Feminist Dilemmatic Theorizing: New Materialism in Communication Studies

• Published in: Communication theory Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 150 - 170
• Main Author: Harris, Kate Lockwood
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.05.2016; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Agency; Communication research; Discourse; Feminism; Feminist Theory; Materialism; New Materialism; Social Construction; Violence
• ISSN: 1050-3293; 1468-2885
• DOI: 10.1111/comt.12083

Feminist communication scholars often adopt seemingly incommensurate stances to navigate tensions among agency, discourse, materiality, and history. I argue that valuing these “contradictions” is a hallmark of feminist communication research, a tradition I label feminist dilemmatic theorizing. Because feminists seek to describe and transform the world, they employ constitutive and representative understandings of communication. Rather than assert these approaches as paradoxical, I reread existing scholarship for nascent feminist new materialisms. Using sexual violence as an example, I argue that feminist communication theory develops a distinct approach to the force of communication, one in which discourse is not all‐powerful. Accordingly, I suggest communication theorists draw upon existing feminist scholarship to meet critiques of social construction and develop a material turn.