Relational dialectics PDF

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Saturday, February 16, 2013 1:40 PM

Chapter 12 relational dialectics October-20-12 3:35 PM

Relational Dialectics of Leslie Baxter & Barbara Montgomery Relational dialectics A dynamic knot of contradictions in personal relationships; an unceasing interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies. Internal dialectics Ongoing tensions played out within a relationship. External dialectics Ongoing tensions between a couple and their community. Integration–separation A class of relational dialectics that includes connection–autonomy, inclusion–seclusion, and intimacy–independence. Stability–change A class of relational dialectics that includes certainty–uncertainty, conventionality– uniqueness, predictability– surprise, and routine–novelty. Expression–nonexpression A class of relational dialectics that includes openness–closedness,

revelation–concealment, candor–secrecy, and transparency–privacy. Dialogue Communication that is constitutive, always in flux, capable of achieving aesthetic moments Constitutive dialogue Communication that creates, sustains, and alters relationships and the social world; social construction. Utterance chains The central building blocks of meaning making, where utterances are linked to competing discourses already heard as well as those yet to be spoken. Dialectical flux The unpredictable, unfinalizable, indeterminate nature of personal relationships. Spiraling inversion Switching back and forth between two contrasting voices, responding first to one pull, then the other Segmentation A compartmentalizing tactic by which partners isolate different aspects of their relationship. Aesthetic moment A fleeting sense of unity through a profound respect for disparate

voices in dialogue. Critical sensibility An obligation to critique dominant voices, especially those that suppress opposing viewpoints; a responsibility to advocate for those who are muted. Consequentialist ethics Judging actions solely on the basis of their beneficial or harmful outcomes. Principle of veracity Truthful statements are preferable to lies in the absence of special circumstances that overcome the negative weight.

Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery are central fi gures in a growing group of communication scholars who study how communication creates and constantly changes close relationships. Baxter directs an extensive program of research at the University of Iowa. Montgomery is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Colorado State University-Pueblo. The fi rst time Baxter conducted a series of in-depth interviews with people about their personal relationships, she quickly gave up any hope of discovering scientifi c laws that neatly ordered the experiences of friends and lovers. I was struck by the contradictions, contingencies, non-rationalities, and multiple realities to which people gave voice in their narrative sense-making of their relational lives. 1 Baxter saw no law of gravitational pull to predict interpersonal attraction, no co-effi cient of friction that would explain human confl ict. She found, instead, people struggling to interpret the mixed messages about their relationship that

they both spoke and heard. Although Montgomery worked independently of Baxter, her experience was much the same. Baxter and Montgomery each analyzed tensions inherent in romantic relationships and began to catalog the contradictions that couples voiced. They soon recognized the commonality of their work and co-authored a book on relating based on the premise that personal relationships are indeterminate processes of ongoing fl ux. 2 Both scholars make it clear that the forces that strain romantic relationships are also at work among close friends and family members. They applaud the work of William Rawlins at Ohio University, who concentrates on the “communicative predicaments of friendship,” and the narrative analysis of Art Bochner at the University of South Florida, who focuses on the complex contradictions within family systems. Whatever the form of intimacy, Baxter and Montgomery’s basic claim is that “social life is a dynamic knot of contradictions, a ceaseless interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies.” 3 Objective Interpretive Phenomenological tradition ● 154 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Relational dialectics highlight the tension, struggle, and general messiness of close personal ties. According to Baxter, the best way we can grasp relationship dialectics is to look at a narrative in which competing discourses are etched in bold relief. T*he 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham is especially helpful in illustrating tensions within family, friendship, and romantic ties. Audiences of all ages and every ethnicity can identify with the relational struggles of Jesminder Bhamra, an Indian teenage girl brought up in the west end of London. Like many British teenage males, Jess is passionate about soccer, but she’s better than any of the guys she plays with in pickup games at the park. A poster of England’s football superstar David Beckham hangs on her bedroom wall and she often talks to his image about her game and her life. In the close-knit Indian expat community, Jess is at an age where girls are supposed to focus on marrying a well-regarded Indian boy—a union often arranged by their parents. Her mother insists that Jess quit “running around half-naked in front of men.” Her dad reluctantly agrees. “Jess, your mother’s right. It’s not nice. You must start

behaving as a proper woman. OK ?” Jules, an English girl who sees Jess play, recruits her to play for an amateur women’s soccer team. Jess and Jules quickly become “mates,” bonded together by their goal-scoring ability and joint efforts to keep Jess’ participation a secret from her mom and dad. Their friendship is soon ruptured by Jules’ jealousy over a romantic interest between Jess and Joe, the team’s coach. Of course, that kind of relationship is out of bounds for Jess. The resulting tensions in Jess’ conversations with her dad, best friend, and admired coach allow us to see the oppositional pull of contrasting forces, which is relational dialectics at work. Some viewers might assume that Jess’s up-again, down-again relationships with Joe, Jules, and her dad are due to her age, sex, birth order, ethnicity, or obsession with soccer. But Baxter and Montgomery caution us not to look at demographics or personal traits when we want to understand the nature of close relationships. Neither biology nor can account for the struggle of contradictory tendencies that Jess and her signifi cant others experience in this story. The tensions they face are common to all personal relationships, and those opposing pulls never quit. Contradiction is a core concept of relational dialectics. Contradiction refers to “the dynamic interplay between unify end oppositions.” 4 A contradiction is formed “whenever two tendencies or forces are interdependent (the dialectical principle of unity) yet mutually negate one another (the dialectical principle of negation).” 5 According to Baxter, every personal relationship faces the same tension. Rather than bemoaning this relational fact of life, Baxter and Montgomery suggest that couples take advantage of the opportunity it provides: “From a relational dialectics perspective, bonding occurs in both interdependence with the other and independence from the other.” 6 One without the other diminishes the relationship. Baxter and Montgomery draw heavily on the thinking of Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian intellectual who survived the Stalinist regime. Bakhtin saw dialectical tension as the “deep structure” of all human experience. On the one hand, a centripetal, or centralizing, force pulls us together with others. On the other hand, a centrifugal, or decentralizing, force pushes us apart. In order to picture Bakhtin’s simultaneous and confl icting forces, imagine

yourself playing “crack the whip” while skating with a group of friends. You Relational dialectics A dynamic knot of contradictions in personal relationships; an unceasing interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies. volunteer to be the outermost person on a pinwheeling chain of skaters. As you accelerate, you feel the centripetal pull from the skater beside you, who has a viselike grip on your wrist. You also feel the opposing centrifugal force that threatens to rip you from your friend’s grasp and slingshot you away from the group. Skill at skating doesn’t reduce the confl icting pressures. In fact, the more speed you can handle, the greater the opposing forces. Baxter emphasizes that Bakhtin’s fusion-fission opposites have no ultimate resolution. Unlike the thesis-antithesis-synthesis stages of Hegelian or Marxist dialectics, there is no fi nal synthesis or end stage of equilibrium. Relationships are always in flux; the only certainty is certain change. For Bakhtin, this wasn’t bad news. He saw dialectical tension as providing an opportunity for dialogue, an occasion when partners could work out ways to mutually embrace the conflict between unity with and differentiation from each other. Many Westerners are bothered by the idea of paradox, so Baxter and Montgomery work hard to translate the concept into familiar terms. At the start of her research interviews, Baxter introduces a dialectical perspective without ever using the phrase itself. She talks about people experiencing certain “pulls” or “tugs” in different directions. Her words call up the image of parties engaged in an ongoing tug-of-war created through their conversations. Within this metaphor, their communication exerts simultaneous pulls on both ends of a taut line—a relational rope under tension. It’s important to understand that when Baxter uses the term relational dialectics, she is not referring to being of two minds —the cognitive dilemma within the head of an individual who is grappling with conflicting desires. Instead, she’s describing the contradictions that are “located in the relationship between parties, produced and reproduced through the parties’ joint communicative activity.”

7 So dialectical tension is the natural product or unavoidable result of our conversations rather than the motive force guiding what we say in them. And despite the fact that we tend to think of any kind of conflict as detrimental to our relationships, Baxter and Montgomery believe that these contradictions can be constructive. That’s fortunate, because these theorists are convinced that dialectics in relationships are inevitable. While listening to hundreds of men and women talk about their relationships, Baxter spotted three recurring contradictions that challenge the traditional wisdom of the theories described in the relationship development section. Recall that Rogers’ phenomenological approach assumes that closeness is the relational ideal, Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory posits a quest for interpersonal certainty, and Altman and Taylor’s social penetration theory valorizes the transparent or open self (see the introduction to Relationship Development, Chapter 10, and Chapter 9). But from the accounts she heard, Baxter concluded that these pursuits are only part of the story. Although most of us embrace the traditional ideals of closeness, certainty, and openness in our relationships, our actual communication within family, friendship, and romance seldom follows a straight path toward these goals. Baxter and Montgomery believe this is the case because we are also drawn toward the exact opposite—autonomy, novelty, and privacy. These confl icting forces can’t be resolved by simple “either/or” decisions. The “both/and” nature of THREE DIALECTICS THAT AFFECT RELATIONSHIPS 156 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION dialectical pressures guarantees that our relationships will be complex, messy, and always somewhat on edge. Baxter and Montgomery’s research has focused on three overarching relational dialectics that affect almost every close relationship: integration–separation, stability–change, and expression–nonexpression. These oppositional pairs are listed on the left side of Figure 12–1. The terms within the chart label these contrasting forces as they are experienced in two different contexts. The Internal Dialectic column describes the three dialectics as they play out within a relationship. The External Dialectic column lists similar pulls that cause tension between a couple and their community. Unlike a typical Hollywood love story, the portrayals of

Jess’ key relationships in Bend It Like Beckham are credible due to each pair’s continual struggles with these contradictions. Since Baxter insists that dialectics are created through conversation, I’ll quote extensively from the characters’ dialogue in the fi lm. All researchers who explore contradictions in close relationships agree that there is no finite list of relational dialectics. Accordingly, the ragged edge at the bottom of the figure suggests that these opposing forces are just the start of a longer list of contradictions that confront partners as they live out their relationship in real time and space. For example, Rawlins finds that friends continually have to deal with the paradox of judgment and acceptance. In this section, however, I’ll limit my review to the “Big Three” contradictions that Baxter and Montgomery discuss. Integration and Separation Baxter and Montgomery regard the contradiction between connection and autonomy as a primary strain within all relationships. If one side wins this me-we tug-of-war, the relationship loses: No relationship can exist by defi nition unless the parties sacrifice some individual autonomy. However, too much connection paradoxically destroys the relationship because the individual identities become lost. 8 Integration – Separation Stability – Change Expression – Nonexpression Connection – Autonomy Certainty – Uncertainty Openness – Closedness Inclusion – Seclusion External Dialectic (between couple and community) Internal Dialectic (within the relationship) Conventionality – Uniqueness

Revelation – Concealment FIGURE 12–1 Typical Dialectical Tensions Experienced by Relational Partners Based on Baxter and Montgomery, Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics Internal dialectics Ongoing tensions played out within a relationship. External dialectics Ongoing tensions between a couple and their community. Integration–separation A class of relational dialectics that includes connection–autonomy, inclusion–seclusion, and intimacy–independence. CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 157 Throughout Bend It Like Beckham , Jess and her father portray a “stay-away close” ambivalence toward each other that illustrates the connection–autonomy dialectic. Through much of the story she defi es his “no soccer” ban, going so far as taking a stealthy overnight trip with the team to play in Germany. As for her father, his words to her suggest that he’s more worried about what the Indian community thinks than he is about her—an external dialectic. Yet when an Indian friend offers to rush her away from her sister’s wedding reception to play in the championship game, Jess turns to her father and says, “Dad, it doesn’t matter. This is much more important. I don’t want to spoil the day for you.” He in turn tells her to go and “play well and make us proud.” Later that night at home with the extended family he strengthens his connection with Jess by defending his decision to his irate wife: “Maybe you could handle her long face. I could not. I didn’t have the heart to stop her.” Bakhtin wrote that dialectical moments are occasions for dialogue. Perhaps the best example in the fi lm comes after Jess receives a red card in a tournament game for retaliating against an opponent who fouled her. Although her shorthanded

team holds on to win, Joe reads her the riot act in the locker room: “What the hell is wrong with you, Bhamra? I don’t ever want to see anything like that from you ever again. Do you hear me?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns and marches out. Jess runs after him and their dialogue refl ects the ongoing tension between connection and autonomy in their relationship: Jess: Why did you yell at me like that? You knew that the ref was out of order. Joe: You could have cost us the tournament. Jess: But it wasn’t my fault! You didn’t have to shout at me. Joe: Jess, I am your coach. I have to treat you the same as everyone else. Look, Jess, I saw it. She fouled you. She tugged your shirt. You just overreacted. That’s all. Jess: That’s not all. She called me a Paki, but I guess you wouldn’t understand what that feels like, would you? Joe: Jess, I’m Irish. Of course I’d understand what that feels like. [Joe then holds a sobbing Jess against his chest, a long hug witnessed by her father.] Baxter and Montgomery maintain that even as partners struggle with the stresses of intimacy in their relationship vis-à-vis each other, as a couple they also face parallel yin–yang tensions with people in their social networks. The seclusion of private togetherness that is necessary for a relationship to gel runs counter to the inclusion of the couple with others in the community. The observed embrace certainly complicates Jess and Joe’s relationship. And unless they fi nd a way to work through the dilemma between inclusion with outsiders and seclusion for themselves, the future of their relationship is in doubt. These opposing external forces surface again when Jess runs into Joe’s arms on a dimly lit soccer fi eld to tell him that her parents will allow her to go to an American university on a soccer scholarship. But as Joe seeks their fi rst kiss, she stops him, saying, “I’m sorry Joe. I can’t.” To a baffl ed Joe she explains, “Letting me go is a really big step for my mum and dad. I don’t know how they’d survive if I told them about you.” Stability and Change Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory makes a strong case for the idea that people strive for predictability in their relationships (see Chapter 10). Baxter and Montgomery don’t question our human search for interpersonal certainty, but 158 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

they are convinced that Berger makes a mistake by ignoring our simultaneous efforts toward its opposite, novelty. We seek the bit of mystery, the touch of spontaneity, the occasional surprise that is necessary for having fun. Without the spice of variety to season our time together, the relationship becomes bland, boring, and, ultimately, emotionally dead. Early in their friendship, Jess asks about Jules’ romantic interest in Joe. Their brief conversation can be seen as a novel fantasy expressed in the imagery of the familiar —a conventional marriage to a partner who is out of bounds: Jess: Jules . . . you know Joe, do you like him? Jules: Nah, he’d get sacked if he was caught shagging one of his players. Jess: Really? Jules: I wish I could fi nd a bloke like him. Everyone I know is a prat. They think girls can’t play as well as them, except Joe of course. Jess: Yeah, I hope I marry an Indian boy like him, too. The girls then laugh together—a tension release—and hug before they part. But dealing with dialectics is always tenuous. When the romantically unthinkable becomes possible for Jess, Jules lashes out: “You knew he was off-limits. Don’t pretend to be so innocent. . . . You’ve really hurt me, Jess! . . . You’ve betrayed me.” It would be easy to see Jess’ family relationships as a simplistic face-off between the conventionality of life in their culture versus the shocking uniqueness of an Indian girl playing soccer. That’s because so much of what Jesminder’s Stability–change A class of relational dialectics that includes certainty–uncertainty, conventionality– uniqueness, predictability– surprise, and routine–novelty. “Would you guys mind if I slept alone for a change?” Copyright by Don Orehek, reproduced by permission. CHAPTER 12: RELATIONAL DIALECTICS 159 sister and parents say reproduces time-honored Indian norms and practices. As her sister warns, “Look, Jess . . . do you want to be the one that everyone stares at, at every family [gathering], ’cause you’ve married the English bloke?”

And Jess’ dream to go to college in California, play pro soccer, and have the freedom to fall in love with her Irish coach seem a unifi ed pull in the opposite...