discomfort

[Seth L. Kahn-Egan]

I'm interested in the same issues to apply to a different context.  A
colleague and I are interested in putting together a conference panel on
the "uses" and "problems" of discomfort in the writing classroom.  The
issue arose at a presentation I did at 4Cs in Atlanta this past weekend,
in the context of fieldwork assignments for Composition courses.  In fact,
if anybody's interested in talking about this idea for a panel for next
year's 4Cs, we're interested in collecting participants.

Seth Kahn-Egan, Syracuse U.

Seth Kahn-Egan
Syracuse University
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
slkahneg at mailbox.syr.edu
103 Trinity Pl. Second Floor
Syracuse, NY 13210
315-423-8042 (home)
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On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, David Samuels wrote:

> I've also sent this message to the linganth list, so I apologize if you
> receive it more than once.  Thanks.
>
> ---------
>
> Hi all.  I've got a little interesting dilemma that I thought some folks on
> the list might be able to wrap their brains around.
>
> A student in my Ethnographic Field Methods class (NOT, I should point out,
> a linganth field methods course) wants to do a project on "uncomfortable
> situations" - contexts in which one or more participants are less at ease
> than others.  She's interested in what contexts trigger discomfort, how
> people signal that they are uncomfortable (through body language and other
> discourse cues), how the more comfortable participants interpret and
> respond to the discomfort of others, why this might be an important thing
> for participants to signal to each other, what it says about social
> relations.
>
> Anyway.  She's faced with two broad problems.  First, the
> ethnomethodological one, of how she can reasonably interpret certain cues
> as indexing discomfort rather than something else (the blink/wink thing);
> second, you know, ethnographically, it's hard for her to go up to someone
> and say "gee, you look really uncomfortable, can I interview you about it?"
> That would seem to exacerbate the problem.
>
> If anyone's got any ideas about how these questions can be addressed in the
> context of a fieldwork class, I'd be really appreciative.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> David W. Samuels, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 212 Machmer Hall
> University of Massachusetts
> Amherst, MA 01003
>
> VOX: (413) 545-2702
> FAX: (413) 545-9494
> email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu
> http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~samuels/
>