GRANTS AND OUTREACH

Recovering the Visibility of Post-Deportation Experiences in El Salvador: A Family Communication Approach ($10,000)
Principal Investigator: Sarah Bishop, Baruch College

This project aims to recover visibility of one of the most difficult to access phenomena in the world of immigration through a family communication approach. The project will compile and report the experiences and family-based knowledge of Salvadorans in New York City and Los Angeles who have a family member in removal proceedings for deportation to El Salvador or who has recently been deported to El Salvador. This approach is designed with a three-fold goal of:
(1) building a repository of Salvadoran deportation lived experiences even in the midst of the Salvadoran government’s crackdown on public communication about post-deportation life and
(2) illuminating the nature and scope of the impact of deportation on family members who remain in the United States, and
(3) demonstrating the usefulness of a family communication approach in contexts of democratic decline where governmental communication obfuscates the lived realities of vulnerable populations.

Communicating About LGBTQI+ Collegiate Athletes: Examining How Sports Bans Discourses Influence the Experiences of Out Varsity LGBTQI+ Collegiate Athletes ($8,788)
Principal Investigator: Evan Brody, University of Nevado, Reno

This project sets out to better understand how communication about bans aimed at restricting sports participation for transgender and intersex individuals affect the lived experiences of out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) varsity collegiate athletes. Through semi-structured interviews and survey methodologies, this project aims to identify anticipated and experienced challenges and successes for LGBTQI+ athletes, with a particular focus on how larger discourses related to LGBTQI+ sports participation affect the lived realities of these athletes. By examining how these bans are understood, embodied, and communicated about by both LGBTQI+ and non-LGBTQI+ athletes and athletic departments we can better understand the effects these bans have on elite athletes who are also members of historically marginalized communities. Ultimately, results from this project could help us to better understand the experiences of out elite collegiate LGBTQI+ athletes, the assumptions made about elite collegiate LGBTQI+ athletes, and the ways in which discourses, communication practices, and codified laws affect the everyday lived experiences of elite collegiate LGBTQI+ athletes.

Africanfuturism: Beyond Development ($9,967)
Principal Investigator: Jenna Hanchey, Arizona State University

Africa is often described as a place devoid of a future. As Kodwo Eshun explains, those in power narrate continental possibilities in ways that constrain imagination and agency, attempting to defuse resistance before it occurs. In particular, representing Africa as without a future serves neocolonial interests by making resistance to Western developmental logics seem futile. A large and growing group of African writers and filmmakers contest such closing off of Africa’s future possibilities through what Nnedi Okorafor terms “Africanfuturism.” Although many scholars have investigated Afrofuturism, studies of contemporary Africanfuturism are few.

Africanfuturism: Beyond Development offers one of the first monograph-length investigations of African speculative fiction (SF), and particularly demonstrates how African communication of their own future possibilities has material ramifications for global development work in the continent. I use an expansive definition of Africanfuturism, one which recognizes the interweaving of past, present, and future in many African conceptualizations of time, and thus reads futurities through all modes of SF (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and surrealism). Africanfuturism: Beyond Development examines how Africans envision and narrate their own futures in ways that counter and/or extend beyond neocolonial conceptualizations of global development. I argue that Africanfuturism communicates an alternative version of the future that contests and avoids logics of development in five main ways: challenging the neocolonialism of aid; refiguring future possibilities through non-linear temporalities; repurposing alien technologies against colonialism; offering alternative conceptualizations of what it means to be human; and looking to dystopia as a context for hope and possibility. The manuscript concludes with a call to find future potential in impossible desires. The book is currently under contract with The Ohio State University Press for their series “New Suns: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative.” This grant will allow both completion of the manuscript and interviews with African SF authors and creators for the recording, production, and distribution of season two of a podcast.

Dorothy Day and Dialogic Encounter: Communication Ethics in Community ($5,864.38)
Susan Mancino, Saint Mary’s College, Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Natalia Tapsak, Duquesne University 

Our research project, Dorothy Day and Dialogic Encounter: Communication Ethics in Community, proposes that Day exemplifies communicative action as a precursor and catalyst for social change. Dorothy Day (1897–1980) was an American Catholic journalist and social activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin and edited its well-known newspaper, the Catholic Worker. Day questioned tensions between wealth in the Catholic Church during the Great Depression and its mission to serve the poor. She embraced voluntary poverty and opened houses of hospitality to respond to the needs of the most underserved and overlooked. Her daily action embodied an inclusive invitation as she addressed social justice concerns, including economic inequality, poverty, labor issues, racial discrimination, women’s rights, and pacifist advocacy.

Exploring Day’s embodiment of dialogic ethics, constructive use of media, and profound conception of human communication as “an act of community” (see Ellsberg 2010, xxiii), this project will offer contributions to philosophy of communication, dialogue, and religious communication. Day reveals an understanding of communication that goes beyond information transfer, mere connection, idle chatter, or conversation. Day’s work as a journalist and leader of a successful social movement in American Catholic life embodied a communication ethic that protected and promoted dialogic encounters that took seriously and responded generously to the needs of the Other. Day’s response to an era of polarizing conflict and narrative contention emphasizes the ties between communication and community.

This project will offer a needed case study for bringing communication ethics into the lives and homes of the American public today. Day’s ability to engage media and navigate social justice work in a contentious environment serves as a dialogic model for social action in response to contemporary conflict and crisis. While our moment of polarization threatens community, Day witnesses communication’s power to maintain dialogic connection that learns from difference for the common good. We seek funding to travel for archival research at three universities holding significant collections on Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: Marquette University, Bellarmine University, and St. Catherine University. This grant will be essential for accessing necessary materials to complete our proposed book project.

Applying the Ecological Model of Medical Encounters to Understand Patient-Centered Communication for older Korean Migrants in the U.S. ($5,486)
Principal Investigator: Seulgi Park, University at Albany – State University of New York, Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Rukhsana Ahmed, University at Albany – State University of New York

Patient-Centered Communication (PCC) is defined as an approach that places “the patient and his or her understanding of health, healing, and illness at the center of the clinical communication encounter” (Bates & Ahmed, 2012, p. 3). Despite the positive outcomes of PCC such as patient empowerment or satisfaction, there has not been enough attention on PCC for minority populations including immigrants in the U.S. In particular, older Korean immigrants in the U.S. can be a unique sample that warrants more research on PCC because of their distinct cultural beliefs and practices influencing patient-provider interactions (Gao et al., 2009; Pun et al., 2018). With the aim of better reflecting the voices of this understudied population in the PCC research, this proposed study aims to understand the expectations of older Korean immigrants in the U.S. for PCC, adapt an existing measure of PCC (PCC-Ca-6; Reeve et al., 2017) to tailor to this group, and examine a hypothesized model that includes PCC and contextual factors such as patient health literacy, organizational health literacy and cultural competence. This mixed-methods study will entail semi-structured interviews in the qualitative phase and surveys in the quantitative phase to translate the perspectives of the participants into empirical research by integrating the qualitative and quantitative findings. By applying the ecological model of medical encounters (Street, 2003) and Patient-Centered Communication (Epstein & Street, 2007) as theoretical frameworks, this proposed study will contribute to advancing knowledge about patient-provider communication for this underrepresented population group, situating PCC within the ecological model of medical encounters, and providing empirical evidence for the interrelationships among PCC and contextual factors such as organizational health literacy. The expected outcomes of this proposed study include valuable insights to facilitate PCC for racially and ethnically minority populations and to inform the implementation of organizational policies to ensure equitable healthcare communication for all people.

Culturally Responsive Training: Cultivating Communication Skills for Nonprofit Professionals at the Latino Community Center ($9,976)
Principal Investigator: Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, California State University, Los Angeles; Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Oscar Alfonso Mejia, California State University, Los Angeles

This applied intercultural communication research project aims to design, implement, and evaluate a culturally responsive intercultural communication competency training program for the staff of the Latino Community Center (LCC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an inclusive community where all Latinos have equitable access to resources, the LCC serves as an ideal setting for assessing and enhancing intercultural communication skills among its diverse staff. These skills are essential for effectively engaging with stakeholders, fostering community partnerships, securing funding, and advocating for the needs of the Latino population in Allegheny County.

The LCC staff members interact with a broad spectrum of individuals, including educators, social workers, volunteers, and local businesses, to provide vital services to a rapidly growing immigrant community. Recent discussions with the LCC team have revealed instances of interracial and intercultural conflicts and tensions between stakeholder groups, highlighting the importance of addressing these challenges through targeted training interventions.

Traditional approaches to intercultural competence training focus on prescriptive concepts that assume paradigmatic intercultural differences (i.e., Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions [1984] or Edward T. Hall's high-context vs. low-context communication [1976]). Although helpful, these approaches leave out cultural dynamics and elements of communication from marginalized community members. Learning from personal and professional experiences, community members will reflexively inform processes of intercultural communication problem solving, and the cultural fusion of identities (Croucher & Kramer, 2017). Staff participants in the training sessions will learn about diverse communication styles and be invited to engage in difficult dialogues related to intercultural communication, conflict, and community.

Ultimately, this project aims to expand existing intercultural training models by integrating culturally relevant concepts such as familismo (Calzada et al., 2013), convivencia (Jasis & Ordonez-Jasis, 2004; Villenas, 2005), and co-cultural theory (Orbe, 1996) into the training curriculum and delivery. By emphasizing Latino cultural values and communicative norms, the training program seeks to equip LCC staff with the interpersonal and intercultural phatic communication skills necessary to navigate diverse cultural contexts effectively and support the LCC in its mission to improve the lives of Latino families in their region.

On Language Revitalization: The Case of CHamoru Survivance and Decolonial Rhetoric ($10,000)
Principal Investigator: Kinny Torre, University of Utah

The CHamoru people are the Indigenous people of Guam (Guåhan) and have been rooted to the island for approximately 4000 years. Since its colonization in 1521, CHamorus have been actively protecting, striving, and expressing their sovereignty. As such, CHamorus are engaged in the longest sovereignty struggle out of any Indigenous group in Oceania. Currently, this Pacific Island is a US territory, which, while only one example, showcases how the US continues to operate as a colonial and imperial power. Indeed, the US military has been a significant source of environmental injustice on the island. From the leaking of radioactive waste from their nuclear submarines to the testing of the next generation of nuclear technology in the water, the US and its military are actively committing environmental injustices. However, the CHamoru sovereignty movement is dynamic and vibrant and extends beyond resistance to military and environmental injustice. By studying two seemingly disparate yet interrelated cultural sites, specifically, 1) Prugråman Sinipok, a CHamoru language immersion camp, and 2) the food sovereignty movement on Guåhan, this project investigates how survivance and decolonial rhetorics are implicated by the CHamoru language, CHamoru knowledge, and CHamoru relationalities, as well as how such rhetorics are utilized to advance a vibrant Indigenous sovereignty movement.

My research will be conducted through an indigenized Participatory Critical Rhetoric (PCR) framework.  The significance of PCR is its ability to highlight the value of rhetoric that would otherwise go undocumented, amplifying marginalized communities. I indigenize PCR by drawing upon “Both/Neither” analytics of fieldwork and Indigenous research protocols. As a result, this project will utilize participant observations to experience and record the rhetorical acts of CHamoru activists, cultural practitioners, and everyday CHamoru life in Guåhan. This includes field notes and pictures, research journal reflections, and semi-structured recorded interviews with CHamoru cultural practitioners and leaders.