[Linganth] Call for Abstracts (SLA 2020): Putting out Fires: Communicative Crises in the Workplace

[ROSALIE BETH EDMONDS]

Dear colleagues,

Sonya Rao and I are putting together a panel on workplace communication for
the SLAs in April, and are still looking for others to join us (please see
below). With the new submission deadline in mind, we are hoping to receive
abstracts by Wednesday, 12/11.

All the best,

Rosalie Edmonds and Sonya Rao


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Panel Title: Putting Out Fires: Communicative Crises in the Workplace

Organizers:
Rosalie Edmonds, Lecturer, UCLA Department of Anthropology;
redmonds at ucla.edu
Sonya Rao, PhD Candidate, UCLA Department of Anthropology; sonyarao at ucla.edu


This panel seeks papers that examine crises of communication in the
workplace, and how the crises of capitalism, colonialism, and contemporary
ecofascism arise and are confronted in the workplace. Scholars of
communication have looked to the workplace as a site to explore social
hierarchy, institutional behavior, and patterns of interaction. Workplaces
and their hierarchies often act as sites of oppression and compel workers
to conform to institutional expectations – discursively (Urciuoli and
LaDousa 2013), ideologically (Kroskrity 1998, Mertz 2007) and in
interaction (Hall 1995, Heritage and Clayman 2010). On the other hand,
workplaces are also sites for political organizing, for workers to improve
their own working conditions, as well as to strike and bargain for a
variety of other community benefits.

This panel asks: how can linguistic anthropologists use the tools of
conversation analysis, ethnography of communication, and sociolinguistic
interpretation to carry on the traditions of observing communication in the
workplace, while responding to the political crises of 21st century working
contexts? How can we use these methods to understand and document the
liberatory potential of workplace communication?

Discourses of transformation might not reflect workplace dynamics – where
gendered, sexual, racial and caste orders inherited from former regimes
still dominate. These discourses manifest in workplace interactions, where
workers reinforce and/or contest language ideologies, epistemic legacies,
and political oppression. In this panel, we hope to define and expand the
role of linguistic anthropologists in understanding and describing
contemporary workplace communication.


Please send us a 250-word abstract for consideration by Wednesday December
11th at 6pm. Email us at:
sonyarao at ucla.edu
redmonds at ucla.edu
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