CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Foreman-Wernet, L. (1999, May). Identity as Sense-Making. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Lois Foreman-Wernet (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
I am interested in the relationship between human beings and material culture, particularly between culture and the expression or representation of individual and social identities. Implicit in this inquiry is the question of what it means to be a self in relation to others. The Enlightenment philosophers conceived of an autonomous essential self fully capable of disengaged rational thought and free will. Even for such contemporary scholars as Habermas, individuals are seen as capable of reasoning, of making decisions, and of acting in a rational and principled manner. According to Habermas and others in the Frankfurt School, the obstacles that prevent people from behaving rationally, and in accord with their real interests, are the modern institutions and social forces that create false consciousness.

The postmodern view posits that identity is constructed by the representations of society. The self, according to Foucault and others, is seen as a subject of discourses that define and categorize by focusing on differences. In this way subjectivity is always contextual, always gendered, always rooted in class, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Through discursive, representational practices, social institutions dictate individuals’ everyday actions and their ways of perceiving the world. An intermediate perspective is that human beings are neither fully autonomous nor totally subjugated; they have agency but also are constrained by social structures. This middle ground, which is the position I hold, sees action-oriented human beings who bring to every situation both personal and cultural histories. Given this view, it seems to me that our interactions with material culture represent a rich site to explore the concept of identity by bringing to the surface the various meanings that cultural products hold for us and how we relate those meanings to our experiences, beliefs, and values.

Taylor (1989) suggests that there is a link between one’s identity and his or her moral orientation, where morality is broadly defined as what one sees as right and good and what underlies one’s own dignity. I would agree and add that, while we rarely recognize it, in the process of encountering and interacting with our material world, we determine from situation to situation what is good or valuable and what we endorse or oppose. In order to consider more concretely the relationships among material culture, moral orientation, and identity, I have chosen to focus on the museum setting. I believe that Sense-Making offers a very useful framework for conceptualizing and analyzing the various strands of knowledge, both contested and agreed upon, that encircle the museum and are intertwined with issues of identity. Of primary concern to me are art museums, with history museums a close second. I have long been interested in the arts and in history, and I hold a degree in music education. These are areas that hold great importance and meaning for me. Subsequent to a short career in the public schools and a master’s degree in journalism, I spent many years working in public broadcasting and arts institutions. I am familiar with many of the struggles of these institutions, but I also recognize the gap that exists between their world and that of most people’s everyday lives. It is this gap that I wish to explore more fully.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
One of the primary assets of Sense-Making for me is that it provides a framework for looking at the ‘big picture’ while grounding the theoretical in practice. It acknowledges that humans are both thinking and feeling, and it allows the researcher to enter the lived space of those who interact with the museum so they can talk about their perceptions, emotions, experiences, ideas, hurts, and so forth. Because Sense-Making views people as moving through time and space encountering situations, facing questions or decision-points (gaps), bridging those gaps, and moving on, it supports the position that neither culture nor identity is static. Through Sense-Making, we can circle the various perspectives surrounding the museum in contemporary culture. We can look phenomenologically from many vantage-points, entering the worlds of visitors, volunteers, curators, trustees, donors, and so on. In doing so, I believe it will be possible to analyze in a more comprehensive manner than with other methodologies the enormously complex system of representations and identities associated with the institution of the museum. For example, there is a long-standing historical assumption that museums present absolute knowledge or truth even though, as Clifford (1988) and others have argued, every exhibition places a certain construction on history and how we see ourselves and others. Another huge area of contest related to identity that I anticipate relates to the elite culture of museums, the perceptions of inclusion and exclusion, and the somewhat arbitrary decisions made, especially in the art world, about matters of taste. Because of the sensitivity of sharing one’s inner thoughts and feelings, especially as they relate to identity and power, I would expect the Sense-Making interviews, which are based on trust and safety, to yield some important insights. Finally, I chose this road in the hope that I might ultimately make a small difference in people’s lives by helping to facilitate a museum space that is more conducive to conscientization and dialogue about the moral assumptions that underlie our individual and collective identities.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
This project is very much a work-in-progress. In a general sense, the more I read and talk with others, the more refined and the better my project becomes.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
It has been extremely beneficial to share ideas with others as part of an ongoing scholarly community; I am especially grateful for the insights and encouragement of Dr. Brenda Dervin. In my reading, I have found a number of Sense-Making articles to be very helpful to my thinking, and the work of Clifford and Bourdieu has been especially useful in my efforts to grasp the historical context of the production of culture. Finally, Taylor not only has contributed to my thinking about the history of the self but also has supported my intuitive desire to connect identity and morality.

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
To say that it has been a struggle to focus my broad philosophical interests and background into a manageable research project would be an understatement. Even the museum project outlined above is daunting in its scope, given that I feel compelled to circle the perspectives. At a very basic level, I now realize I have been struggling as well to overcome my own background in arts education and arts administration in order to undertake what is a fairly radical critique of museums. How do we deal with the issues of elitism and the deep-rooted assumptions about the knowledge that is presented in museums? How can new museum visitors tap into the creative, productive, intellectual, and even spiritual sources of these institutions in a truly meaningful way? Finally, I am struggling to some degree with the intended outcomes of my overall research program, although I believe it is, as suggested above, to find ways to facilitate self-to-self (conscientizing) and self-to-other (dialogue) communication about fundamental beliefs, values, and our individual and collective selves. The museum project represents one important component of this larger enterprise.

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
I would be interested to hear the thoughts and suggestions of others at this time.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
This project explores the relationship between human beings and material culture, particularly with regard to questions of individual and collective identities. In assuming the Sense-Making perspective, it adopts a view of the self as neither completely autonomous nor totally subjugated by the forces of a society comprised of disciplinary discourses. Rather it presupposes a person who both shapes and is shaped by his or her world. The individual self brings to each situation both personal and cultural histories, and in the process of interacting with material culture from situation to situation he or she makes value judgments about what is right and good, what he or she endorses or opposes, and what underlies his or her own dignity. Thus, in this view, neither culture nor identity is seen as static. The specific site I have chosen in order to examine the relationships among material culture, identity, and the broad moral orientations defined by one’s value-judgments is the museum setting. Through the Sense-Making approach, it is my intent to phenomenologically circle the various perspectives of the museum, entering into the various worlds of visitors, donors, curators, and others. I expect to find many different strands of knowledge, both agreed upon and contested, that encircle the museum and are intertwined with questions of identity. These include issues of power, elitism, inclusion and exclusion, and absolute and constructed knowledge, among others. As a result of this Sense-Making research endeavor, it would be my intent to help museums create institutions that are better able to facilitate dialogue about human beings’ individual and collective identities and the value judgments and moral assumptions that underlie them.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

Bourdieu, P.(1993). The field of cultural production. New York: Columbia University Press.

Clifford, J. (1988). The predicament of culture: Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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