Download challenging academic imperialism

MANAGEMENT
10.1177/0893318905278535
Prichard
/ CHALLENGING
COMMUNICATION
ACADEMIC
QUARTERLY
IMPERIALISM
/ NOVEMBER 2005
CHALLENGING ACADEMIC
IMPERIALISM
Some Tactics for Constructing an
Organizational Communication of the Elsewhere
CRAIG PRICHARD
Massey University
F
or some, the rhythm and routines of academic work appear
to be as natural as the cycles of traditional farming. Each
year, they help the new seeds into place, carefully sprinkle them
with the fertilizer of mostly dead scholars, water them with dialogue and encouragement, and finally grade and dispatch. Such
ways of thinking about what we do are comforting—but not to be
trusted.
Drawing on biographical details and a range of theoretical ideas,
this article explores the role of place and location in the teaching of
organization communication. It highlights how one is always
implicated in the global relations and suggests ways in which we
might build “location” into our teaching of the field.
In 1999, I took a job in the Human Resource Management
Department at Massey University in New Zealand and was tasked
with teaching organization communication and later communication theory and research. Now geographically Massey is a long way
from Purdue or University of California–Santa Barbara. As one
celebrated proverb put it, “After us there are only penguins”
(Clegg, Linstead, & Sewell, 2000). However, as I came to realize,
academically speaking, Massey might as well have been just up
Route 101. Let me be clear, Massey is not in California. Massey has
its center in a small provincial city in central New Zealand, North
Island, Southern Hemisphere, Pacific Ocean. And for those whose
political history is a bit hazy, New Zealand has never been a U.S.
Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, November 2005 270-278
DOI: 10.1177/0893318905278535
© 2005 Sage Publications
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colony, never traded strongly with the United States, never shared a
common border, and if anything has been an irritation to U.S. foreign
policy (e.g., it bans visits by nuclear-weapon-capable warships).
In some contrast, New Zealand has been a British colony, has
traded strongly with the United Kingdom (for much of the 20th
century, New Zealand was London’s larder), has (mostly) supported U.K. foreign policy, and for much of its recent history has
regarded England as its symbolic and cultural home. It was something of a shock to find that the existing curriculum, textbook, conceptual frameworks, research, and the authorities for the organization communication course I had been asked to teach were solidly
“Stars and Stripes.” Apart from the address to which students were
asked to deliver their assignments, there was no reference to New
Zealand in the course materials. Was there a problem here? Not at
all! This was the pattern across much of the communication program. Why was this the case? It turns out that some years before, a
visiting U.S. communication scholar had touched down, found fertile ground, and through regular and supportive visits produced a
viable but ultimately enclosed garden.
It is often difficult for us to consider that our patterns of thinking
have histories. In a society where we are charged with being thoroughly responsible for ourselves, it is difficult for us to consider
that our conceptual machinery, the very terms and concepts we
think with, have a history we have not individually created. This
difficulty is compounded by the fact that these “real” histories are
mostly not recorded (as the saying goes “the revolution will not be
televised”). Where they are recorded, they often assume that the
present is an inevitable or progressive response to the past. So, for
example, the organization communication curriculum I inherited
said nothing about how this curriculum—that had more than passing resemblance to that produced by U.S. communication departments—had appeared in this location. This history was not
recounted or recorded and neither were the sometimes-fierce disputes over this subject area between the business and humanities
departments. The student and the new teacher found themselves in
what amounted to a walled garden in a continuous present (a little
“US of A”).
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a cry for separatism. It is simply
not possible nor desirable for organization communication schol-
272 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / NOVEMBER 2005
ars “elsewhere” to reject North Atlantic theories, authorities, and
practice (Clegg et al., 2000). However, is the only alternative to
knuckle down and play the game of academic imperialism? No.
What is required is the development of a relationship with these
forms of knowledge. This recognizes the emigration of knowledge
and how this emigration traces over colonial and imperialist
economic and political processes.
Organization communication is not a special case, an extreme
case perhaps, but not a special one. I’ve since moved to the Management Department where the same pattern is repeated. One of the
core texts on the change management paper (course) I inherited
was D’Aprix’s (1996) Communicating for Change. This book is
published by Jossey-Bass and is quite clearly not a political history
of forms of communication knowledge.
And before I’m accused of taking a “holier than thou” position,
let me just say that I haven’t got it right either. When I took over the
communication theory and research paper, my own intellectual
biography asserted itself (Lander & Prichard, 2001, 2003). I drew
on New Zealand cases but turned for intellectual support to the
authorities, texts, research, and conceptual frameworks of the eastern side of the Atlantic (see, e.g., Cobley, 1996). In some ways, this
swift intellectual switch across the ocean repeated the same pattern—same pattern, different sources. The locale continued to be
regarded as simply a site for analysis using, this time, a different set
of North Atlantic coalition theorists. The locale became a kind of
empirical “larder” while the theoretical chefs were now located in
Paris, Berlin, and London, rather than Los Angeles, Chicago, and
New York.
What was required was the negotiation of a relation with the
metropolitan thinking and/or conceptual machine. How might this
be done? Below, I discuss and identify some of the elements that
might be included in building such a relation and then offer an
example that shows how this agenda challenges existing research
programs. This should not be a read as a signal to metropolitanbased readers to flick to the next article. The same suggestions for
renegotiating a relation with one’s intellectual history and biography apply no matter where “here” is located.
The first move is to do some digging—literally and metaphorically—to get to know the “family” history of the field in your par-
Prichard / CHALLENGING ACADEMIC IMPERIALISM 273
ticular location. This might involve asking some questions about
the history of the locale of those who have been around a while.
This is not the polite version—the one that culminates in a 2 ´ 2 box
and/or a circle segmented into equally spaced quadrants (Anderson
& Baym, 2004). A “real” genealogy explores the family secrets. It
might unearth struggles for control over positions of authority, control over recruitment and promotion processes, control over journals and conferences. It will likely describe attempts to divide off
certain problems, to bring factions together, to take control of the
family-type networks that develop through the supervision and/or
mentor process at the core of academic relations. A real “family”
history might likely tell the story of campaigns to claim the word
communication from rival disciplines. It might find seemingly violent and back-of-stage efforts to institutionalize and extend such a
claim. This might not have involved open conflict. Indeed, open
combat might represent a failure to wage a successful campaign.
What might be more important are the small mechanisms: the
insertion of particular techniques (of teaching, assessment, and
grading, for instance) and forms of expertise into a curriculum
(e.g., certain theories that build relevance with and for emerging
practitioner groups, for instance). Arguably, it is these practices
that ultimately make hegemonic in particular locales the position of
certain communication theories and traditions of research practice.
When a politically inflected history of the local field is established, an organization communication of the “here” is in a better
position to identify what counts as local best practice. This might
include simple practices such as using and quoting local studies in
preference to work from the metropolis. It might include experiments with writing and speaking in local voices, or modes of
address that speak “back” to other places (Lander & Prichard,
2003; Prichard, Jones, & Stablein, 2004). It might also include
more challenging projects such as exploring local epistemologies.
New Zealand, as some of the readers of this journal will know, is
founded on an agreement between the British and Maori. Although
much of the history of the past 200 years does not reflect well on the
former party, in recent times, Maori knowledge and practice are
being revived. This poses interesting challenges for universities. In
our field, rebuilding a relation with Maori clearly involves exploring Maori language and Maori forms of organizing and gover-
274 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / NOVEMBER 2005
nance. This, inevitably, involves developing and deepening a relation with Maori ways of knowing. However, this is no search for
some authentic form of localness. Such a relationship is mindful
that Maori ways of organizing, for instance, are infused and inflected
with the struggles of 200 or so years of engagement with colonialists.
In developing a relation with the local, organization communication would obviously be wary of repeating the pattern identified
above. It would not seek to colonize or simply put the local in place
of the metropolitan. With regard to local forms of knowledge, the
challenge is to build nonexploitative and nonoppressive relations.
Such relations respect conceptual and theoretical differences and
remember the sometimes-uncomfortable and unpleasant histories
that make them local and not global in the first place.
Securing a “place” for the local in our teaching and research is
likely to strengthen our critical engagement with the conceptual
and theoretical machinery of the metropolis. It may also support
theoretical and methodological improvisation. As I write this, the
international news reminds me of the importance of an organization communication (or an organization studies or a management
studies) of the “here.” The issue is not whether we follow the imperial powers into disputes or wars, or whether we are welcomed (or
denied access) into trading agreements. The real issue is much
more subtle and powerful. It is whether we are able to think, speak,
and write in ways that, although never uniquely our own, nevertheless negotiate relations of difference with the current discourses of
the imperial powers. To conclude this article, I offer an example of
how this agenda challenges research programs in workplace communication. The aim here is not to criticize other researchers but to
challenge them to raise the issue of our relations with the metropolitan centers.
New Zealand’s Language in the Workplace (LWP) research program at Victoria University has produced a stunning repository of
papers and publications that explore the pragmatics of language
use in a range of work organizations. LWP takes a particular interest in how language mediates power relations in the workplace.
Around this theme, LWP researchers have explored how managers
use language, how humor works to get things done (or to challenge
the way things are done), and how Maori and Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent), and women and men, use language
Prichard / CHALLENGING ACADEMIC IMPERIALISM 275
differently (see Holmes, 2000; Holmes & Marra, 2002; Holmes &
Stubbe, 2003; Stubbe et al., 2003). Such issues are, of course,
important themes in organizational communication. LWP draws
mainly on politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) and critical
discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992). Although this is a rich and
engaging research program, the conceptual resources are exclusively metropolitan, and attachment to these is taken for granted
(Stubbe et al., 2003). For instance, there is no discussion (in the
published works at least) of how power—a prominent theme in the
empirical research—shapes the use and importation of these conceptual resources. There is also no direct engagement with the
question of how these forms of analysis relate to political processes
in New Zealand.
As might be expected, some of the LWP research explores how
New Zealand’s particular ethnic makeup (Maori, Pakeha, and other
more recent immigrant groups) shapes workplace language use
(Holmes & Marra, 2002). The researchers identify significant differences in politeness strategies used by those who identify as
Pakeha and Maori. Compared with Maori, Pakeha use less affective
and more direct language, employ fewer humorous elements, use
fewer solidarity and equality reinforcing features, and hardly ever
overtly signal their identity as Pakeha. And compared with Pakeha,
Maori more regularly claim an identity as Maori and more readily
use humor, and more affective, equalizing and solidarity-seeking
discourse features.
Of course, I’m not disputing that findings such as these might be,
superficially at least, of some use. For instance, they may help
expatriate managers and administrators cope with hostile local
conditions (and thus help them achieve better results for their governments and corporations). However, from our perspective,
politeness theory is problematic. It is a product of a European
anthropological paradigm that seeks to produce universal truths
about human communication. Through it, local forms of knowledge and the complex interdependent histories of locales are only
recognizable as differences in communicational practices. In the
LWP project, these different practices are attributed to the politically dubious category of “ethnic identity.” Such identities are said
to include particular “cultural norms,” “social values,” and the
skills of the particular users (Stubbe & Holmes, 1999).
276 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / NOVEMBER 2005
However, if we begin with “real” histories of the “here”—war,
land confiscation, unfaithfulness to treaties, state-orchestrated
assimilation—a different reading emerges. This reading locates
“politeness strategies” in the context of colonial and postcolonial
relations. Thus claiming an identity as Maori and expressing solidarity and equality with others—Maori particularly—are read as
tactics of subordinated groups in the same way that the practices
identified with Pakeha in the LWP study are expressive of politics
of dominance and control. Politeness, then, is political in a much
more radical sense than simply negotiating one’s face-to-face
encounters with others in the workplace. Tactics and strategies
articulate ongoing struggles and relations between peoples.
This raises the question of what role “politeness theory” itself is
playing. Is it a colonial tactic? The LWP studies do not discuss the
relation between their use of theory and the history of the “here.”
Thus, they do not address this issue. However, LWP authors are
aware of such issues more generally. Stubbe and Holmes (1999)
noted, “Many of the differences [between Maori and Pakeha] identified appear to be based on different cultural norms relating to
communicative style, as well as [emphasis added] on the positioning of Maori as a minority ethnic group within a Pakeha-dominated
society” (p. 262).
Stubbe and Holmes (1999) thus accept that Pakeha dominate
New Zealand society and implicitly suggest that Maori are subordinate. The question then becomes, How is this knowledge of domination and subordination used as a basis for the analysis of their
data? And if it were used, would it provide a basis for challenging
“politeness theory”? Stubbe and Holmes might respond to this
charge by suggesting that the weaknesses that are evident in politeness theory are more than catered with their use of critical discourse
analysis (CDA). This may be the case; however, again CDA, like
politeness theory, is a theoretical assemblage born out of particular
European locales. Given that we are located “elsewhere,” it is
important to negotiate our relations with such conceptual
resources. To do otherwise is surely to be, potentially at least,
located within colonial projects of the previous and current period.
There seem to be at least three steps in such a negotiation. The
first is to be critically suspicious of the very terms and concepts we
Prichard / CHALLENGING ACADEMIC IMPERIALISM 277
think, speak, and write with. The second is to understand the history of one’s place or locale, and to explore how the frameworks we
use come to be “here.” And the third step is to decide whether these
frameworks align with the kinds of futures we would wish to see
produced in the locales in which we find ourselves. If certain
frameworks don’t align, then perhaps they should be modified,
challenged, and simply rejected. This is not harvesting or farming.
It is more like making music, music that is able to voice its relations
with the “elsewhere,” but in ways that are distinctly of the “here.”
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Stubbe, M., & Holmes, J. (1999). Talking Maori or Pakeha in English: Signalling
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Craig Prichard is a former newspaper reporter who pitched-up in academic circles via a strange set of happy accidents. After nearly 8 years in
England in the 1990s, he returned to his native New Zealand where he has
been party to a series of employment contracts with Massey University. His
most recent “scribblings” include efforts to persuade others to think again
about Marxian class analysis, challenges to the interpretive turn in studies
of “discourse,” and efforts to grasp the implications of “location” for organization studies research undertaken in nonmetropolitan locales (see http:/
/www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/). His Ph.D., undertaken at Nottingham
University, was published by the Open University Press in 2000, Making
Managers in Universities and Colleges.