Alberto González

Marsha Houston

Victoria Chen

Our Voices, Fourth Edition, examines communication in a variety of cultural and personal settings, with each contributor writing from the perspective of his or her cultural experience within diverse theoretical frameworks. Each essay addresses the question, "What is a cultural explanation and interpretation for this communication phenomenon from the ethnic scholar's perspective?" The fourth edition features seven new essays that address such topics of current interest and concern as creating a family across race and gender borders; the struggle for identity of multiethnic and biracial individuals in America; constructing American Jewish male identity; understanding class in the context of race, ethnicity, and gender; racial tensions in a 9/11 memorial; and 9/11 and "the color line." In addition, many of the previous essays have been significantly updated, and two new sections, "Economic Class and Cultural Identity" and "Reflecting on 9/11," have been added. Continuing the successful tradition of previous editions, the fourth edition: * Maintains a consistent focus on communication and culture. Each essay addresses important issues in areas of communication--including rhetoric, mass communication, and interpersonal communication. Together, the authors examine how culture influences the creation of meaning and how various uses of symbols and language constitute what we call cultural reality. * Introduces experience into examinations of cultural communication. The experience-driven approach is presented as a complement to theory-driven approaches to intercultural communication research. * Explores the rich cultural variety of communication practices within broad cultural labels. The premise is that there is not "one" style of any particular group any more than there is "one" style of Anglo-American communication.

Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication

Our Voices

Olga Idriss Davis

In this book the editors suggest an approach to the study of black women as communicators that centers the knowledge and wisdom conveyed through the 19th and 20th centuries both in the public rhetoric of notable black women and in ordinary women's everyday conversations. The goal is to present what is not found in other communication books and Joomals - an angle of vision on black women's rhetoric and everyday talk that both takes account of the material circumstances and ideological contexts of black women's communication and honors black women's interpretations of discourse. Although the authors employ a variety of contemporary communication concepts and theories, all make the traditions of African American feminist and womanist thought central to their analyses. In Part I a framework for liberatory research is proposed. Each author in Part II endeavors to provide concrete, socially useful description and critique of African American women's discourse. Three of the major themes that interweave in these chapters are multiple consciousness, the value of sisterhood and community, and the culture of resistance.

Marsha Houston

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