https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3572-8005
ABSTRACT
This essay reflects on the recent critical turns within interpersonal and family communication studies (IFC) and the advances of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the larger field of communication studies. The authors use a tool metaphor to argue the importance of studying IFC from a range of methodological approaches—including interpretive, cultural, and/or critical perspectives. Specifically, the authors (1) question the impulse to isolate interpersonal communication from the larger field of communication studies and (2) argue the necessity of recognizing critical approaches and/or traditions as one way of examining identities, relationships, and families. This commentary also previews the contributions of the articles featured in the themed issue “A Critical Turn for Interpersonal and Family Communication Studies.”
The emergent area of critical interpersonal and family communication (CIFC) has gained momentum both as an approach to research and a way of theorizing. A recent review of CIFC scholarship indicates numerous advances over the last decade that solidify CIFC’s place both in the larger subfield of interpersonal and family communication studies (IFC) and in the communication discipline as a whole.Footnote1 This work has been so impactful that the 2021 edition of Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul Schrodt’s Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication, arguably a canon for interpersonal communication studies, contains multiple chapters featuring critical or critical-adjacent theories.Footnote2 Additionally, a book of critical-oriented case studiesFootnote3 and another that serves as a theoretical overview for CIFC are in press and will make palpable additions to the already-robust library of CIFC research.Footnote4
This dynamic collection of scholarship has advanced CIFC in myriad ways, including advocating for CIFC research and theory;Footnote5 developing tools for doing CIFC work (including a heuristic for approaching such researchFootnote6 and articulating CIFC politics);Footnote7 and theorizing critical aspects of identity in CIFC scholarship, including feminist approaches,Footnote8 heteronormativity and queer theory,Footnote9 and race and ethnicity.Footnote10 Some of this work applies pre-existing critical or critical-adjacent theories to research studies;Footnote11 other scholarship develops original critical theories;Footnote12 and still other work has transformed noncritical theories into the critical domain.Footnote13 Importantly, many others have taken on methods or approaches, including artisticFootnote14 and autoethnographic approaches,Footnote15 to transform notions of discourse,Footnote16 materiality,Footnote17 affect,Footnote18 and/or communicative constitution in interpersonal and family communication studies to create a more critical-hospitable space.Footnote19
Yet, simultaneously, the growth, development, and, consequently, future of CIFC remain in jeopardy. Those who have attended recent National Communication Association, International Communication Association, and Western States Communication Association conferences can attest that audience members—including journal editors and distinguished scholars—have openly stated that critical theorizing “confuses” interpersonal and family communication. Individuals have made blanket statements that delineate “appropriate” IFC methods (e.g., claiming rhetorical criticism cannot be used for interpersonal communication studies) or have suggested that any research examining race in family communication would be better served in an intercultural communication unit.
Such false claims serve a gatekeeping mechanism that closes off IFC from other areas of the field, discourages newer scholars from engaging CIFC work, stifles disciplinary conversations, and perpetuates the whiteness,Footnote20 heteronormativity,Footnote21 and erasure of social classFootnote22 that have long dominated interpersonal communication research. These “not in our house” critiques also eerily echo national discourses that reject the study of critical theory in public education.Footnote23 Given how boundless interpersonal and family communication are as areas of study, we raise the following questions: Why all the fearmongering about critical theorizing? Why are so many IFC scholars set on limiting the theoretical and methodological tools they use for research?
To consider these questions, we turn to a popular metaphor. As Abraham H. Maslow famously said in 1966, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”Footnote24 The saying refers to the refusal to embrace or even try other tools/approaches when attempting to solve a problem and it surfaces the cognitive bias that accompanies the overreliance on the tools/approaches already most familiar to a person or group. As Silvan S. Tomkins indicated, the problem is more about “the tendency of jobs to be adapted to tools, rather than adapting tools to jobs.”Footnote25
Our intent here is to point out something IFC scholars continue to critique: The limiting of interpretive, critical, and cultural theories and methodologies in IFC not only prevents growth as a subfield, but also limits how relevant our research is to the many adjacent disciplines we contribute to as well as the communication discipline more broadly.Footnote26 IFC is relatively closed off in terms of the tools (read: methods and theories) it embraces in order to research and generate knowledge. To address these concerns, we interrogate the curious impulse among some scholars to try to limit what interpersonal and family communication are and can be. We address a similar impulse among others to turn all IFC studies toward critical approaches and theorizing. To begin, we explore the tendency to minimize what is researched under the label of interpersonal communication studies.
What is interpersonal communication?
Judging from objections voiced at conference sessions and in journal reviews, it appears that some people fear that CIFC studies pushes the boundaries of what it means to study interpersonal or family communication—especially, as has been noted, interpersonal communication.Footnote27 Indeed, arguments have been made that exclusion is necessary when it comes to studying interpersonal communication,Footnote28 as if exclusion should be valued.Footnote29 We do not have the space, in this essay at least, to show how just about every subfield of communication studies—and so much of the humanities and social sciences in general—has salient elements of interpersonal communication worth examining as part of their area of inquiry. To name only a few, organizational communication often focuses on workplace relationships; political communication involves a number of interpersonal interactions, especially as politicians interact directly with their constituents via platforms such as Twitter; intercultural communication, as we detail later in this essay, is a form of interpersonal communication. The connection to interpersonal communication can literally be made to every area of the communication field.
Given this basic point, however, we note that the continued effort to police which topics and methods are “in” or “out” when it comes to interpersonal communication limits the subfield, blocks cross-disciplinary discussions, and chases off scholars who should be contributing to our conversations to other areas of the discipline. As Braithwaite notes,
The small knot of those of us doing interpretive [interpersonal communication] scholarship in the early days found more openness to our work in allied divisions developing at [the National Communication Association], including family, health, intercultural, and organizational communication. Qualitative scholars abandoned [interpersonal communication] for these other divisions and many never returned.Footnote30
This exclusionary approach to who is studied and who is doing the studying is a critical matter that we note here, and not for the first time,Footnote33 because a lot of what is making it “in” to IFC centers on the needs of white cisheteorosexual able-bodied middle-class Christian men.Footnote34As but one example, why are weFootnote35 still insisting that interpersonal and intercultural communication have to be different things? For a hot minute it looked like we had figured out how communication can be both interpersonal and intercultural—with multiple studies taking on such a perspective.Footnote36 However, in the past two years, we have witnessed journal and conference reviewers rejecting such studies and others making public comments at conferences about how some interpersonal research “seems more intercultural” because it centers Black or Brown people or draws from an international sample. Some reviewers discriminate against other research because they wrongly allege that it (1) does not apply to a large enough portion of the population (e.g., research about LGBTQ people); (2) seems to be circularly designed to support the author’s opinion that men and masculinity are categorically bad (e.g., feminist research); or (3) requires a comparative translation to indicate how it would apply in the United States (e.g., research drawing from non-U.S. samples).
This fragile defensiveness and often arbitrary rejection of approaches and topics labeled as “not genuinely interpersonal” is especially curious given that the subfield itself has no widely agreed upon definition of interpersonal communication, neither as a concept nor as an area of study.Footnote37 So why are we so afraid of what interpersonal communication can be? Especially as it relates to other areas in the field of communication studies?
Utilizing multiple tools for IFC studies
We wish to note that by making these observations—observations that, at face value, are far less about critical approaches to IFC than they are about examining who we are and what we do as IFC scholars—we do not wish to bring our own hammer to do battle. Rather, we worry about the slow pace of inclusive action within IFC; and further, that we are not embracing methods or theories that will expand our understanding of all the people and relationship types we explore. We also worry that the tools/methods/theories that we do advocate for in this essay are often misunderstood, both by those who are and those who are not trying to use them; and that these misunderstandings potentially replicate the problem of the hammer and the nail. So let us be clear: We recognize great value in many forms of IFC scholarship. We are not suggesting that everyone simply exchange a hammer for a screwdriver. Rather, the solution is to create a well-stocked toolbelt in a way that recognizes the unique value of each tool in it.
The current state of IFC almost demands that we use the same tool or, in some cases, pretend that all the tools are similar. We have heard some senior scholars suggest that interpretive qualitative researchers, for example, should explain how their methods translate to postpositive quantitative studies. That is, they have literally coached emergent scholars to make statements such as, “This qualitative technique would be similar to the quantitative technique of . . .” This practice is highly problematic. First, it adds to the already prevalent problem of people not understanding that interpretive and postpositivist methods have different premises and aims. Second, and returning to our central metaphor, reducing other methods to variations on postpositivism obfuscates the unique purpose of each tool and thus diminishes its value. An awl and a screwdriver appear remarkably the same and could be described in similar ways; but good luck tightening a screw with an awl, and don’t even think about making a smooth hole in dense material with a screwdriver. The same point applies to the different methodological and theoretical tools at our disposal.
Some have argued that they do not want to have to learn how to use a whole new set of tools. The world of IFC is already large enough (they say) without having to learn even more approaches and do even more reading to adopt new methodological understandings. Our response: Even if you can’t fully grasp the reciprocating saw, you can respect its utility. Use the tools (knowledge) others create to inform/inspire how you use your own tools for the rooms you are building. As individual scholars, we do not need to have a deep knowledge of every tool, but each contextual area of the discipline should be equipped with diverse tools for approaching multiple topics, people, relationships, and issues from multiple perspectives. Only then can we build a more beautiful home for IFC.
Must we be critical?
That being said—and we cannot stress this enough—not all scholarship must be critical. For example, we agree with Pamela J. Lannutti, Maria Butauski, Valerie Rubinsky, and Nicole Hudak “that scholarship on LGBTQ+ and SGM [sexual and gender minority] identities and relationships does not require a critical approach or an approach guided by queer theory” nor does suggesting as much “downplay the importance of such work.”Footnote38 They rightly note that “research on these populations does require an understanding of heteronormativity and intersectionality.”Footnote39 Here again, we agree with their assessment, both as it applies to queer identities/bodies as well as other marginalized bodies. In fact, we believe locking particular identities or interactions into critical-theoretical domains can be dangerous. Insisting that marginalized identities, bodies, relationships, or systems must be studied using critical theories constitutes another form of oppression, removing the possibility of progress through other lenses that will be beneficial to those same identities, bodies, relationships, and systems. For example, postpositivist work has argued for more cancer screenings in low-income minority communities.Footnote40 Different approaches offer different insights and provide different forms of evidence, all which are needed in extending our understanding. Critical perspectives are not the only valid way to view, recognize, and write about marginalization.
Many critical theories are a good fit for exploring marginalized lives, but true inclusivity means drawing from multiple theoretical and methodological approaches to understand who is relating and how. That said, many IFC theories have been created using normative samples and it is important to be open to the idea that some theories may not apply in the same way to all individuals, relationships, structures, and processes. It is important to consider how IFC theories or concepts might translate across different identities and/or cultures, such as Michelle Scollo and Saila Poutiainen’s recent study of relationship stage models where they found that allegedly universal theorizing about relationship stages was actually U.S.-centric.Footnote41 IFC would benefit from similar studies that examine how theories do or do not manifest in different cultural contexts. The critical turn within IFC has already allowed reciprocal and reflexive knowledge-shaping across different subfields, and we urge taking up critical theories, perspectives, approaches, and traditions as another set of tools to help decolonize the CIFC canon.
A critical turn for IFC: moving the conversation forward
In addition to contributing excellent new theories and perspectives to practical understandings of families and interpersonal communication, the articles featured in this themed issue expand how we understand and examine interpersonal and family communication and how CIFC, and IFC more generally, connects to the larger field of communication studies and other disciplines.
The themed issue begins with “Neuroqueering Interpersonal Communication Theory” by Kristen L. Cole, who invites us to further consider how neurodiversity intersects with interpersonal communication. In addition to being a shining example of how interpersonal communication studies can use rhetorical criticism as a methodology, Cole raises good questions about the foundations of key interpersonal communication theories including symbolic interactionism, the family of theories related to uncertainty, and social penetration theory.
In “Examining Interracial Family Narratives Using Critical Multiracial Theory,” Megan E. Cardwell extends the domain of educational studies by applying critical multicultural theory to discourses from and about interracial family members. In addition to sharing novel findings about multiracial families, Cardwell demonstrates that critical multiracial theory is a welcome addition to the theoretical repertoire of family communication studies.
In “‘Add Up All My Black,’” Charnell Peters offers readers a fascinating critical look at the ways individuals construct their racialized identity with the help of online video reveals of their DNA tests. In addition to asking compelling questions about race, identity, and relationships—particularly, how does one “prove” Blackness?—Cardwell also makes important connections to media communication and audience studies.
Using vivid autoethnographic exemplars as yet another method of inquiry, Veronica A. Droser and Nivea Castaneda combine the worlds of CIFC scholarship and critical communication pedagogy to advance a new framework of critical interpersonal and family communication pedagogy in “Cultivating Change.” This promising new framework offers methods for sharing power and engaging IFC students in the classroom.
Elizabeth A. Hintz and Steven R. Wilson present a new theory of communicative disenfranchisement in “Theorizing Disenfranchisement as a Communicative Process.” This approach to theorizing disenfranchisement offers a complex way of thinking about interpersonal and family-oriented interactions, which they connect to health communication.
The issue concludes with “Distant yet Existent,” Jordan Allen and Nicole T. Allen’s engaging argument about how actor–network theory can expand understandings of functionally estranged family relationships. Their insights offer novel considerations for both estrangement studies in particular and CIFC work in general.
Conclusion: beyond hammers
Like any discipline or subdiscipline, the house of IFC has problems: we have cracks, leaks, maybe even a few rats. We also have lots of strengths, including a strong—albeit sometimes hegemonic—foundation. We have to make a place for the wrenches, pliers, clamps, or whatever other tools prove useful for understanding interpersonal interactions as well as families. The hammer of postpositivist work must not dominate at the expense of these other tools, nor should the screwdriver of critical approaches that we are advocating for in both this essay and this themed issue ever dominate IFC scholarship. After all, if all we used were screwdrivers, then everyone would be getting screwed.
Notes
1 Julia Moore and Jimmie Manning, “What Counts as Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Research? A Review of an Emerging Field of Inquiry,” Annals of the International Communication Association 43, no. 1 (2019): 40–57; Elizabeth A. Suter, “The Promise of Contrapuntal and Intersectional Methods for Advancing Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Research,” Communication Monographs 85, no. 1 (2018): 123–39.
2 Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul Schrodt, eds., Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2021).
3 Sandra L. Faulkner, ed., Inside Relationships: Critical Case Studies in Interpersonal Communication (London: Routledge, 2022).
4 Jimmie Manning and Julia Moore, Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Studies (London: Routledge, 2022).
5 Julia Moore, “Where Is the Critical Empirical Interpersonal Communication Research? A Roadmap for Future Inquiry Into Discourse and Power,” Communication Theory 27, no. 1 (2017): 1–20.
6 Elizabeth A. Suter, “Introduction: Critical Approaches to Family Communication Research: Representation, Critique, and Praxis,” Journal of Family Communication 16, no. 1 (2016): 1–8.
7 Moore and Manning, “What Counts as Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Research?” 47–51.
8 Patricia J. Sotirin and Laura L. Ellingson, “Critical Feminist Family Communication Theory: Gender, Power, and Praxis,” in Engaging Theories in Family Communication, 2nd ed., ed. Dawn O. Braithwaite, Elizabeth A. Suter, and Kory Floyd (London: Routledge, 2017), 110–21; Jimmie Manning and Katherine J. Denker, “Doing Feminist Interpersonal Communication Research: A Call for Action, Two Methodological Approaches, and Theoretical Potentials,” Women & Language 38, no. 1 (2015): 133–42; and Katherine J. Denker, “Critical Feminist Theory: Giving Voice and Visibility to Gendered Experiences,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, 3rd ed., ed. Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul Schrodt (London: Routledge, 2021).
9 Roberta Chevrette, “Outing Heteronormativity in Interpersonal and Family Communication: Feminist Applications of Queer Theory ‘Beyond the Sexy Streets,’” Communication Theory 23, no. 2 (2013): 170–90; Jimmie Manning, “Queering Family Communication,” in Navigating Relationships in the Modern Family: Communication, Identity, and Difference, ed. Collen Colaner and Jordan Soliz (New York: Peter Lang, 2020), 69–95; Jimmie Manning and Tony E. Adams, “Queer Theory: Troubling Interpersonal Expectations of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, 3rd ed., ed. Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul Schrodt (London: Routledge, 2021).
10 Nivea Castaneda, “‘It’s in Our Nature as Daughters to Protect Our Familias … You Know?’ The Privacy Rules of Concealing and Revealing Latina Child Sexual Abuse Experiences,” Journal of Family Communication 21, no. 1 (2021): 3–16; Walid A. Afifi and Monica Cornejo, “#CommSoWEIRD: The Question of Sample Representativeness in Interpersonal Communication Research,” in Organizing Inclusion: Moving Diversity from Demographics to Communication, ed. Mayra L. Doerfel and Jennifer L. Gibbs (London: Routledge, 2020), 238–59; Jordan Soliz and Kaitlin Phillips, “Toward a More Expansive Understanding of Family Communication: Considerations for Inclusion of Ethnic–Racial and Global Diversity,” Journal of Family Communication 18, no. 1 (2018): 5–12; Robin M. Boylorn, “Intersectionality: Theoretical Lineages toward Interpersonal Legacies,” in Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives, 3rd ed., ed. Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul Schrodt (London: Routledge, 2021).
11 Elizabeth A. Hintz, “Disrupting Sexual Norms: An Application of the Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) Framework in the Context of Vulvodynia,” Journal of Family Communication 19, no. 2 (2019): 110–25 covers the topic of vulvodynia; other examples include memory loss in Michaela D. E. Meyer, “On Remembering the Queer Self: The Impact of Memory, Trauma and Sexuality on Interpersonal Relationships,” Sexuality & Culture 11, no. 4 (2007): 18–30; couples’ struggles with work–life balance in Katherine J. Denker and Debbie Dougherty, “Corporate Colonization of Couples’ Work–Life Negotiations: Rationalization, Emotion Management, and Silencing Conflict,” Journal of Family Communication 13, no. 3 (2013): 242–62; coming out in Tony E. Adams, Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2012); and aunting as a family practice in Laura L Ellingson and Patricia J. Sotirin, “Exploring Young Adults’ Perspectives on Communication with Aunts,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 23, no. 3 (2006): 483–501. Notably, most CIFC work appears to be done by women and queer men.
12 For example, see Julia Moore, “Performative Face Theory: A Critical Perspective on Interpersonal Identity Work,” Communication Monographs 84, no. 2 (2017): 258–76; Shardé M. Davis and Tamara D. Afifi, “The Strong Black Woman Collective Theory: Determining the Prosocial Functions of Strength Regulation in Groups of Black Women Friends,” Journal of Communication 69, no. 1 (2019): 1–25; Jimmie Manning and Danielle M. Stern, “Heteronormative Bodies, Queer Futures: Toward a Theory of Interpersonal Panopticism,” Information, Communication & Society 21, no. 2 (2018): 208–23; Katherine J. Denker and Kendra Knight, “Communication Is … Reification,” in Communication Is … Perspectives on Theory, ed. Adam W. Tyma and Autumn P. Edwards (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2020), 229–40.
13 For example, see Maria DelGreco et al., “Revisiting Attribution Theory: Toward a Critical Feminist Approach for Understanding Attributions of Blame,” Communication Theory 31, no. 2 (2021): 250–76; Jimmie Manning, “Thinking about Interpersonal Relationships and Social Penetration Theory: Is It the Same for Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual People?” in Casing Communication Theory, ed. Corey J. Liberman, Andrew S. Rancer, and Theodore A. Avtgis (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2019), 293–303; and the discussion of relational dialectics theory in Suter, “The Promise of Contrapuntal and Intersectional Methods for Advancing Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Research.”
14 Sandra L. Faulkner, “TEN (The Promise of Arts-Based, Ethnographic, and Narrative Research in Critical Family Communication Research and Praxis),” Journal of Family Communication 16, no. 1 (2016): 9–15.
15 Robin M. Boylorn and Mark P. Orbe, eds., Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2020); Tony E. Adams and Jimmie Manning, “Autoethnography and Family Research,” Journal of Family Theory & Review 7, no. 4 (2015): 350–66; Robin M. Boylorn, “On Being at Home with Myself: Blackgirl Autoethnography as Research Praxis,” International Review of Qualitative Research 9, no. 1 (2016): 44–58.
16 Jordan Allen, “What’s the Big ‘D’? Contemporary Approaches to Discourse in Interpersonal and Family Communication Scholarship,” Communication Theory 29, no. 1 (2019): 107–27; Leslie A. Baxter, Voicing Relationships: A Dialogic Perspective (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010); Jimmie Manning, “Interpretive Theorizing in the Seductive World of Sexuality and Interpersonal Communication: Getting Guerilla with Studies of Sexting and Purity Rings,” International Journal of Communication 7 (2013): 2507–20, https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2250/1023; Jimmie Manning and Adrianne Kunkel, “Qualitative Approaches to Dyadic Data Analyses in Family Communication Research: An Invited Essay,” Journal of Family Communication 15, no. 3 (2015): 185–92.
17 Jordan Allen and Nicole Allen, “The Promise of a Nonhuman Turn for CIFC Scholarship,” Annals of the International Communication Association 43, no. 4 (2019): 297–315; Laura L. Ellingson, Embodiment in Qualitative Research (London: Routledge, 2017); Jimmie Manning, “Rethinking Studies of Relationships and Popular Culture: Notes on Approach, Method, and (Meta)Theory,” in Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture, ed. Andrew F. Herrmann and Art Herbig (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2016), 153–65.
18 Ian Burkitt, Emotions and Social Relations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014).
19 Jimmie Manning, “A Constitutive Approach to Interpersonal Communication Studies,” Communication Studies 65, no. 4 (2014): 432–40; “Communication Is … The Relationship,” in Communication Is … Perspectives on Theory, ed. Adam W. Tyma and Autumn P. Edwards (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2020), 33–48.
20 Jimmie Manning, “Examining Whiteness in Interpersonal Communication Textbooks,” Communication, Culture & Critique 13, no. 2 (2020): 254–58.
21 Elissa Foster, “Commitment, Communication, and Contending with Heteronormativity: An Invitation to Greater Reflexivity in Interpersonal Research,” Southern Communication Journal 73, no. 1 (2008): 84–101.
22 Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Kristen Lucas and Patrice M. Buzzanell, “Memorable Messages of Hard Times: Constructing Short- and Long-Term Resiliencies through Family Communication,” Journal of Family Communication 12, no. 3 (2012): 189–208.
23 For example, at the time of this writing, the teaching of critical race theory is being challenged in many K–12 and collegiate-level institutions in the United States.
24 Abraham H. Maslow, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (Chicago: Gataway, 1966), 15.
25 Silvan S. Tomkins, “Simulation of Personality: The Interrelationships between Affect, Memory, Thinking, Perception, and Action,” in Computer Simulation of Personality: Frontier of Psychological Theory, ed. Silvan S. Solomon Tomkins and Samuel Messick (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963), 8.
26 Dawn O. Braithwaite, “‘Opening the Door’: The History and Future of Qualitative Scholarship in Interpersonal Communication,” Communication Studies 65, no. 4 (2014): 441–45.
27 Ibid.
28 Kory Floyd, “Interpersonal Communication’s Peculiar Identity Crisis,” Communication Studies 65, no. 4 (2014): 429–31. Floyd argues that interpersonal communication is too inclusive and that we must figure out what/who to exclude in order to refine the meaning of interpersonal communication. He does admit that a lot of what people call interpersonal communication is interpersonal communication—he just does not believe it is all worthwhile and that including it all is messy. This raises the question: Just because something is complex or messy, does that mean we have to figure out what to exclude?
29 Floyd says, “I have little concern that the discipline’s definition of interpersonal communication is sufficiently inclusive. The question is: ‘Is it exclusive enough?’” (Ibid., 430).
30 Braithwaite, “‘Opening the Door,’” 443.
31 To be clear, we are not against the long-established and ongoing trend of interpersonal communication studies looking to psychology for inspiration; in many ways, this relationship has been productive. What we are against is psychology being the primary/only interdisciplinary resource or inspiration for interpersonal communication studies. Too many scholars seem to want to box us into sociopsychological approaches to research. What can we draw from other fields and traditions, including our own communication discipline?
32 Timothy R. Levine offers a good overview of some of the problems related to gatekeepers demanding statistical sophistication when none is needed as well as what he refers to as “high-sounding ‘bullshit’” (“Quantitative Social Science Methods of Inquiry,” in The Sage Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, 4th ed., ed. Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly [Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011], 25).
33 For an excellent overview of what tends to get excluded in interpersonal communication studies, especially rhetorical dimensions of relationships, see Steve Duck, Rethinking Relationships (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010). For good questions about why particular ideologies are taken up in interpersonal communication studies and others are ignored, see John W. Lannamann, “Interpersonal Communication Research as Ideological Practice,” Communication Theory 1, no. 3 (1991): 179–203.
34 To those of you who just read this phrase and are saying, “What? This again? Don’t critical scholars have anything better to say?” Well, yes. We do. But we always have to start with this shit because it hasn’t been fully acknowledged and/or changed. Tired of reading it? Fix it. You don’t even have to do the research yourself. We just ask that when you come across such work you quit asking inane questions such as “If this only applies to Black people then why are we doing this study?” or “If we are going to do a sample of the gays then shouldn’t we do a comparison sample of heterosexuals? It’s only fair!” This especially applies when you are reviewing journal articles. Perhaps the single-most influential (recent) critical study in communication is Paula Chakravartty, Rachel Kuo, Victoria Grubbs, and Charlton McIlwain, “#CommunicationSoWhite,” Journal of Communication 68, no. 2 (2018): 254–66. We strongly recommend this quantitative study (as are many of the other critical pieces we have cited in this essay) that examines the problem of communication-oriented journals publishing mostly white authors. What is happening in race, ethnic, and Indigenous studies in communication right now—not to mention queer and dis/ability studies—is field-changing, and we invite you to join the revolution.
35 And by “we” we don’t literally mean all of us—but enough people to make the xenophobia and racism of such statements palpable and injurious. To read more about why these kinds of publishing politics are racist and exclusionary, see Mark P. Orbe, Debra C. Smith, Christopher R. Groscurth, and Rex L. Crawley, “Exhaling so that We Can Catch Our Breath and Sing: Reflections on Issues Inherent in Publishing Race-Related Communication Research,” Southern Communication Journal 75, no. 2 (2010): 184–94. For a similar queer-oriented discussion, see Jimmie Manning et al., “Queering Communication Studies: A Journal of Applied Communication Research Forum,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 48, no. 4 (2020): 413–37.
36 Stella Ting-Toomey and Felipe Korzenny, eds., Cross-Cultural Interpersonal Communication (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1991) is but one example.
37 Brant R. Burleson, “The Nature of Interpersonal Communication: A Message-Centered Approach,” in The Handbook of Communication Science, 2nd ed., ed. Charles R. Berger, Michael E. Roloff, and David R. Ewoldsen (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010), 145–63.
38 Pamela J. Lannutti, Maria Butauski, Valerie Rubinsky, and Nicole Hudak, “Setting the Agenda: LGBTQ+ and SGM Family Communication,” Journal of Family Communication 21 no. 2 (2021): 141 original emphasis.
39 Ibid.
40 Rachel G. Fruchter, John Boyce, and Marsha Hunt, “Missed Opportunitites for Early Diagnosis of Cancer of the Cervix,” American Journal of Public Health 70, no. 4 (1980): 418–20. We also note that a number of postpositivist as well as noncritical interpretivist studies make advances for marginalized identities and bodies.
41 Michelle Scollo and Saila Poutiainen, “‘Talking’ and Tapailla (‘Seeing Someone’): Cultural Terms and Ways of Communicating in the Development of Romantic Relationships in the United States and Finland,” in Engaging and Transforming Global Communication through Cultural Discourse Analysis: A Tribute to Donal Carbaugh, ed. Michelle Scollo and Trudy Milburn (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2018), 129–55.