Feminist Identity in Romantic Relationships: A Relational Dialectics Analysis of E-Mail Discourse as Collaborative Found Poetry

Abstract

The authors used relational dialectics theory (RDT 2.0) to frame a collaborative autoethnography based on a year of their e-mail exchanges to show how romantic dyads use discourse to conceptualize themselves and their relationships. They used collaborative autoethnography (CAE) as a method to connect feminist inquiry with a critique of traditional interpersonal communication research. The use of found poetry/poetic transcription illustrates the antagonistic discourses of (a) intellect versus embodiment, (b) real-life work versus other worlds, (c) balance versus giving everything, and (d) past relationships versus the present. The RDT analysis demonstrated a conflict between feminist ethics, individual identities, and romantic narratives that contributed to a conflicted relational culture. This autoethnography suggests the utility of this type of text for RDT and the examination of discursive struggles of identity and intimacy crafted jointly in relational discourse.

Keywords:

• collaborative autoethnography
• discourse
• feminist identity
• found poetry
• poetic transcription
• relational culture
• relational dialectics theory

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor and the reviewers for their time and constructive critique that helped us revise this work.

Notes

Dr. Faulkner crafted this poem for Ruby in spring 2002 during a community poetry class on collage that she and Ruby were enrolled in together. It consists of some of their e-mail exchanges and cutouts from style and women's magazines, because Faulkner wanted to engage with the tension between traditional magazine messages about romance and what she saw in their relationship via their writing to each other. “Spring Affairs” is one of the few poems Faulkner explicitly wrote for Ruby when they were dating, though they consistently shared poems they were working on.

Traditional women's magazines (e.g., Cosmopolitan) often contain relationship and self-help advice about how to focus on romantic relationships, usually at the expense of the self and other relationships. For a good example of how these romance scripts are portrayed, see Carpenter (1998).