Human Dialogue to be is to communicate

Our Environment

Social Reality

We will not sustain our current course. Our environment demands our response.

Responsiveness

Trauma's And . . . .

We need to learn how to respond to one another. This is why communication is so important.

_______________ Being heard. Being recognized. Being remembered. ________________

The Human Condition

Our Shared Humanity

The critique of monologue.

absolute death (a state of nonbeing) Mikhail Bakhtin being unheard, unrecognized, unremembered

State Of Being

Energy & Concentration

We communicate to meet a wide range of human needs.

communicating fully Bessel van der Kolk (2014) the opposite of being traumatized

Uncertainty

Actualities & Possibilities

Communicating in and through an often uncertain world. Uncertainty demands processes that can move beyond the fragmentations, reductions, and causal explanations that are all too often privileged in our world.

_________________________ What has been psychologized? What has been institutionalized? Who has been granted status? _________________________

Communication

Making Sense Of Our World

What we offer is a more in-depth understanding of communication frameworks and processes.

communication Julia T. Wood (2004) a fluctuating, unpredictable, multivocal process in which uncertainty infuses encounters between people and what they mean and become

Frameworks For Understanding

Personal & Professional Development

Lead Learners

Uniqueness & Wholeness

Responding to the lack of communication in our lives, relationships, and communities. Expanding in our experiences of identities, relationships, and cultures.

___________________ Discourse Approaches Harmony Building Relational Dialectics Conflict Management ___________________

Our Work

A Relational Process

Our connections were formed in and through our differences with each other. We often disagree in our approach. Our commitment is to offer spaces that move beyond what has been psychologized, what has been institutionalized, and what has been granted to those of a certain status. We are committed to healing in relational spaces with others. This is our both-and . . . . Thank you for being here.

each word Mikhail Bakhtin tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived a socially charged life

Consciousness

An Act Of Relating

Addressing what has been psychologically sealed and/or institutionally ascribed.

consciousness Mikhail Bakhtin an ongoing, situated act of relating ______________________________ answerability to an other's whole being empathy for others' experiences a return to one's outsideness ______________________________

D/discourses

Tensions Between

Understanding more about how to create, negotiate, and maintain meanings with others.

Dialogue

Harmony & Conflict

Exploring the dialogical possibilities of how we can embody, interpret, relate to, and commune with the uncertainties of our world.

Meanings

Historical-Relational-Sociocultural

Responding to the competing meanings in our relationships with others. Competent and effective communication.

Rights Equality

Being-In-The-World

Individuals make choices based on what is communicated to them, what they value, what they want, and what they can do.

_____________________________ a right to be understood a right to communicate a right to the decision-making process _____________________________

the oppressed Paulo Freire the very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped

Worldviews

Moral Principles & Rules Of Law

Our economic and political system has been designed to diminish safety nets, social fabrics, and human rights that are central to resilient, sustainable communities.

_________________ historical context competing arguments informed choices _________________

worldviews Kenneth Burke a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing

________________________ What is the American dream? Who does it serve? Who does it subjugate? ________________________

subjugation Stephen Porges bodies-minds conform to institutional forms

American Idealism

Freedom To Dominate

This is because a horrendous amount of special interest money has been infused into both political parties to determine U.S. foreign policies, institutional priorities, and unprecedented protection of elite interests.

an ideology Chomsky & Robinson (2024) the belief that their domination is for the good of the dominated

Communication

Reflection & Action

Communication offers possibilities to understand and address diversity, inequality, and inclusion as ideological and structural issues that we can respond to in our practices, discourses, and systems.

learning Paulo Freire asking "why" about our world

Social Change

The Power Of The People

Willingness to risk change in our perspectives of selves, others, and the world we inhabit together.

relies on people to endure The Honourable Vida Yeboa (2006) to advocate for the change that will benefit them, to work through their differences, to come together and form social movements in order to demand their rights

Story Sensing

Narratives

Individuals act within particular narratives.

__________________ Narrative Inquiry Somatic Narratives Narrative SenseMaking Critical Trauma Studies __________________

loneliness Thich Nhat Hanh (2013) the suffering of our time

Awareness

Time & Space

Cultivating an open channel of awareness A new understanding of presence Attuning ourselves as we direct A new relationship with our body-mind flow

an earlier story Arthur W. Frank (2010) works to hold people to a particular understanding of their lives

Trauma

Narratives Of Selfhood

Early attachment experiences echo their stories through our bodies, nervous systems, and relationships as we grow and develop.

Agency

Sensations & Perspectives

If we listen closely, our bodies respond to the sensory data in our world. Subjective sensations, wider perspectives, and agency can be achieved as we find our way out of reactive patterns from the past and learn how to engage in our present.

Experiences

Self-Concept & Social Support

Our stories are how we co-create and share meanings with others as we navigate our experiences in and through the temporal, social, and contextual realities of our world.

experience John Dewey (1938) continuity and interaction enacted in situations

Coherence

Selfhood & Interbeing

We will focus on storying our bodies and minds toward the possibilities of creating new experiences with others and our world.

narrative ground Walter Fisher (1987) we need to be able to articulate and offer a public account of the good in which we believe and that propels our communicative action in public and private life

Justice Journals

Identities

Selves develop in and through communication with others.

_______________________ Interpersonal Communication Human Perception Identities-Based Approaches AutoEthnography _______________________

interpersonal needs William Schutz (1966) we create and sustain relationships to meet three basic needs: love-affection, inclusion, and influence-control

Human Perception

An Active Process

Communication offers us ongoing frameworks and processes to expand what we notice, how we organize our relationships with others, and the ways we interpret our world.

Interdependence

Selves & Others

What has been defined, appraised, scripted, attached, ascribed, and/or generalized in our relationships with others and our world?

Communication

Standpoints & Locations

Communication offers us possibilities to expand in our experiences of identities across the continuum of personal growth, performances, relationships, and communities.

interpersonal communication Julia T. Wood (2020) a selective, systemic process that allows people to reflect and build personal knowledge of one another and create shared meanings.

A Narrow Ridge

Performances

Exploring multiple sides of issues. Moving beyond the psychological and institutional assumptions that privilege only those of a certain status.

__________________ Communication Ethics Rhetorical Approaches Strategic Ambiguity Political Systems _________________

right to exist Martin Buber If one of the parties in discourse does not agree on the value of conversation, or even on the right of the other party to exist, there is little opportunity for shared learning. In such cases, dialogue is simply not possible.

Debate

Positions & Persuasions

Our understanding of communication is central to how effectively we can participate in the debate of where we are positioned and how we are persuaded in our world.

the learner Arnett, Harden-Fritz, & Bell-McManus (2018) one who meets difference without forgetting the limits of one's own situation and particular commitments to the good

The Tricksters

The Helper's Assumption

Often our stories of suffering contain a search for answers in hollowed out institutions where tricksters, emperors, and anointed queens can be found wandering the halls, collecting their status, and practicing their discretion while offering out-dated, so-called knowledge. They're afraid of the public. Yet, it's the public they serve.

knowledge Mumby & Kuhn (2019) a highly contingent, contested, and ever-changing process

Communication Ethics

A Sharing Between

Communication ethics is about moving conversations about the "good" from a private holding to publicly shared mappings. As communication claims the priority a new bond takes form between followers and leaders. The followers begin to lead their assembly.

Arnett, Harden-Fritz, & Bell-McManus (2018) ________________ Narrative Accounts Shared Mappings Public Commitments ________________

Critical Consciousness

Critiques

Asking "why" about our direct experiences with the world.

______________________ Intercultural Communication Critical-Cultural Approaches Communication Pedagogy Ethnography _____________________

culture Fassett, Warren, & Nainby (2018) assumptions that draw people together within a social context of shared power

Forms Of Discipline

Consent & Dissent

We must be quiet when the emperor and/or his team comes around. Do not, under any circumstances, ask questions. We must not speak of the taken for granted or his discretion. We may have to turn on each other.

Intersubjective

Understanding & Knowledge

Do we reflect and act upon our direct experiences of the world? What are the basic assumptions? How does knowledge take form? How does it inform?

A Critical Perspective

A Form Of Inquiry

Communication offers us frameworks and processes to question and challenge what we are directly experiencing in our world.

_________________________ How did it come to be this way? Who does it harm? Who does it benefit? ________________________

critical inquiry Fassett, Warren, & Nainby (2018) asking complicated questions and sorting through the implications of our (in)actions

Communication

Autonomy & Control

Investigating the ideologies and structures that impose absolutes onto our social realities.

communication Mumby & Kuhn (2019) the dynamic, ongoing process of creating and negotiating meanings

CoAuthorings

Relationships

We expand in our experiences of relationships in and through communication.

_____________________ Relational Communication Family Communication Communication Patterns Stress-Resilience ____________________

love bell hooks cannot exist in the context of domination

Attachment

Selves & Others

Our experiences of relationships are often riddled with patterns of our past, our capacity for sociality, and the possibilities of where we can be located.

relationships Guerrero, Andersen, & Afifi (2021) ongoing interactions between people

Uncertainty

Expectations & Social Norms

A more in-depth understanding of communication is key to expanding in our experiences across roles, interpersonal relationships, and close relationships. What are your patterns of communication? What is your level of relational satisfaction?

Our relationships often move us to expand in our understandings and engage in new frameworks and processes for inclusivity.

Relationships

Communication Patterns

For many of us, close relationships and chosen families are where we locate our sense of being, belonging, and community.

Communication

Autonomy & Closeness

Relationships are constantly changing. Communication offers us a fluid, ongoing process that focuses on the meanings between people as we live in and through the historical, relational, sociocultural contexts of our world.

Family Systems

Stress & Resilience

Relationships can adapt and transform. Across health-related, intergenerational, workplace, financial, and societal stress our relationships have the capacity to be resilient and flourish if they can engage in effective and competent communication processes.

Folx Media

Social Change

Meaningful change does not trickle from the top on down. It happens when we act upon time, space, and what we can socially form and inform together from the bottom on up. Meaningful change happens in and through communication.

__________________________ Organizational Communication Postcolonial Approaches Collective Decision Making Communication For Social Change __________________________

Freeing Our Living

An Ongoing Struggle

The tensions between what is centered and what is marginalized can impose contradictory meanings onto our experiences of identities, relationships, and cultures. What happens when we disagree about how we are going to live together? Will we respond to the normative dissent? Will we commit to being in the struggle with others?

Communication

Resistance & Control

Human beings around the world are pleading for the U.S. voting population to: vote YES for the environment vote YES for health care vote YES for collective civil/labor rights

Peace

Take Good Care