Papers by Elizabeth Keating
Organizational Dynamics 50(1), 100843., 2021
We offer seven key lessons designed to improve communication in technologically mediated global e... more We offer seven key lessons designed to improve communication in technologically mediated global environments. First, there is no universal
hearer, so members of global teams have to be prepared to learn about their team members’ cultural playbooks, and whether a certain communication action is acceptable across teams. Second, teams must spend time discussing virtual team communication. Third, teams must build a virtual common ground while recognizing also that virtual spaces are different, even though they look the same. Fourth, team members should practice active perspective taking of the hearer, even if they cannot see the hearer. The hearer plays a critical role in successful communication action. Fifth, become aware of how communication is
action and not just information transfer. We do things with words. Language is powerful, and learning how to use it requires time and attention. Our knowledge of communication has not kept up with our knowledge of the technology that has enabled the virtual global office. Sixth, recognize the limits of email in global virtual collaborations. Seventh, build trust through increased attention to communication
patterns.
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American Scientist , 2021
Remote work is challenging because the nuances of nonverbal communication that are present in fac... more Remote work is challenging because the nuances of nonverbal communication that are present in face-to-face conversations are not conveyed through virtual meetings. Informal knowledge that new employees learn quickly in an office setting through watercooler and hallway conversations is difficult to transmit in a virtual environment.
New technologies to virtually recreate casual interactions and the physical cues of nonverbal communication are in development and may make remote work feel more natural.
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Penguin Random House, 2022
I share in this book what I learned from my research on families and how to get older people talk... more I share in this book what I learned from my research on families and how to get older people talking about their pasts as they’ve never done before. After realizing I’d asked my mother the wrong questions when I interviewed her before she died, I then realized I should have asked her questions about her life as an anthropologist would. When talking with grandparents in several countries while writing this book, I’ve been moved by their descriptions of life “back then” and the amazing times they lived through. I heard about deep connections to the land, “growing up on horseback,” worrying about the size of a dowry, picking crops in the summer, living meal to meal, and walking to school without heavy backpacks. And my students have loved using these questions to interview their grandparents, too. Whether using these questions or not, I hope you’ll collect the stories in your family before it’s too late.
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Questions-Interview-Uncover-Generations/dp/0593420926
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Designs for Experimentation and Inquiry, 2019
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Humans have a long history of using natural environments and built space (see e.g. Low and Chambe... more Humans have a long history of using natural environments and built space (see e.g. Low and Chambers, 1989) to give meaning to interactions, roles, and relationships. This includes representing spatial relationships in language, as in wayfinding and reference (e.g. Brown and Levinson 1993), or the use of spatial metaphors for indicating time. It also includes the creation of pictorial representations, such as graphs and navigational charts which manipulate the terrain in ways that influence cognition and imagination. Pacific island houses and Berber houses (Bourdieu, 1973) are places for “writing ” and “reading ” status differentiation, as the body is manipulated through manners of entrance and activity (Duranti, 1992). New technologies allow us to create new kinds of built spaces and to manipulate space in new ways, by amplifying certain aspects of human perceptive systems (Keating, 2005), through the construction of virtual space fields, by altering means of representation, and thr...
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The performance of identity is a fundamental aspect of human society. Identity is “talked into be... more The performance of identity is a fundamental aspect of human society. Identity is “talked into being” in interactions with others. This negotiated nature of identity, however, can be challenging in cross cultural interactions, where dissimilar ways of talking and different models and interpretations meet. Communication technology has made it routine for members of certain professions to work together from different cultural locations in sparsely furnished virtual space where it is not always clear that multiple systems of identity are in play (or at work). This chapter focuses upon one such context, engineers working in virtual collaborations. It analyzes their interactions and their comments about them in terms of status degradation and spoiled identity, two useful ways of understanding cross cultural miscommunication. The author highlights that differences in the way cultures organize identities, for example, along priority axes of self versus social role identity are influenced b...
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Issues in Applied Linguistics, 1991
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Identity Revisited and Reimagined, 2017
The performance of identity is a fundamental aspect of human society. Identity is “talked into be... more The performance of identity is a fundamental aspect of human society. Identity is “talked into being” in interactions with others. This negotiated nature of identity, however, can be challenging in cross cultural interactions, where dissimilar ways of talking and different models and interpretations meet. Communication technology has made it routine for members of certain professions to work together from different cultural locations in sparsely furnished virtual space where it is not always clear that multiple systems of identity are in play (or at work). This chapter focuses upon one such context, engineers working in virtual collaborations. It analyzes their interactions and their comments about them in terms of status degradation and spoiled identity, two useful ways of understanding cross cultural miscommunication. The author highlights that differences in the way cultures organize identities, for example, along priority axes of self versus social role identity are influenced by cultural ideas of the person.
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Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017
Technologically mediated interaction challenges people’s habitual ways of acting interdependently... more Technologically mediated interaction challenges people’s habitual ways of acting interdependently and intercorporeally with others. This chapter discusses strategies observed in two different groups, computer gamers playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), and engineers, as each group collaborates in goal-directed activities where technology significantly alters the reciprocal sharing of body experience. The gamers and engineers are challenged to render their bodies meaningful through interactive digital environments in order to effectively coordinate actions. As bodies are able to be extended through space, the technology which makes this possible also reduces key aspects of visual and sensory fields, including the arrangement of bodies in space and movement. This in turn affects the achievement of focused interaction, the transfer of skills, and the understanding of checks and alignment.
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ABSTRACT
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Pragmatics
Abstract This article examines the distribution of relationships of power and authority as an act... more Abstract This article examines the distribution of relationships of power and authority as an activity in gossip sessions among members of a community in Pohnpei, Micronesia. The position of Bourdieu, that the interactionist approach cannot elucidate important aspects of the sharing of power in society, is used as a starting place to examine ways in which interactants in everyday conversations manipulate and organize gendered identities and the entitlements of certain classes of individuals to particular types of power. Keywords: Ethnomethodology, Social inequality, Gender, Gossip, Micronesia
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Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1995
This paper looks at the particular way space is organized in Pohnpei, Mieronesia and how Pohnpeia... more This paper looks at the particular way space is organized in Pohnpei, Mieronesia and how Pohnpeians map onto physical space a model of their social structure. A status marking feature of the PoMpeian language affords an empirical way of looking at how spatial resources are used to ...
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Teaching Anthropology: Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges Notes, 2000
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Pragmatics, 2002
This article examines the distribution of relationships of power and authority as an activity in ... more This article examines the distribution of relationships of power and authority as an activity in gossip sessions among members of a community in Pohnpei, Micronesia. The position of Bourdieu, that the interactionist approach cannot elucidate important aspects of the sharing of power in society, is used as a starting place to examine ways in which interactants in everyday conversations manipulate and organize gendered identities and the entitlements of certain classes of individuals to particular types of power.
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Tannen/Discourse, 2015
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Practicing Anthropology, 2006
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A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology
Conversation plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining cultural habits of individuals an... more Conversation plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining cultural habits of individuals and communities identities, subjectivities, ideas, categories, attitudes, values, and more. Through everyday talk we perform with others a range of import-ant actions and activities: we ...
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Science Communication, 2009
This article explores how scientists communicate with each other in interdisciplinary collaborati... more This article explores how scientists communicate with each other in interdisciplinary collaborative work. It is based on ethnographic research conducted with one such group, which is building a predictive computer model of heat transfer in prostate tissues. The analysis identifies strategies scientists use in their communication practices, including managing different understandings of the validity of knowledge, partial understandings among participants, and interpretive discipline crossing in group meetings. The ideas of productive misunderstandings and of registration as correlating distinct knowledge domains are used to interpret how scientists must manage their unshared backgrounds as part of the collaborative scientific work.
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Language in Society, 2000
Linell argues that dialogism is the crucial path to theorizing and understanding discourse, cogni... more Linell argues that dialogism is the crucial path to theorizing and understanding discourse, cognition, and communication – particularly the study of conversation and other kinds of talk-in-interaction. One of the goals of his book is to develop an “empirically valid form of dialogism,” as opposed to an idealistic one, through the empirical investigation of communication. Linell develops a theory of “communicative projects,” a notion which incorporates aspects of individual agency as well as the idea of talk as emergent, collaborative work by co-present individuals. The notion of “communicative projects” is meant as a bridge across the oft-cited polarity between “micro” and “macro” – or as Linell formulates it, between “elementary contributions and local sequences on the one hand, and the global and more abstract notions of activity types and communicative genres.”
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Papers by Elizabeth Keating
hearer, so members of global teams have to be prepared to learn about their team members’ cultural playbooks, and whether a certain communication action is acceptable across teams. Second, teams must spend time discussing virtual team communication. Third, teams must build a virtual common ground while recognizing also that virtual spaces are different, even though they look the same. Fourth, team members should practice active perspective taking of the hearer, even if they cannot see the hearer. The hearer plays a critical role in successful communication action. Fifth, become aware of how communication is
action and not just information transfer. We do things with words. Language is powerful, and learning how to use it requires time and attention. Our knowledge of communication has not kept up with our knowledge of the technology that has enabled the virtual global office. Sixth, recognize the limits of email in global virtual collaborations. Seventh, build trust through increased attention to communication
patterns.
New technologies to virtually recreate casual interactions and the physical cues of nonverbal communication are in development and may make remote work feel more natural.
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Questions-Interview-Uncover-Generations/dp/0593420926
hearer, so members of global teams have to be prepared to learn about their team members’ cultural playbooks, and whether a certain communication action is acceptable across teams. Second, teams must spend time discussing virtual team communication. Third, teams must build a virtual common ground while recognizing also that virtual spaces are different, even though they look the same. Fourth, team members should practice active perspective taking of the hearer, even if they cannot see the hearer. The hearer plays a critical role in successful communication action. Fifth, become aware of how communication is
action and not just information transfer. We do things with words. Language is powerful, and learning how to use it requires time and attention. Our knowledge of communication has not kept up with our knowledge of the technology that has enabled the virtual global office. Sixth, recognize the limits of email in global virtual collaborations. Seventh, build trust through increased attention to communication
patterns.
New technologies to virtually recreate casual interactions and the physical cues of nonverbal communication are in development and may make remote work feel more natural.
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Questions-Interview-Uncover-Generations/dp/0593420926