How do we make change? Thoughts from Psychology Today

I'm starting with Google, tinkering around to find out more about Institutional Psychology, and to see what concept or term or idea I can bring into Rhet/Comp to help me with my project of making change.  Today, I got lucky, and I came across a really interesting article by Mikhail Lyubansky.  The article is called "Creating Institutional Change: A Short Primer" and it was published in Psychology Today.

Early in the article, Lyubansky makes an observation that correlates with what I've been noticing regarding the literature about how to 'solve the Contingent Labor crisis.'  What I've seen is that the research is less about solutions and more about hashing out the problem again, and again, and again.  Lyubansky has seen this too:

 I can’t help but observe that speakers often do a tremendous job of describing, illustrating, and researching the problem, whatever that problem might be, but rarely offer anything specific in the way of either response or prevention. This is the case despite the fact that the audience is often remarkably hungry for anything prescriptive.

 So, in this article Lyubansky synthesizes literature about how to create institutional change, and he shares these observations with us.  He notes, "though institutional change focuses on institutions rather than individuals, the whole point of changing institutions is to benefit those individuals who are being unfairly treated by the system/institution."  Absolutely.  Positively.  Great observation.  Now, Lyubansky is really talking about race, culture, and community, specifically racial prejudices and segregation, but I think that these tips can be applied to researching labor structures which are often based on racial, class, and gendered divides.

Here are his suggestions:

1. Work within your sphere of influence
2. Before coming up with a 'solution' that will impact marginalized peoples, make sure you listen to marginalized voices
3. Become an ally to members of an oppressed out-group
4. Take initiative but maintain accountability
5. Find allies within your own group
6. Build relationships with power brokers

These are super basic, but good to remember, especially the parts about working where you are, interacting with the populations that you're 'developing solutions for,' finding allies, being accountable, etc.  This is a good start.  

Now I still need to find out more about institutional psychology.  This article came up when I searched "institutional psychology," and it's about changing institutions and is in a psychology publication--is this institutional psychology?

Poaching and Questions

Massumi discusses this idea of poaching concepts from the sciences and applying them to the humanities in a really interesting way.  First, as I've mentioned in another post on the class blog, he advocates for working through examples, surprising yourself, practicing inattention, being okay with stupidity, connecting concepts, being inventive and exploratory (18-19).  I'm on board with all of this.  Sounds fun, actually, which I think is part of his goal.

Then, he gets into the poaching in a more detailed way, explaining that the point isn't just to apply the results of sciences to the humanities (19).  No, the point is to take a concept and the baggage that comes with it (like its connection to other concepts) and create a new system of concepts (20).   Massumi reminds me that I can't just take a single, isolated concept from another field and apply it--it comes with baggage and connections to other concepts.  Then, Massumi writes:

The optimal situation would be to take a scientific concept and use it in such a way that it ceases to be systematically scientific but doesn't end up tamed, a metaphorical exhibit in someone else's menagerie....A concept is by nature connectble to other concepts.  A concept is defined less by its semantic content than by the regularities of connection that have been established between it and other concepts....When you uproot a concept from its network of systemic connections with other concepts, you still have its connectibility. (20)

I think I want to do this for my final project.  The concept will likely come from Institutional Psychology, and I'll bring it, along with its connections, into Rhet/Comp to find ways to improve labor conditions in our field. As Massumi writes, "The point is to borrow from science in order to make a difference in the humanities" (21).  This is really what I want to do--make a difference in the humanities!

So, here's my current draft-y question to work on this semester:

What can institutional psychology offer to help change labor conditions in the field of Rhetoric and Composition?

Yes, still broad, but it's getting somewhere!  I need to do some reading on Institutional Psychology. Does anyone have a suggestion for where to start?

Massumi and Resistance

As I've mentioned before, my interests are primarily related to labor and the desire to change what I see as a broken system.  So, issues of resistance and social change usually draw my attention.  

Massumi talks about the body and social change early on in his Introduction to Parables for the Virtual.  He writes:

If the every day was no longer a place of rupture or revolt, as it had been in glimpses at certain privileged historical junctures, it might still be a site of modest acts of 'resistance' or 'subversion' keeping alive the possibility of systemic change.  These were practices of 'reading' or 'decoding' counter to the dominant ideological scheme of things.  The body was seem to be centrally involved in the every day practices of resistance. (2)

He continues, discussing coding (which kind of seems like intersectionality to me) and asking how change is possible and where the potential has gone (2-3).

I'm not really sure where he's going with this, but it reminds me of a book that I read for a class last semester called Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence, and Women's Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina.  The book was about activist movements in Argentina and how women used their bodies to protest.  Interesting stuff.

I need to come back to the Massumi, though, because I still don't quite understand.

Exploitation or Cooperation?

In "The Range of Rhetoric," the first chapter from A Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke writes:

Here is a major reason why rhetoric, according to Aristotle, "proves opposites."  When two men collaborate in an enterprise to which they contribute different kinds of services and from which they derive different amounts and kinds of profit, who is to say, once and for all, just where "cooperation" ends and one partner's "exploitation" of the other begins?  The wavering line between the two cannot be "scientifically" identified; rival rhetoricians can draw it at different places, and their persuasiveness varies with the resources each has at his command. (Burke, 25).

I think this is really interesting in relation to Nickel and Dimed.  Ehrenreich makes a distinction between the workers and the managers, and she suggests that exploitation is really occurring even though the managers frame it as cooperation by calling the workers "partners" in the company.  I'd like to look into this more.

Nickel and Dimed, and Industrial Psychology

I just finished reading the book Nickel and Domed: On (Not) Getting By in America, and there were some references in the book that I think might be helpful for this exploratory project.  Honestly, the whole book relates, since it's looking at low-paying labor in various states and how people get by.  However, the conclusion is where the author moves from just describing to critiquing and considering the labor system she observed.

This quote, in particular, might lead me to more sources:

"Why don't more [workers] take a stand where they are--demanding better wages and work conditions, either individually or as a group?  This is a huge question, probably the subject of many a dissertation in the field of industrial psychology, and here I can only comment on the things I observed" (Ehrenreich, 208). 

Her question here, about why those in low-wage positions don't just up and revolt, relates to some of the questions I'm asking.  So, I might look more into this field of industrial psychology.  Perhaps I could find a theory here to bring into Rhet/Comp?  Wikipedia (yes, I know this isn't the best place, but it's a start!) tells me:

"Industrial and organizational psychology (also known as I/O psychology or work psychology) is the scientific study of employees, workplaces, and organizations. Industrial and organizational psychologists contribute to an organization's success by improving the workplace and the performance, satisfaction and well-being of its people."

This sounds a lot like the kind of project I want to do for my dissertation.  I'm interested in studying adjunct writing instructors in English departments in order to improve the workplace and satisfaction for all.  AWESOME!  I might have just found a really significant lead for my project!

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In addition, in her conclusion, Ehrenreich discusses the kinds of emotions we experience when we recognize the labor system that sustains our comfortable ways of living.  She discusses shame, specifically, saying that "Guilt doesn't go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame--shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others" (Ehrenreich, 220-221).

Since we started talking more about emotions, I've become more aware of discussions about emotions in the things I'm reading, and we see this example here.  Playing the believing game, yes, I agree that shame is an important emotion to feel.  Playing the doubting game, I'd also like to see us move beyond shame to some of those other emotions that insight action, like Anger (as Aristotle described).

Anyway, file this away for later: industrial psychology.  What is it?  What does it have to offer?

Also, file away:

Ehrenreich, Barbara.  Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Print.

Possible Questions

After all the discussion in the first three weeks of class about workload, the 40 hour week, time management,  working on projects, etc., I think that I'd like to focus my individual blogging and final project on labor issues and their intersections with Rhetoric, Composition, and the Mind.  Yes, this is still vague, but I have some more specific ideas for questions that I might consider pursuing.  Here are some of my big questions that I'd really like to understand more:

• How can psychological discourse be used to change minds about exploitative labor issues, more specifically the adjunct issue in Higher Education?

• What are some of the psychological impacts of being an adjunct in the field of Rhetoric and Composition, or in the academy at large?  How does embodying this occupational space impact the mind?

• In larger examinations of labor, what have psychologists suggested that those in low-paying, unstable employment positions do?  i.e., Are there tools for dealing with these situations that psychologists suggest, or do psychologists suggest leaving the semi-exploitative position?

• How do we understand exploitation psychologically?

• What can be done to manage workload for adjuncts?  For example, what can Writing Program Administrators do when developing a program to reduce workload and stress for adjunct instructors? Or for all instructors?

• What does psychology offer students who are learning to write in regards to managing workload and stress?  For example, what else is there other than Boice?

• Would it be possible for me to interview instructors to find out more about how they cope with their workloads?  Or, could I look at a current documentary, Con Job, and examine the narratives presented by adjunct laborers within the film to discuss how these positions impact the mind?

Yes, I have lots of questions.  I'm still just figuring out where to go with them and how to narrow.  What would you suggest pursuing this semester?  What sounds reasonable to pursue for the next 12 weeks?  What will add the most to my thinking about issues of Rhetoric, Composition, Labor, and the Mind?

Also, I want to clarify that I (mostly) understand the complexity of the term "Adjunct Laborer."  Yes, adjunct only means "a thing that is added to something else as supplementary and not the essential part," and this is a vague description.  I've also considered using the term Contingent Laborer, Part-Time Laborer, etc.  However, contingent really describes groups of workers who work on a non-permanent basis, but this isn't always the case with the kind of workers I'm thinking about--some do work permanently.  Part-Time also isn't the best word because some of the laborers I'm talking about work full time.  I prefer to use the word contingent because it suggests more of a social space than a job description--these positions are not considered as essential, but supplementary, thus being considered low in value. The reality, though, is that these positions are valuable and things could not stay the way they are without them.

I'd also appreciate some help thinking about other terms to use. Ideas?

The beginning of something new

Hello, blog world (and my class of ENGL 8040 friends)!

This is the first time I've ever used a blog to keep track of my reading, notes, prewriting, questions, annotations, etc., and I have to say that I'm looking forward to it.  Perhaps having a good chunk of the writing process in a public place will keep me more accountable when working on my semester project.  One can only hope?

To provide some context for myself (in case I forget or lose my syllabus), here are the two main things that I'll be working on through this blog:

Individual Blogging: I ask that each of you set up your own individual blog for entries particular to your own research interests and projects.  Beginning at least in week 4, but starting earlier if you wish, I'll ask you to contribute 2 entries per week in which you write for at least 15 minutes about a topic, question, or reading that interests you, that you might consider pursuing on your own.  As you decide upon your formal projects for this class, the blog will then become a place for you to take notes and do some preliminary drafting of your projects.  Be sure to tag your entries so that you'll be able to better use the blog to collate ideas for your final project.

Okay, this seems fairly straightforward to me.  Blog 2 times a week for at least 15 minutes.  Write about a topic, a question, or a reading that interests me.  Consider doing some of my own research to add to the readings for the class in relation to my project.  Take notes.  Draft.  Tag.  I can do all this.

Here's the second part, then, to consider for the future:

Final Project(s): I am asking that you submit approximately 20 pages of formal, revised writing for this class. My suggestion is that you write an exploratory paper, in which you take up a question that interests you, that springs in some way from our readings and discussions together.  An exploratory paper is one that offers a kind of narrative of your research process as you explore sources that allow you to investigate your question.  If you would prefer, you may choose to instead write a traditional seminar paper, geared toward publication in a journal, but my feeling is that when confronting a new area of inquiry, a person needs time to explore.  You'll need to specify your plans in a proposal, due by the fifth week of class (February 21).  

Okay, I think I can do this too.  20 pages of formal, revised writing.  Exploratory *yay*!  I'm a bit stumped with the proposal, but I'll figure that out later.  For now, at least I know what some of the short term and long term goals are!