[Ethnocomm] e-seminar

[Gerry Philipsen]

Kris

Several have given great responses to you, I'd like add a point or two.

1. I think most ethnographers of communication working in the communication discipline
would love to have a research and teaching colleague who is an applied linguist. If you see
the work of someone you like, think you would benefit from working with them and that you 
have something to offer them, I'd recommend you start up a conversation with them. Don't
be discouraged by initial "no thanks," try someone else.

2. In my experience, most ethnographers of communication work alone, at least on their own
ethnographic work (although there are some great exceptions to the rule). Most of the 
time that there are collaborations they are triggered by a graduate student who comes from one
discipline and takes a class in another. If you welcome comm grads into your grad courses,
that could be the start of something important for them, and maybe for you, and maybe for
their comm prof. It might happen in ways that you had never anticipated.

3. My most recent experience with data-based publications is with a team of four authors,
two nursing profs, a professor of medicine, and me. We have team-authored two ethnographic
publications now. We came together because one of the authors was once a student in my
two-quarter methods sequence, 10 years ago. Our joint publications came 10 years
later. Not everyone can afford such a long wait. Sometimes collaborations can be expedited.

4. Yes, the odds are that "critical" scholars might not want to collaborate with non-critical
scholars. There is hope, perhaps, for even the most fallen, but it's a huge gamble. I've 
been burned. Probably better to look for an open-minded person.

--Gerry



On Sun, 7 Feb 2016, Kris Acheson-Clair wrote:

> 
> When I first read the Katriel and Leeds-Hurwitz texts, I was struck by the positive tone of each piece – commendably, they seem to me full of excitement and possibility. I used to believe
> myself an optimist, but perhaps after a couple of decades of critical scholarship that is no longer entirely the case, for Trudy Milburn’s cautionary discussion of “questions to grapple
> with” resonated with me strongly. After going back and taking another look at my earlier notes, especially on Wendy’s section on Interdisciplinarity, I felt compelled to add my voice here.
> 
>  
> 
> My own experience with interdisciplinarity has been a bit disheartening, to be frank. Although it functions as a buzz word at the institutional level, often finding its way into discourses
> of strategic goals and initiatives,  it seems to me at the departmental level that interdisciplinarity is commonly resisted. The tree metaphor is useful here: folks in different branches
> not only often have no idea what is happening elsewhere, even in parallel branches where the same kinds of tools (like EC) are being used and the same phenomena are of interest, but also
> sometimes discount out of hand work done elsewhere, for example not counting towards tenure studies published in cognate disciplines and limiting new hires to scholars with a very
> particular degree or career trajectory.
> 
>  
> 
> I greatly appreciated the historical perspective that Wendy further developed at the beginning of her response, and in a continued spirit of hope for the future I would love to hear from
> contemporary EC scholars who are successfully working in very interdisciplinary ways. Perhaps your academic home is outside of Communication or you have an appointment across departments.
> Perhaps you consistently work in interdisciplinary research teams. Perhaps you publish widely outside of your primary field. Please inspire those of us who have met resistance when crossing
> boundaries: What insights do your positive interdisciplinary experiences offer for this vision of EC’s future?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Kris
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Kris Acheson
> 
> Director of Undergraduate Studies
> 
> Department of Applied Linguistics
> 
> Georgia State University
> 
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