all, then I said, well o.k."
Analysis
of Problematic Moments by GSM members
The
GSM conference planners spent an afternoon viewing and discussing
the videotape of the three Problematic Moments. Below is a summary
of some of the key themes that the Group identified for Problematic
Moment #2.
The Group
thought that Indira was asking a very hard question and that conference
members did not know how to engage with her. Her statement was
followed by an uncomfortable silence, which was not acknowledged.
Rather the conference moved to "academic intellectualizing," which
the Group identified as a typical pattern of their interaction
style in the GSM.
One member
of the Group said the South African panel had complained to her
that they had not been connected with in the conference and that
participants had not learned from their experience. There was
speculation that as the South African panel was followed by the
Indian discussant Aruna, who was then followed by another Indian
woman Indira, and that a really powerfully South-South connection
had been established in the room.
This connection
was immediately pushed to the margins by the turn to issues of
economics. One member of the Group remembered thinking during
the conference that as the event took place on "American soil,"
so maybe this was an appropriate turn in the conversation.
It was pointed
out that Indira used the powerful emotional word "anguish." Her
theme was about the pain that accompanies redistribution and improving
inequality in a post-colonial context. However, when someone talks
about something painful others either feel they cannot deal with
that pain, or respond by saying they have their own pain too.
The Group wondered how one could join with someone who is different,
especially in talking about pain.
One member
of the Group reported having a really strong reaction to Indira's
statement as it really struck her as being "real and the truth,
and something that needed to be talked about." She remembered
the conference title and concluded that the theme of the conference
was an invitation to engage in the issues that Indira had raised.
So, it was
interesting how the conference participants just kept "backing
off." Another Group member thought that the white South African
woman had named her pain as a white woman and that Indira had
picked it up and embrace it in a very interesting way. But the
pain of white women came to mask the pain of women of color. The
pain of white women is that they are not able to acknowledge both
their privilege and their oppression.
The relationships
that the Group was able to identify between the dominant and repressed
discourses that evolved during the period of time shown in the
video extract of Problematic Moment #2 are summarized in the box
on page 3. The other two conference problematic moments were similarly
discussed and summarized. The discussion concluded by listing
some ways that future conferences organized by the GSM could benefit
from these ideas.
Potential
application of these learnings for future GSM conferences
The Group wanted
to know how to organize future events so they allow for both strong
conceptual learning and for the kinds of discourses that
were repressed in this conference to be present. Some possible
ideas include:
1. Assign
someone the role of "Problematic Moment Tracker" who has time
allocated as part of the conference to make presentations on what
discourse the conference may be repressing.
2. At the
end of each day, small groups could talk about the problematic
moments that occurred during the day. The small groups with the
help of facilitators analyze these moments. The facilitators meet
to share learnings from all the moments and then give feedback
in a plenary.
3. Develop
a public process for studying problematic moments as part of the
agenda of the conference to help identify and be aware of the
dominant discourse and its effect on alternative discourses.
But
how was repression accomplished?
The
Group has constructed sets of interesting and sophisticated interpretations
about which discourses were dominant and which were repressed
in the conference. However, little has been said about how
that was accomplished in the conference setting and what was the
role of emotions in accomplishing repression. In order to say
something about that, we need to turn to the theory underlying
the problematic moment approach.
The Dialogic Unconscious
The theory
of problematic moments draws on the work of Norman Fairclough
who brought together language analysis and social theory by combining
the social-theoretical approach of discourse with the text-and-interaction
approach of linguistically oriented discourse analysis (Fairclough,
1992). It is to him that we owe the term "problematic moment"
and the idea of focusing analysis on small segments of text.
Cumming
has applied this theory in the context of the small group where
the idea of a problematic moment has come to take on a psychoanalytic
dimension drawn from the Tavistock tradition (Cumming, 1997).
Holvino's work on integrating theories of group dynamics from
the Tavistock and NTL traditions has helped us work the interactional
as well as the unconscious levels of group dynamics (Holvino,
2000).
And,
Michael Billig's work in the field of discursive psychology has
helped us to conceptualize the idea of the unconscious as dialogic
(Billig, 1999). He had reformulated the idea of repression to
show how it depends on the skills of language. For the purposes
of this paper, we will be focusing on the idea of the dialogic
unconscious to help explore emotional aspects of the problematic
moments described.
The idea of
the dialogic unconscious is that we use rhetoric to censor the
streams of our internal dialogue in the same way we use it to
censor the streams of our external dialogue. When we use language,
we regularly push aside, or repress, topics from our thoughts.
In fact, it is essential that we do so in the production of everyday
speech.
Just as we
have the rhetorical skills to open up matters for discussion,
so we also have the ability to close down matters discursively.
Routinely, we are able to change the subject and push conversations
away from difficult issues.
Changing the
topic of conversation is not necessarily a sign of repression,
but further signs (such as frequently avoiding a particular topic)
may suggest that the topic is uncomfortable and to be avoided.
In the same way that ideologies establish themselves as the only
acceptable way to think about something, so successful repression
disguises what it is doing by using the technique of replacement.
Something
else is usually said to cover the fact that a topic is being avoided.
When the smooth operation of replacement in conversation breaks
down, an uncomfortable silence may occur indicating to all that
they are avoiding, or do not want to engage in discussion about
a particular topic. At such a time, which is a problematic moment,
the workings of repression may be observed, as conversation is
no longer working to distract the attention of members of a group
from not talking about a particular topic.
Discursive
psychology maintains that the process of thinking and repression
are not individual, internal states, but rather ones that can
be observed and reflected upon in a group by listening to what
is talked about, not talked about, and how certain topics are
avoided. It is our claim that there are special moments in the
life of a group, which we call Problematic Moments, when the process
of repression breaks down momentarily and presents the group with
the opportunity to reflect on what it is repressing.
These are
typically signaled by moments of silence, or its opposite, moments
of din (confused noisiness) (Harlow, et. al., 1995). Of course,
participants in the group may or may not respond to this opportunity
to become aware of what they are repressing and to try to bring
a repressed discourse into the conversation.
Just as the
process of thinking is no longer seen as individual, internal
states so too are emotions. The ability to talk about emotions
means that they must be publicly observable. As children we learn
how to use the vocabulary of emotions by being told how our displays
and reactions are to be called. And usually talk of emotions concerns
more than a description of an internal subjective state. It is
essentially talk about social relations.
There are
subtle codes of emotion, which connect all interpersonal encounters.
Our judgments of the emotions of others are key to the quality
or continuation of our relationships. Depending on the context,
there is a social consciousness about what feelings to show in
what circumstances. For example, the academic context of this
conference sets up expectations about the social boundaries between
the right and wrong thing to do and to feel.
Whether or
not we conform to expected emotional performance itself depends
on our feelings about failure to conform. The emotions of embarrassment,
shame, and guilt are central to the organizational order (Fineman,
1993:17). In some circumstances these feelings can serve important
social functions. Repression can be progressive, moral, and socially
beneficial.
The case of
gender discrimination can serve as an example. Before the feminist
movement, men and women would unashamedly use an outward discourse
that privileged males in order to maintain a gendered social system.
Feminists were aware that the institutions of discrimination on
the basis of gender couldn't continue to function without these
outwardly gendered ways of talking and sought to change that.
Consequently,
as our awareness of gender discrimination has increased, so our
ways of talking have changed and vice versa. Ways of talking that
automatically privilege men are becoming increasingly unacceptable.
However, it is not sufficient just to prohibit certain forms of
public utterance. Internal controls also have to be set in place
so that the thought, as much as the outwardly spoken act, becomes
shameful.
A further
complication is that the conventions for the ascription of various
emotions are located in their particular cultural contexts. As
there are important cultural differences in the vocabulary of
emotions, we may not be able to correctly interpret certain emotional
displays if we are not familiar with the linguistic and cultural
context (Billig, 1999:189). Conventional signs of 'love' or 'anguish,'
for example, may differ significantly from culture to culture.
This adds a further complication to the problems of communicating
across cultures and social identities, which are highlighted in
the Problematic Moments discussed in this paper.
Repressed
discourses and emotions made visible in the Problematic Moments
We
now revisit the three Problematic Moments to see if we can deepen
our understanding of how discourses and emotions were repressed
in the conference.
In the description
of Problematic Moment #1, Ilze, the white South African woman,
was a skilful and articulate presenter. She told a story about
how she had come to reflect on the life her Black maid had lived
while she was growing up, what her living conditions were like,
and how she must have hated having to serve privileged white children.
In the context
of South Africa, we expect that many white women would have been
able to identify emotionally with her story as they probably experienced
the same situation as children. As adults in the new political
context, they would be struggling with issues of guilt about the
highly privileged status they automatically took on.
However, at
the conference, the response of US white women to the story was
very different. It was clear that many people in the room felt
extremely uncomfortable listening to this story.
When working
with the Group to analyze the problematic moments we did not clarify
what that uncomfortable feeling was about. So, our ideas about
the possible reasons are more speculative. Our view is that Ilze's
story transgressed at least two unspoken norms present for the
conference audience:
- Members
of a dominant group should not tell stories that can be seen
as reasserting or reminding people of their dominance, especially
across race lines, in an audience committed to the rhetoric
of meritocracy and equality.
- Members
of a dominant group should not present information as factual
about subordinate group members they do not know well, especially
across race lines, in an audience committed to the rhetoric
of meritocracy and equality.
The feelings
generated in the audience by Ilze transgressing these norms were
repressed when the presenter asked for extra time from the leader
of their team (Problematic Moment #1). The largely white audience
was able to join her and make it difficult for the colored leader
of the team to enforce the agreed time boundary. They may have
done this to re-establish the apartheid discourse of supremacy
in that moment, or to assuage the guilt generated by Ilze's story
and their own reaction to it..
We now turn
to Problematic Moment #2. As we have seen, a long period of silence
occurred after Indira spoke and the audience did not respond to
Indira's discourse of anguish. What unspoken norms present in
the conference audience were transgressed at this point? We have
identified two:
- Members
of subordinate groups should speak "standard American English"
at an academic conference in the US in order to be heard. This
is more than just speaking with the appropriate accent. This
also means following the interactional rules governing displays
of affect and other aspects of communication. As a result of
this norm, listeners do not feel obligated to do the cross-cultural
work necessary to clarify meaning across social and cultural
differences. Dominants can use this norm as an excuse to disregard
what subordinates are saying.
- Members
of subordinate groups should not present the postcolonial discourse
from the subaltern perspective in an academic conference in
the US. The subaltern cannot speak back (Spivak, 1988). In particular,
a subaltern discourse cannot be allowed to emerge from the audience
itself in a personalized way.
The emotions
and thoughts generated in the audience by Indira's comments were
repressed and replaced by talk of a Web site. However, because
of the silence the transition was not smoothly accomplished, there
remained an uncomfortable feeling that something important had
been avoided.
In her presentation
before Problematic Moment #3, Aida had personalized the pain of
the subordinate in a way that went beyond the usual form of framing
issues of discrimination in the US: the racial dynamics of black-white
relations. Moreover she did that speaking standard US American
English and using the rules of academic discourse.
Latina issues
in the US are another kind of postcolonial discourse and, just
as with Indira, the unspoken norm is that the subaltern cannot
be allowed to speak back. Perhaps it was doubly unacceptable that
the subaltern was speaking in the language of the dominants, so
that the response of the audience was to engage in a highly academic
discussion about "fixed categories" while it disappeared the presenter.
Recognizing
the "shackles" that traditions have laid upon us
We have identified
four of the unspoken norms, which we believe operated during the
conference. We have argued that at certain times the rhetorical
device of replacement repressed the emotions that arose in conference
participants when there was transgression of these unspoken norms.
It is probable that the norms identified are the norms of white,
western, middle-class, and heterosexual professional women, which
the conference had attempted to go beyond.
Using
the Problematic Moment Approach, the Group had been able to identify
dominant and repressed discourses. However, it is only when the
authors of this paper started paying attention to emotional issues
that we were able to move to a deeper level of analysis and to
put names to some of the "shackles that traditions have laid upon"
white academics in the US.
Another possible
norm in operation at this conference is embedded in the power
of academic discourse. In the English intellectual tradition,
emotions are considered irrelevant. The feelings behind a statement
are supposed not to affect its truth or falsity. One is not supposed
to accept a proposition made by another just on the basis of being
able to join with that person's feelings.
This norm
is fundamental to academic life, since to accept propositions
based solely on the grounds of the congruence of another's feelings
with one's own feelings is to deny "reality" altogether. However,
in our view, a genuinely "objective" approach to learning must
always be in the process of trying to become aware of its own
ideology. And, as we have seen, any transgression of ideology
will lead to a strong emotional experience by a group.
But, if emotions
are considered irrelevant, we then have a powerful norm that prevents
people from ever gaining awareness of their ideology through coming
to understand their emotional experiences as a group. It is time
to confront that academic norm.
Postscript
We would like
to thank the GSM for the opportunity to do this work. The GSM
hired Chaos Management, Ltd. to undertake this study and to work
with the Group to try to understand some of the repressed dynamics
in their conference so that they could improve future conferences.
They placed no restrictions on making their name public. Their
only requirement was that we obtained permission from the key
participants in the video clips of the Problematic Moments before
showing them.
However,
to avoid any possibility that the ideas presented here could in
some ways be unthinkingly used as a criticism of an organization
we strongly support, we have used the acronym "GSM" instead of
their real name. For anyone interested in learning more about
the exciting and innovative work on the study of gender in organizations
that the GSM is undertaking, we will be pleased to provide them
with contact information.
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