Communication Studies

Over the years, Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis has become the primary theoretical approach to intergroup contact, yet researchers are just now beginning to explore specific contact contexts. This article introduces proactive performance as a context for intergroup contact. Specifically, interACT, a collegiate performance troupe located at California State University, Long Beach, is used to demonstrate how proactive performance meets the requisite conditions of the contact hypothesis; i.e., promoting social change. Moreover, proactive performance is able to account for several important mediating and moderating variables in intergroup contact. With this in mind, this article is illustrative of praxis, or the intersection between theory and practice. KEYTERMS contact hypothesis, contact theory, identity, interACT, intergroup contact, prejudice, proactive performance According to Allport (1954), there are a number of necessary conditions that are optimal for what he called ''intergroup contact,'' or contact between social groups. Importantly, the goal of intergroup contact is to reduce prejudice. When prejudice between groups is reduced, then the potential for building community can occur. This article introduces proactive performance (Pelias & VanOosting, 1987) as a relevant context where intergroup contact takes place and can ultimately improve social relations and cultivate community.

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In 2007, Deanna L. Fassett and John T. Warren articulated the intersections of critical pedagogy and communication scholarship in their theoretical development and subsequent publication of Critical Communication Pedagogy. Their 10 commitments provide the foundation of much of the work communication pedagogues do in the classroom, particularly regarding the classroom as a consequential site of social justice and social change. A challenge for educators approaching their vocations within an ethic of critical pedagogy has been to materialize such an ethic in their classroom work. Additionally, educators have taken on the task of critical analysis of educational practices and policies, analysis facilitated by the commitments of critical communication pedagogy. Fassett and Warren's emphasis on the constitutive role of communication is instructive in this regard. Likewise, Communication Teacher has long been involved in the dissemination and analysis of classroom processes and practices. This special issue locates itself at the nexus of critical practice, constitutive communication, and the classroom. More specifically, it provides readers with a series of engagement essays that center critical communication pedagogy practice. As guest editors, we had the distinct pleasure of reading through a plethora of fantastic ideas that exemplify just a handful of the ways our discipline takes seriously the critical perspective so desperately needed in this contemporary socio-historical moment. With the assistance of over 40 reviewers, we have selected a series of essays applicable to courses such as intercultural communication, communication pedagogy, research methods, gender and communication, race and communication, interpersonal communication, family communication, organizational communication, argumentation and advocacy, public speaking, persuasion, and media studies. In other words, we are confident that this collection will find a home in a variety of institutions, with a variety of students, taught by a variety of persons. More importantly, our authors encourage instructors and students to ask questions such as: How might a dialogic approach to family conflict initiate more compassionate familial relationships? How do our textbooks under-and misrepresent a diversity of human experience? How do power and privilege play out in everyday interactions? How can future teachers practice critical assessment while working towards developing social justice pedagogy? How do larger social discourses impact mundane communicative experiences, and how might individuals intervene in those discourses? We look forward to seeing the impact of these activities as they meet students in the classroom. More significantly, we appreciate the opportunity to participate in the

Her research and teaching both revolve around critical communication pedagogy, as well as the intersections of communication and identity. She has published essays in collections such as Handbook of Autoethnography and Identity and Communication Research: Intercultural Reflections and Future Directions, and journals such as Critical Education and Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies.

In this essay, we investigate the potential of letters as a communicative genre that embodies dialogue, and thus, disrupts power relations. To do so, we first outline a theoretical framework that draws upon feminist and critical communication pedagogies. We specifically focus on two scholars—Nel Noddings and Paulo Freire—for the ways they utilize dialogue in developing their pedagogical positions. We then explain our epistolary method of letter writing, which stood as the central component of a semester-long project between us as student and teacher.  We use excerpts from our letters to analyze the epistolary form as conducive to dialogic engagement—what we call epistolary dialogue .  We argue that epistolary dialogue is made possible due to letters being invitational, temporal, personal, and constructive.

The authors trace the development of ethnographic practices according to the methodological assumptions of ethnographers within different historical periods. As communication scholars, the authors find Calvin O. Schrag's conceptualization of the self to be informative and advantageous for navigating an ethnographic sense of ‘self in the current status of the methodological contestation. Borrowing from Schrag’ s work, which focuses on communicative praxis in understanding the self, this article explores an innovative methodological framework called automethodology. By examining the deployment and emplotment of the self within the automethods of autobiography, autoethnography, narrative co-construction, community autoethnography, critical complete-member ethnography, reflexive ethnography, autoperformance, and layered account, the authors develop epistemological foundations for praxis-oriented ethnographers. Throughout this journey, the authors end up situating themselves in a pla...

In many ways, Trail Mix is a performance born of the trail. The first movement, ''Hiking Breath,'' happened more or less the way I describe it in the script, although the performance elides campfire reflections and conversations about the performative elements of backpacking. It is not my purpose in this framing essay to track all of those origins and explanations of the script. Rather, I will focus on the central piece, ''Reflection,'' as the mise-en-abyme of the entire performance. Contained within that small spider's web and the illusions of Mylar we spin together are much of the motivations and inspirations for Trail Mix. First, ''Reflection'' is a poem that plays off of an encounter, of seeing something in the woods and then looking closer and then looking again. Part of my desire in Trail Mix is to investigate such encounters as texts and opportunities for reading. The reading in this instance is not just interpretation of some pre-existing, objective phenomenon*it is also, importantly, an act of creation. The hot afternoon hike spirals into a moment of the carnivalesque where the low (a piece of trash) is made high (a delicate crystal bowl) by my interpretive shift of perspective. I situate this poem at the structural midpoint of the performance, the third of five acts. The dual function of the spider's Mylar/bowl as both lens and reflector is significant; I hope that the poem serves as a lens for what remains in the performance as well as a fun house mirror for what has come before. Each of the other acts shares the shifting significations echoed in a mirror made of flexible material*when hiking becomes dancing, when endangered bears become celebrities and subcultural types, when trees become fiancées, and when backpacks become a different sort of book bag. Much of Trail Mix investigates conundrums of personification, especially the challenge of producing empathy through identification measured against the erasure of difference. I engage in that work from my own queer subject position. In ''Reflection,'' this queer work manifests in part as a campy casting of the spider as

[The performance area setup consists of a picnic table, stick-framed screen, and stone fire circle. The Performer walks into the performance space carrying a full backpack and a walking stick. All props and costumes are contained in the backpack.]