Jessy's Question 9/30

I really appreciated all of the suggestions from the authors on how to navigate scholarly identity and make the academic environment more accepting and supportive. One particular suggestion which caught my attention was from Scott and Lewis who recommend that scholars “should emphasize their content area rather than their metatheoretical or methodological leanings […] by emphasizing the phenomena of interest to us, we remain open to a variety of metatheoretical and methodological views and can more readily be accepted as moving among those perspectives and seeking other forms of common ground between them” (167-8). To take their idea a bit further, I think that this concept would also be useful in developing relationships across disciplines. We often lament the fact that individuals do not regularly understand what we study when we say “organizational communication,” thus; I think in the future I will begin with my research interests before I describe my disciplinary affiliation instead of the other way around. One danger is that this approach subverts communication studies to the scholar’s research interests which could be damaging to the field. After reading Scott and Lewis do you think you will adapt the ways that you articulate your research interests and/or departmental association?