CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Tracy, P. J. (1996). Two calls for bridging the gap: considering Sense-Making and Feminism. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago.
© Pamela J. Tracy (1996).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
The project I am currently working on is part of a larger exploration focusing on how Sense-Making and feminism handle difference pedagogically, methodologically, and theoretically. I am in the process of analyzing 52 student responses to various pieces of feminist scholarship in the field of communication. The students were asked to frame their essays by responding to a sense-making questionnaire constructed by Dr. Brenda Dervin. Essentially, I am interested in:

1. how this diverse group of students make sense out of feminist theory
2. what tensions within feminist theory are picked up by their responses
3. what ways feminist scholarship is or is not attending to their material existence
4. how their responses address the potential gaps in this theorizing, and
5. what strategies these students use to bridge these gaps.

In brief, I want to explore what we can learn about feminist scholarship and Sense-Making from their responses.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
As a self-identified feminist scholar, I often find myself confused and concerned about the explanatory and emancipatory potential of feminism inside and outside academia. As a white, heterosexual women steeped in a feminist tradition in which the grand narratives defined the oppressors as men and oppression as gender-based, confirming my own personal experiences, it was/is sometimes difficult to see beyond these rigid boundaries. Thus, one of the reasons I took this road is to examine more carefully these confusions and concerns in an attempt to try to understand the possibilities and limitations of feminist work. I have spent much time theorizing and meta-theorizing about feminist scholarship and now find it necessary to begin to explore the applicability of feminism in everyday life. In particular, based on my experiences with students new to feminist theory—responses have ranged from sympathetic, excited to apprehensive, hostile—it seemed necessary to get a better understanding of how feminism is ‘received,’ how what is communicated is interpreted, and the impact of this meaning-making process on the potential for social change.

Because I am concerned with how difference is theorized in both feminist scholarship and Sense-Making, another reason for this journey is to explore the possibilities of collaborating Sense-Making with post-modern feminism, in particular the work being done by US Third World feminists. I am only beginning to explore how Sense-Making offers a means to meta-theoretically critique mainstream feminist scholarship and how methodologically and theoretically Sense-Making provides an opportunity to theorize difference as a process incorporating shifting epistemologies and realities. I am also guided by, intrigued with, and find hopeful the challenges to mainstream feminism offered by US Third World feminists. As a means to bridge the gap of exclusion and problematic unification based on essentialist notions of identity, these scholars call for an epistemological and ontological shift—the need to embrace ambiguity across time/space in order to make sense out of the differences among women and to stimulate social change. I visualize this current project as only part of a larger puzzle.

Finally, I took this road to not only examine the potential collaboration of feminism and Sense-Making, but also to explore Sense-Making as a method for pedagogy.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED IS:
1) participating in a quarter-long learning process with these students where I have had the opportunity to observe their responses and participate in the discussions; 2) engaging in a critique of feminism and my own positioning as a feminist scholar; 3) beginning to explore the collaboration of post-modern feminism and Sense-Making.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
The work of feminist scholars and people engaged in Sense-Making who continue to push the boundaries of experience, identity, process, and change has been very helpful not only by providing a means to think through the complexities of lived experiences, but by also stimulating perhaps more questions than answers. In particular, Vickie Rutledge Shields and Brenda Dervin’s exploration into the collaboration of feminism and Sense-Making (1993), Vickie’s dissertation (1994, The Constructing, maintaining, and negotiating of gender identities in the process of decoding gender advertisements), Dervin’s (1994, Information<--->democracy) as well as work by feminists such as Gloria Anzaldua, Hazel Carby, Cherie Moraga, and Chela Sandoval’to name a few’have been useful. Seeing the potential connection between this work and Sense-Making represents a place for me to begin to piece together my own confusions concerning the relationship between theory, methodology, identity, and social change.

I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
Bracketing my own anxiety that students see the necessity for theorizing gender, race, sexuality, and class. Given this struggle, I have difficulty suspending my own judgments and anger when I read and listen to some of their responses. Based on my past experiences with students and their often-hostile responses to feminist scholarship, I am struggling with how to make sense out of their interpretations—Are these responses representative of the gaps within feminist theory, the post-feminist belief that women and oppressed men have achieved equality, both, neither or something else?

Pragmatically, I am struggling with managing and analyzing 52, 4-8 page essays.

WHAT WOULD HELP ME NOW:
Suggestions, comments, and concerns particularly in reference to theorizing difference within the Sense-Making framework and post-modern feminism. Any helpful hints in terms of managing data and analysis would be very useful.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
Over the past two decades, women-of-color feminists and post-modern feminists have unmasked the white, middle class, heterosexual bias of many feminist practices inside and outside the academy. In the process of re-evaluating the aims and primary assumptions of mainstream feminist theory, there have been various moves to re-theorize previous notions of the collectivity known as "woman." Based on the ambiguity of women’s subjectivities and the mobility of their own identities, these feminists argue that the identity "woman" cannot be sifted out of the complex mixture of race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity. These challenges have given rise to many polemics and many different ways of theorizing the "subject" of feminism. What has not been attended to is how feminist theory is received by individuals who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves to be feminists—some who find themselves indifferent or resistant to this very labeling and theorizing, individuals who are not considered to be the experts, but who are part of the discourse. In order to understand more fully the gaps in feminist theory and its utility for life decisions and life changes, we need to explore how people interpret and put to use these theories.

Based on 52 student Sense-Making responses (see questionnaire format below) to various pieces of feminist scholarship in the field of communication, I am interested in 1) how this diverse group of students make sense out of feminist theory; 2) what tensions within feminist theory are picked up by their responses; 3) in what ways feminist scholarship is or is not attending to their material existence; 4) how their responses address the potential gaps in this theorizing, and 5) what strategies these students use to bridge these gaps. In brief, I want to explore what we can learn about feminist scholarship and Sense-Making from their responses.

Student self-interview structure:

Instructions: All students must do A. Graduate students are also required to do B, although all students are invited to do so if they choose. The self-interview structures below are to be applied, after reading each chapter, to that chapter.

A. Personal application
1. How did this reading relate to my life—past or present? What actual experiences have I had (or been connected to) that relate?

For each experience:

1. What happened?
2. What hurt and how?
3. What helped and how?
4. What would have helped if only, and how would it have helped?
5. What conclusions did I come to and what led me to them?
6. What questions or confusions did I have? What led to them?
7. What emotions or feelings did I have? What led to them?
8. What impact(s) did the experience have on me?

2. What ideas or conclusions did you come to from the reading?

For each idea/conclusion:

1. What led to the challenge?
2. How does it connect to your life?

(This may bring up newly remembered experiences for analysis in #1 above)

B. Academic application:
Thinking about research meta-theory, substantive theory, methodology, and/or method:

1. What in this article challenged you?
2. What in this article reaffirmed you?
3. What do you disagree with?

For each challenge/re-affirmation/disagreement:

1. What was it?
2. Why did it (challenge/reaffirm/disagree)?
3. What difference does the (challenge/re-affirmation/disagreement) make?
4. How does it connect with your work? goals? beliefs?

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlisttracy.html