Commitment, Communication, and Contending with Heteronormativity: An Invitation to Greater Reflexivity in Interpersonal Research

Abstract

This critical essay examines commitment as a construct within interpersonal communication research and pedagogy. I argue that heteronormative ideologies about relationships infiltrate communication scholarship and teaching, often reinscribing heterocentric assumptions and hierarchies regarding what kinds of relationships are most worthwhile, commendable, and legitimate. This essay is intended to be provocative and to contribute to the current conversation by inviting interpersonal communication researchers and teachers to be more reflexive in the ways they operationalize commitment and relationships in general.

Acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to Larry Russell in gratitude for his many insights into the nature and practices of commitment. The author wishes to acknowledge Jay Baglia and Wenshu Lee for their feedback. A different version of the article was presented to the Southern States Communication Association Interpersonal Division for the 2006 Conference in Dallas, TX.

Notes

In two cases, the word “commitment” appeared in an abstract that had been constructed by the database publishers rather than by the authors of the articles—in each case this was because either the original abstract had been summarized or because no abstract appeared in connection with the original text. My subsequent reading and interpretation of the full text of the articles concurred that commitment was an important theme within the argument although it did not appear in the title.

I note here that I do not encounter this question in my own country where “partner” is used to describe both married and unmarried couples, whether same-sex or heterosexual.

As I composed this essay, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had just vetoed the bill that would have granted same-sex couples the right to marry in California (Vogel & Rau, 2005). In a more positive development, Connecticut became the first state to legalize same-sex civil unions without being required to by the court system (as occurred in Massachusetts and Vermont) (Rubinsky, 2005).

For more information about the marriage boycott, two Web sites provide basic information: www.boycottmarriage.org and www.unmarriedtoeachother.org.

I use the term “representative” in its interpretive rather than its statistical sense; specifically, the articles I discuss in this essay are published in mainstream communication journals, they resemble one another as well as a number of other articles that were not included in the study because they employ standard empirical methods, and they draw from a common base of interpersonal communication literature.

I realize that what I am advocating is an injection of perspectives from the critical paradigm into positivist research practices, in order to achieve ends that are associated with the humanistic/interpretive paradigm, such as the inclusion of marginalized voices, exceptional cases, and context-specific knowledge. Some may suggest that such a blending of perspectives is not possible or perhaps not desirable. I acknowledge that a large-scale, statistical study will never be able to capture the detailed, rich, and contextualized data of a qualitative study; however, such a study would benefit immensely from a more critical perspective, one that recognizes the research process itself as historically, socially, culturally, and politically situated.

A pseudonym.