help with communication disconnects, high context communication

[Browne,Kate]

Greetings!
I am new to this list and by training, am a cultural anthropologist, not a linguist. So thanks in advance for allowing me to participate in discussions.

I have a two-part question:
In my longterm work with a large family impacted by Katrina, I have documented their struggles to communicate with disaster recovery authorities. There are various types of communication failures that occurred between these culturally distinct groups, all of which led to prolonged suffering for the residents .

I am looking for any literature that might help me label or explain these disconnects across cultural groups. Everyone speaks English, but the embedded assumptions of bureaucrats and the jargon they use make no sense to many blacks in SE Louisiana who have had little or no experience negotiating with bureaucratic institutions. Most of them experience encounters with bureaucrats as bewildering at the least and often, as infuriating and crazy-making. I can also see that for some people, their own sense of agency is undermined because of the repeated problems of failed communications.

Related to the failed communications is the fact that the speech of family members is a high-context style of communication and very few members know how to codeswitch into a low-context, middle-class style for talking with bureaucrats.

I know of Cushman's work. Are there other sources that could help me make sense of the disconnects I have found and explain their damaging impact? With respect to high and low context communication, are these ideas still considered useful? Are there other frameworks that might be important to consider?

Thank you!

Kate Browne


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Katherine E. Browne
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787
970-491-5813
research: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~browne/<https://mail.colostate.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=UVlCEUEh1UCcJHeS1I1vSsCrlor4qM8IGpX_2Q39MRcikER1EDthiHO0uGc_kTBOpy-EoojKQng.&URL=http%3a%2f%2flamar.colostate.edu%2f%7ebrowne%2f>
Katrina film: http://www.stillwaiting.colostate.edu/<https://mail.colostate.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=UVlCEUEh1UCcJHeS1I1vSsCrlor4qM8IGpX_2Q39MRcikER1EDthiHO0uGc_kTBOpy-EoojKQng.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.stillwaiting.colostate.edu%2f>
Caribbean film: http://www.liftingtheweight.colostate.edu/<https://mail.colostate.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=UVlCEUEh1UCcJHeS1I1vSsCrlor4qM8IGpX_2Q39MRcikER1EDthiHO0uGc_kTBOpy-EoojKQng.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.liftingtheweight.colostate.edu%2f>
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