Engagement as Co-Generative Theorizing

Abstract

To meet current and ever shifting problems people continually need new and better ways to attend to, talk about, and respond in the world. All communities can have an impoverished language for talking about human interaction and making decisions in times of fundamental and rapid change. Three current impoverishments are discussed. Engaged scholarship using co-generative theorizing can initiate productive conversations enriching the languages of both scholarly and everyday life communities.

Keywords:

• Engagement
• Generative Theory
• Community Interaction
• Phronesis
• Interaction Systems
• Hermeneutics
• Indeterminacy
• Concept Formation
• Theoretical Language
• Impoverished Languages
• Liberal Democracy

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Bill Kinsella, Paige Edley, Sarah Tracy, Jennifer (Thackaberry) Ziegler, Alex Lyons, Jeanne MacPherson, Kirsti Broadfoot, Guowei Jian, Randy Ford, Jessica McDonald, Renee Heath, Devon Brown, and Sarah Dempsey, my Ph.D. students of the past decade who have pushed the boundaries of engaged work and from whom I have learned much.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stanley Deetz

Stanley Deetz is Professor of Communication and Director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Colorado