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1 – 10 of 184The purpose of this paper is to expand upon prior debates on reconceptualising reflexivity in order to encompass research communities and prospective thinking, based upon an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expand upon prior debates on reconceptualising reflexivity in order to encompass research communities and prospective thinking, based upon an analysis of the development of a research question (RQ).
Design/methodology/approach
Ontologically, the author regards the development of a RQ as an inter-subjective process; epistemologically, the author regards investigating such processes as possible by identifying their relationality and dialogism “from within”; methodologically, the author constructed and abductively analysed data by performing an auto-ethnography as a PhD student.
Findings
The author suggests that developing an RQ evolves as relational learning and academic rationality. While the former concerns relations within a research community, the latter concerns prospective thinking. The author introduces the notion of an academically accepted RQ to suggest that this part of knowledge construction is shaped as much by research communities and prospective thinking as it is by the researcher.
Research limitations/implications
The author introduces and discusses the notion of social reflexivity as a possible way forward in the debate on reconceptualising reflexivity. Such notion encourages the exploration of relational learning and academic rationality in the construction of knowledge. It implies exposing issues related both to processes of assimilating prevailing academic literature and to contextual pressures faced when writing new ones.
Originality/value
While introducing social reflexivity, the author suggests a possible way to overcome the challenges of reconceptualising reflexivity. Also, the author provides a detailed description of how the author crafted the analysis of an inter-subjective process.
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This chapter proposes using a dialectical approach infused with elements of dialogism to analyze polyphonic discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to create…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter proposes using a dialectical approach infused with elements of dialogism to analyze polyphonic discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to create more nuanced understandings of the contradictions, oppositions, tensions, and complexities that characterize the conceptualization, enactment, and communication of CSR.
Methodology/approach
This chapter draws upon the notion of dialectics discussed by scholars such as Hegel and Marx and infuses it with Bakhtinian notions of dialogism to create a dialectical framework for analyzing discourses of CSR.
Findings
This chapter illustrates the conceptual argument for a dialectical approach to examining discourses of CSR by using the example of the dualistic discussion of corporations as agents of empowerment or exploitation. When examined through a dialectical lens, the empowerment–exploitation debate reveals, among others, the dissolution of boundaries between the categories of empowerment and exploitation, the coexistence and interplay of a multitude of related oppositions, and raises questions on praxical patterns employed by social actors to manage the dialectical tensions inherent in everyday organizing.
Social implications
A dialectical approach in communication studies could open possibilities for acknowledging the co-existence of and interplay among multiple voices in society, thus opening spaces for engaging with diverse perspectives and creating a more holistic understanding of complex social constructs such as CSR.
Originality
A dialectical approach that attends to tensions negotiated by social and organizational actors as they try to conceptualize, enact, and communicate CSR can enrich the study of polyphonic discourses of CSR by generating more textured and insightful understandings of CSR than those currently examined through mostly dualistic lenses.
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Susan Cridland-Hughes, Jacquelynn A. Malloy and Angela Rogers
The purpose of this study is to explore the use of policy debate as a frame for developing critical participatory literacy skills focused on student engagement with current events.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the use of policy debate as a frame for developing critical participatory literacy skills focused on student engagement with current events.
Design/methodology/approach
Using dialogism as a frame for a discussion-based course (Bakhtin, 1982; Reznitskya, 2012) and self-study as a methodological structure (Samaras, 2011), they explore the iterative process of shaping a policy debate curriculum across three separate cohorts. In the process, they share reflections and insights about what they learned about their assumptions as teachers.
Findings
Instructors offer recommendations for structuring literacy practices that are dialogic and focused on student voice and policy activism. Specifically, authors suggest focusing attention to discussion activities, an emphasis on critical dialogue, where students engage with the ideas of others, and the practice of constant facilitator reflection to determine whether they have continued to center student voices and ideas in the classroom.
Originality/value
This study is key for beginning to understand how to put students in conversation with complex political decisions and for helping youth develop confidence in their ability to critique and evaluate those decisions as members of the larger society.
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Sid Lowe and Nirundon Tapachai
This paper aims to look into changing future landscapes of business interaction, relationships and networks using the lens of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his key notions of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to look into changing future landscapes of business interaction, relationships and networks using the lens of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his key notions of polyphony, heteroglossia and dialogism.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper exploring the complex dualities of Bakhtin’s approach involving eternally competing, paradoxical forces of unity and fragmentation; continuity and change; and coherence and incongruity.
Findings
Bakhtin’s approach suggests that all phenomena at all levels involve a complex struggle between organizational unity and dis-organizational fragmentation. Bakhtin provides theoretical support for David Boje’s notion of “antenarratives” as key in the making of socially constructed futures. Antenarratives are bridging “tropes” between unifying narratives and fragmented stories.
Research limitations/implications
Antenarratives need to be a focal interest in researching Bakhtinian dualities because they are a catalyst and chiasmus traveling between and inter-animating relations between narratives and stories.
Practical implications
The Bakhtinian schema suggests that practitioners need to maintain a reliance upon “phronesis” or practical wisdom and dexterity that allows them to adapt and improvise in fast-changing and multiple situations and contexts. To enable them to do this, such practical capabilities need the combined cultivation of appropriate embodied skills, capabilities in communicative and symbolic persuasion, as well as analytical reasoning.
Originality/value
Bakhtin’s concepts provide a unique and operationalizable approach to encompassing duality, which addresses the increasing need in business marketing to understand and adapt within increasingly complex and changing landscapes of business interaction, relationships and networks.
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Xiangyu Liu, Bowen Zheng and Hefu Liu
Although social media is widely used for organizational communication, studies have begun to show its controversial effects on job performance in the workplace. To investigate…
Abstract
Purpose
Although social media is widely used for organizational communication, studies have begun to show its controversial effects on job performance in the workplace. To investigate these effects, this study developed a conceptual framework for how social media interactivity affects communication quality and work interruption, as well as how such effects impact job performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed theoretical model was empirically validated through a survey study of 556 employees in China.
Findings
The results verified a social media interactivity paradox that indicated social media interactivity increased both communication quality and work interruptions. The results further showed that high levels of social media dependency were a detriment to organizations.
Originality/value
This study verified the existence of a social media interactivity paradox in the use of social media for workplace communication. Moreover, results revealed that the effect of social media interactivity on organizational outcomes depends on its respective dimensions.
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David Boje, Esther Enríquez, M. Teresa González and Eduardo Macías
Architectonics is proposed as a dialogic theory and method to research three discursive spheres: McDonald's corporation, McDonaldization, and McDonaldland.
Abstract
Purpose
Architectonics is proposed as a dialogic theory and method to research three discursive spheres: McDonald's corporation, McDonaldization, and McDonaldland.
Design/methodology/approach
Bakhtin proposed architectonics as a new method for the human sciences, one that interanimates cognitive with ethical and aesthetic systemness. This essay develops architectonics further, and applies it to the study of globalization and localization of the McDonald's and Wal‐Mart corporations, which now cohabits with each other in New Mexico (and elsewhere).
Findings
A general inquiry system is suggested as a framework to analyze the architectonics of other organizations, in future international studies.
Originality/value
Through the application of the notion of architectonics to the McDonald's and Wal‐Mart corporations the authors develop an innovative approach to understanding organizations.
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Anna Hampson Lundh and Mats Dolatkhah
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as information behaviour or information practices within Library and Information Science (LIS).
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical example – a lesson on how to read railway timetables – is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour.
Findings
It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices.
Research limitations/implications
The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS.
Social implications
The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work.
Originality/value
The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people’s behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.
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This paper aims to offer an approach to cyborg composing with artificial intelligence (AI). The author posits that the hybridity of the cyborg, which amalgamates human and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an approach to cyborg composing with artificial intelligence (AI). The author posits that the hybridity of the cyborg, which amalgamates human and artificial elements, invites a cascade of creative and emancipatory possibilities. The author critically examines the biases embedded in AI systems while gesturing toward the generative potential of AI–human entanglements. Drawing on Bakhtinian theories of dialogism, the author contends that crafting found poetry with AI could inspire writers to problematize the ideologies embedded into the corpus while teasing apart its elisions or contradictions, sparking new forms of expression at the interface of the organic and the artificial.
Design/methodology/approach
To illustrate this approach to human–AI composing, the author shares a found poem that she wrote using ChatGPT alongside her reflection on the poem. The author reflects on her positionality as well as the positionality of her artificial interlocutor, interrogating the notion of subjectivity in relation to Bakhtinian dialogism and multivocality.
Findings
Weaving tales of resilience in harmony or tension with AI could unravel threads of possibility as human writers enrich, deepen or complicate AI-generated texts. By composing with AI, writers can resist closure, infiltrate illusions of objectivity and “speak back” to AI and the dominant voices replicated in its systems.
Originality/value
By encouraging students to critically engage with, question and complicate AI-generated texts, one can open avenues for alternative ways of thinking and writing, inspiring students to imagine and compose speculative futures. Ultimately, in animating assemblages of the organic and the artificial, one can invite transformative possibilities of being and becoming.
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María Constanza Errázuriz, Lucía Natale and Juan Antonio Núñez Cortés
Certainly, most academic-disciplinary literacy initiatives in the Ibero-American context have arisen with the purpose of achieving social justice, especially in a territory that…
Abstract
Certainly, most academic-disciplinary literacy initiatives in the Ibero-American context have arisen with the purpose of achieving social justice, especially in a territory that has suffered from inequity and whose deepening has increased with the current health emergency situation. However, despite well-intentioned initiatives, these programs, in general, have followed Anglo-Saxon models far removed from Ibero-American needs and reality. Therefore, in their implementation, they have dichotomies that ultimately weaken their sustainability over time and their results in their level of real inclusion, some of these – considering the approaches of Tierney (2018) and others – are: assimilation/accommodation, elitism/inclusion, institutional reform/educational innovation, research/action, remediation/re-mediation, standardization/contextualization, performance/learning, submission/emancipation, monologism/dialogism and homogeneity/diversity. In this way, based on a qualitative and reflective analysis on the experiences of three academic literacy programs in three universities in Argentina, Chile, and Spain, we will make these tensions explicit, and we will reveal practices that are truly contextualized to the communities where they are inserted, such as their eclectic, collaborative, dialogic, and remediated nature, which allows them to be constantly codesigned by the participation of students, professors, and tutors and whose research is promoted through action. In this sense, these countries can be related by sharing the language, a recent tradition of academic literacy and high school dropout rates. Finally, knowing both the strengths and the contradictions they still hold will contribute to continuing the process of contextualizing to the communities and, thus, establishing them as emancipatory pedagogies from the South to the South.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative perspectives on how educators teach issues that affect two countries with a history of governmental tensions. The investigation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative perspectives on how educators teach issues that affect two countries with a history of governmental tensions. The investigation examines how teachers in Cuban classrooms engage in discourses on the recent developments in Cuban and US relations, including the teaching of historical and territorial issues. This research considers border pedagogy, critical border dialogism and critical border praxis as approaches for those who educate on the effects of US international policies. Ultimately, pragmatic hope offers the possibilities for an emergent third space for Cuban and US relations, including educational exchanges.
Design/methodology/approach
The research took place in Cuba during an educational exchange to Cuban secondary and university educational sites. Cuban educators of pedagogy and social education engaged in dialogue and shared information on how they address US international policies during their classroom discussions. The researcher employed methodologies that followed Stake’s (2000) model for a substantive case study. Impressions, data, records and salient elements at the observed site were recorded. Transcriptions were documented for face-to-face interviews and hour-long focus group sessions. Participants also logged responses to written survey questions. The study focused on how Cuban educators taught, discussed and addressed the US international policies in classrooms.
Findings
Heteroglossia, meliorism, critical cosmopolitanism, nepantla, dialogic feminism and pragmatic hope were components of the data analysis. Heteroglossia was an essential consideration throughout the study as multiple interpretations of Cuban and US interconnectedness emerged. Meliorism factored into Cuban educators’ commitments to their professions. Critical cosmopolitanism developed as educators put forth different conceptualizations of human rights and democracy. Nepantla emerged as a key aspect as indigenous and self-determined viewpoints emerged. Dialogic feminism was preeminent as patriarchy continues to exist, despite a new awareness of gender roles and gender violence. Pragmatic hope offers possibilities for a transnational community of inquiry and collaboration.
Research limitations/implications
The most obvious limitation to this study is, as a case study, the limited scope of perception.
Practical implications
If future relations between Cuban and the US are deemed uncertain, critical border praxis has an essential role in addressing new sets of uncertainties. This study recommends that educational communities engage in discourses addressing ongoing issues facing the dynamic, fluid border environs. Critical border praxis provides conditions in which we, as educators and members of diverse communities of learners, become cross-borders and broaden the possibilities to achieve what had been considered the unattainable. Resources need to be prioritized and redirected toward educational efforts on national, state and local levels so critical border praxis becomes a reality.
Social implications
Through transnational and transborder engagements, such as educational exchanges, both US and Cuban educators are provided opportunities to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their own educational systems. The role of education, formal and informal, then serves to transform perceptions one-by-one, school-by-school, community-by-community and to influence policy makers to reconstruct education country-by-country as part of pragmatic hope for an enduring Pax Universalis. Pax Universalis serves as a third space where transborder students and educators alike are positioned as co-creators of knowledge and agents of change.
Originality/value
This study proposes a new emergent third space resulting from critical border dialogism that utilizes border pedagogy and critical pedagogies of place to seek new zones of mutual respect and cooperation among educators. Common educational understandings are the key starting point for a critical border praxis that facilitates ongoing dialogue between the two countries and offers pragmatic hope for the futures of both nations and opportunities to ameliorate relationships. An emergent third space is possible through sustained critical border praxis, a praxis that seeks to address points of contention and the bridges that need crossing between the two neighboring countries.
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