Papers by Susana Martínez Guillem
This contribution to the forum argues for the need to center "language" as a fundamental axis of ... more This contribution to the forum argues for the need to center "language" as a fundamental axis of power relations in Rhetoric, Politics & Culture. I argue for (1) a dialectical understanding of "language" as a source of invention that is, at the same time, its product, and (2) a sustained interrogation of dominant assumptions about language(s), ("English, " "Spanish, " or "Navajo") and how they shape contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism. Sacando la lengua will help us to illuminate the sometimes covert but continuous implication of the rhetorical production of "languages" with white, North-American privilege. For full paper, visit:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/801950?fbclid=IwAR3FWLQ6c7Aea4-F_Fq7-pMbjsErrat5hSi3FCWjcFF8ohQHq-hlozllre8
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Cahiers du GRM publiés par le Groupe de Recherches Matérialistes-Association 20 , 2022
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Communication Education, 2020
In this paper, we examine the process of decomposition as well as the struggle for recomposition ... more In this paper, we examine the process of decomposition as well as the struggle for recomposition of academic labor, which we understand as a contradictory positionality within so-called “gig academy.” Ours is a rhetorical intervention to, first of all, explicitly connect contemporary working conditions in academia to the general process of neoliberalization; second, illustrate how online education platforms (or LMS) mediate important aspects of the academic labor process; and third, reflect on how these dynamics make faculty unionizing both urgent and particularly challenging.
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Journal of Language & Politics, 2019
This paper offers an account of the co-constitutive interaction between spatial and discursive dy... more This paper offers an account of the co-constitutive interaction between spatial and discursive dynamics in present-day politics. I focus on Podemos, a recently established party in Spain that was able to secure 20% of votes in the 2016 general election. Building on critical geography’s political understanding of space, together with cultural and discourse studies’ insights on place representation, formulation, and embodiment, I examine Podemos’ parliamentary performances, as well as their different moral evaluations by opposing parties. Throughout my analysis, I show, first, that the transgressive nature of certain acts is intrinsically linked to the particular spatial relations enforced in institutional contexts, and second, how, in their discursive struggles over common sense, different actors consistently mobilize space as a moralizing agent. The different strategies adopted reveal a tension between dominant and emergent ways of ‘doing politics’ that parallels competing visions of the relationship, in contemporary Spain, between civic and institutional spaces.
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Review of Communication, Special issue on CDS and Comm, 2018
In this introductory essay, we interrogate the relationship between Critical Discourse Studies (C... more In this introductory essay, we interrogate the relationship between Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and communication studies, ultimately arguing for a firmer cross-fertilization between the two. We start by tracing the events that led to this special issue as a way to document the relatively brief, scattered, but at the same time promising trajectories of CDS within communication scholarship. We then take a step back and outside of the discipline to locate different precursors, practitioners, and outlets that contributed to shaping a unique approach to sociodiscursive phenomena first labeled as Critical Discourse Analysis. Next, we identify the more recent, broadening turn toward CDS, and its implications in terms of theories, methods, and objects of study. Drawing on scholarship in communication studies and related disciplines, as well as on the contributions to this special issue, we end by reviewing different challenges and possibilities for the traversing trajectories of CDS and communication studies.
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Review of Communication, 2018
Table of contents here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rroc20/18/3?nav=tocList
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Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2018
In this article we locate, interpret, and critique the figure of the “bad” white mother, focusing... more In this article we locate, interpret, and critique the figure of the “bad” white mother, focusing on the critically acclaimed AMC drama, Mad Men. Advancing feminist and postcolonial approaches to myth, we uncover a prevailing “white consciousness” that relies on racializing logics in, first of all, Mad Men’s representations of (white) motherhood through the character of Betty Draper, and second, public discussions of the show in academic and media outlets. Drawing on Black feminist thought, we propose that these discourses rely on and feed underlying assumptions that support post(racial)feminism—an ideological location that allows for the explicit embracement of “bad” mothering as a progressive, even transgressive act that, at the same time, implicitly relies on expectations for (good) mothering shaped by white privilege. This cross-pollination between postfeminism and whiteness, we argue, is especially important to engage, since it carries potentially limiting implications for our collective imagination about what anti-racist and feminist struggles should entail.
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Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
In this article, I develop the notion of precarious privilege to investigate dialectics of cultur... more In this article, I develop the notion of precarious privilege to investigate dialectics of cultural (re)production, in relation to both specific discursive practices and broader discursive formations. Using the Indignad@s social movement as an example, I locate, interpret, and critique a series of disidentification dynamics shaping the movement as a whole, as well as the rhetoric of specific participants. Regarding the rise and development of Indignad@s, precarious privilege illuminates a conflicted social position enabled by disidentification from the current crisis of neoliberalism in Western Europe—a conjuncture that the movement strives to both expose and exploit. As for the views expressed by specific activists, precarious privilege helps explain the discursively enacted disidentification from the imagined aspects of their and others’ (supra)national cultural identities. Grounded in this analysis, I emphasize the potentiality but also the limitations of this generalized tension between residual and emergent dynamics shaping Indignad@s’ political practices.
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The publication of the volumen "Occupy. The spatial dynamics of discourse in global p... more The publication of the volumen "Occupy. The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements," edited by Luisa Martín Rojo, opens up a new field of discourse studies in which the focus lies on space, in a dynamic sense. For this reason, and as part of the forum e
-conversa (hosted by the International Association of Discourse Studies and Society (EDiSo); http://www.edisoportal.org/Ediso), it was suggested to read the introduction (the Spanish translation of which is included in this issue ofDiscurso y Sociedad) and to debate over some of the topics presented in the book. The result consists of several contributions which, by taking Martin Rojo’s text as the starting point, reflect on spatial practices, the role of mass media and social networks, the new emerging political subject, counter-hegemonic formations, multilingualism, and prefigurative practices, among other issues. Thus, this dialogic text is an invitation to continue thinking about discourse analysis from a new perspective linked to space.
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In this commentary piece, I offer some brief observations that acknowledge the value of a
‘praxi... more In this commentary piece, I offer some brief observations that acknowledge the value of a
‘praxis-oriented (whiteness) research, while also suggesting ways to complicate and expand it. Asa guiding principle, I try to follow Toyosaki’s call for ‘more careful, nuanced, and complexknowing of whiteness in the field of communication studies,’ through some of the ‘qual-ities of knowing’ that he lists in his essay. Due to space limitations, however, I concentrate mostly on nuance, context, and history in relation to the why, who, what, and how of whiteness theorizing.
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Critical Discourse Studies, 2015. 12:4, 426-444.
This paper focuses on three different ‘Communications’ issued by the European Commission between ... more This paper focuses on three different ‘Communications’ issued by the European Commission between 2007 and 2011 that inform, frame, and constitute contemporary European Union
immigration policy. Drawing on a theoretical framework that calls attention to the embeddedness of cultural ideas and notions in economic dimensions of society, the analysis first emphasizes the naturalized link in the Communications between the need for integration and specific immigrants whose cultures are marked as fundamentally different. Second, it shows how lack of cultural integration is intrinsically connected in these documents to an economic understanding of ‘otherness’, since it is made salient as an obstacle in immigrants’ path toward upward mobility, and thus as a threat to social cohesion. This, I argue, creates an irresolvable paradox that positions undesirable immigrants as simultaneously in need of and ineligible for integration measures.
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This seminar will focus on Critical Discourse Studies as a theory/method in Communication, and mo... more This seminar will focus on Critical Discourse Studies as a theory/method in Communication, and more specifically on the opportunities it presents for scholars throughout our discipline to engage in social justice-oriented research and pedagogy. Our primary goal is to create space for collaboration among communication scholars as we discuss theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues related to Critical Discourse Studies, as well as the opportunities that this approach presents for ongoing studies of different practices/artifacts/texts across NCA’s interest groups.
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In this article we explore the US social movement “Occupy Wall Street.” Our objective is to inter... more In this article we explore the US social movement “Occupy Wall Street.” Our objective is to interrogate this form of social mobilization about its capability to contribute to the construction of counter hegemony, as well as to provide a more general argument about the perils and possibilities social mobilization in times of crisis. We interpret OWS as embedded in a framework of multiple tensions that we explain through a Gramscian framework: between identified objectives and adequate means to achieve them, between civil society and state, between the strategies of ‘war of maneuver” and “war of position,” and finally between conventional and unconventional politics.
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IC issue on Communication and emerging cultural practices versus the neoliberal imaginary: hegemony and dissidence
In this article, we explore the US social movement “Occupy Wall Street.” First, we look at how it... more In this article, we explore the US social movement “Occupy Wall Street.” First, we look at how its members attempt to construct a counter-hegemonic ‘spectacle’ characterized by an unstructured, leaderless and ‘ideology-less’ organization enacted by a series of practices that utilize communication and re-signification as the main terrain of confrontation. Secondly, we draw on Gramsci in order to stress the importance of the “integral state”—a concept
that emphasizes how a successful hegemonic project achieves a “historic bloc” only when it operates both at the level of state and civil society. We claim that Occupy Wall Street’s
goals require an equally integral kind of struggle, one that operates at all of these multiple levels.
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Journal of Multicultural Discourses
In this article I draw on my personal experience of partially forced repositioning as a way to ad... more In this article I draw on my personal experience of partially forced repositioning as a way to advance our understanding of the theoretical and practical contours of whiteness, foreignness, and performativity. In particular, I consider how specific aspects of our identities can get strategically redefined depending on the context where they operate, thus placing the transposed body at a constant risk of being excluded from certain privileges. I also bring foreignness to light as an organizing principle that (re)creates places for belonging and marginalization as it interacts with other dimensions of identity. From here, I propose to emphasize the incontrollable aspects of experience and thus expose the strategic attempts to protect privilege and also, and maybe more importantly, the limitations of such strategies. At a broader level, with this contribution I hope to turn a self-reflexive eye on the politics of language and/as method, and how different assumptions and expectations for particular kinds of writing styles may affect the possibilities for those whose first language is not English to make our voices heard.
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This essay argues for the need to rethink dialectics as part of our understanding of power relati... more This essay argues for the need to rethink dialectics as part of our understanding of power relations, and as a fundamental component of critical/cultural approaches in Communication Studies. As a first step in this project, I will critique the main contributions by Michel Foucault, highlighting his influential theorization of discourse, knowledge and power as intrinsically related constructs, as well as how this perspective has enabled the revisiting of other keywords in critical theory—such as Gramsci's “hegemony.” I will then (re)introduce the notion of dialectics as theorized in the work of Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams. My goal is to emphasize underestimated aspects of these authors' contributions that, in my opinion, may help us construct alternative starting points for a critical/cultural project in communication scholarship and, more specifically, for a theory of power that can create the space needed to account for people's (in)capability to overcome adverse social conditions.
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Catalan journal of …, Jan 1, 2009
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Papers by Susana Martínez Guillem
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/801950?fbclid=IwAR3FWLQ6c7Aea4-F_Fq7-pMbjsErrat5hSi3FCWjcFF8ohQHq-hlozllre8
-conversa (hosted by the International Association of Discourse Studies and Society (EDiSo); http://www.edisoportal.org/Ediso), it was suggested to read the introduction (the Spanish translation of which is included in this issue ofDiscurso y Sociedad) and to debate over some of the topics presented in the book. The result consists of several contributions which, by taking Martin Rojo’s text as the starting point, reflect on spatial practices, the role of mass media and social networks, the new emerging political subject, counter-hegemonic formations, multilingualism, and prefigurative practices, among other issues. Thus, this dialogic text is an invitation to continue thinking about discourse analysis from a new perspective linked to space.
‘praxis-oriented (whiteness) research, while also suggesting ways to complicate and expand it. Asa guiding principle, I try to follow Toyosaki’s call for ‘more careful, nuanced, and complexknowing of whiteness in the field of communication studies,’ through some of the ‘qual-ities of knowing’ that he lists in his essay. Due to space limitations, however, I concentrate mostly on nuance, context, and history in relation to the why, who, what, and how of whiteness theorizing.
immigration policy. Drawing on a theoretical framework that calls attention to the embeddedness of cultural ideas and notions in economic dimensions of society, the analysis first emphasizes the naturalized link in the Communications between the need for integration and specific immigrants whose cultures are marked as fundamentally different. Second, it shows how lack of cultural integration is intrinsically connected in these documents to an economic understanding of ‘otherness’, since it is made salient as an obstacle in immigrants’ path toward upward mobility, and thus as a threat to social cohesion. This, I argue, creates an irresolvable paradox that positions undesirable immigrants as simultaneously in need of and ineligible for integration measures.
that emphasizes how a successful hegemonic project achieves a “historic bloc” only when it operates both at the level of state and civil society. We claim that Occupy Wall Street’s
goals require an equally integral kind of struggle, one that operates at all of these multiple levels.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/801950?fbclid=IwAR3FWLQ6c7Aea4-F_Fq7-pMbjsErrat5hSi3FCWjcFF8ohQHq-hlozllre8
-conversa (hosted by the International Association of Discourse Studies and Society (EDiSo); http://www.edisoportal.org/Ediso), it was suggested to read the introduction (the Spanish translation of which is included in this issue ofDiscurso y Sociedad) and to debate over some of the topics presented in the book. The result consists of several contributions which, by taking Martin Rojo’s text as the starting point, reflect on spatial practices, the role of mass media and social networks, the new emerging political subject, counter-hegemonic formations, multilingualism, and prefigurative practices, among other issues. Thus, this dialogic text is an invitation to continue thinking about discourse analysis from a new perspective linked to space.
‘praxis-oriented (whiteness) research, while also suggesting ways to complicate and expand it. Asa guiding principle, I try to follow Toyosaki’s call for ‘more careful, nuanced, and complexknowing of whiteness in the field of communication studies,’ through some of the ‘qual-ities of knowing’ that he lists in his essay. Due to space limitations, however, I concentrate mostly on nuance, context, and history in relation to the why, who, what, and how of whiteness theorizing.
immigration policy. Drawing on a theoretical framework that calls attention to the embeddedness of cultural ideas and notions in economic dimensions of society, the analysis first emphasizes the naturalized link in the Communications between the need for integration and specific immigrants whose cultures are marked as fundamentally different. Second, it shows how lack of cultural integration is intrinsically connected in these documents to an economic understanding of ‘otherness’, since it is made salient as an obstacle in immigrants’ path toward upward mobility, and thus as a threat to social cohesion. This, I argue, creates an irresolvable paradox that positions undesirable immigrants as simultaneously in need of and ineligible for integration measures.
that emphasizes how a successful hegemonic project achieves a “historic bloc” only when it operates both at the level of state and civil society. We claim that Occupy Wall Street’s
goals require an equally integral kind of struggle, one that operates at all of these multiple levels.
The volume begins with a comprehensive introduction that documents the shift towards Critical Discourse Studies in the study of socio-discursive phenomena, as well as its implications in terms of theories, methodologies, and objects of study within and beyond Communication. The diverse selection of case studies further demonstrates the possibilities located at the intersection of Communication and Critical Discourse Studies, ultimately providing solid ground for a firmer cross-fertilization between the two. The chapters as a whole provide an insightful state of the art of the kinds of research that emerge when we consider the traversing trajectories of Critical Discourse Studies and Communication, advancing our understanding of self-reflexivity, journalism production and social media, discourses of neurodiversity, the environment, autism advocacy, and national memory. They also provide promising emergent venues that speak to the value and the need of interdisciplinary theory building.
More at:
https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Discourse-Studies-andin-Communication-Theories-Methodologies/Martinez-Guillem-Toula/p/book/9780367505561?utm_medium=email&utm_source=EmailStudio&utm_campaign=B190608179_3696946
https://www.routledge.com/Estudios-del-discurso--The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Spanish-Language-Discourse/Ferrero-Carranza-Dijk/p/book/9780367409708
Confieso que escribir este capítulo en castellano, hoy en día, me requiere un esfuerzo extra. Las razones tienen que ver con lo que explico en estas páginas. Al mismo tiempo, el esfuerzo merece la pena porque siento que la que escribe soy verdaderamente “yo”. Aún así, mi “yo” lingüístico podría (¿debería?) haber sido otro si el valenciano no hubiera vivido una brutal represión y posterior situación de diglosia en el estado español. Como ya explicaba Joan Fuster, en este mercado desigual, es necesario sobrevivir profesionalmente, aunque ello conlleve a veces un uso forzado de las lenguas (Fuster, 1998).
to an ideology of “connectivity/connectedness” sustained by reducing communication to its economically productive aspects.
Such a move systematically fetishizes our labor, reducing it to a disembodied transmission of information while contributing to an increasingly precarious and unequal ‘Uberized’ working environment.
ideological processes, as well as the material conditions that shape and are shaped by them (see Wodak and Meyer, 2016; Flowerdew and Richardson, 2017). A CDS approach can be seen as an extension of the Critical Linguistics framework (Fowler et al., 1979; Kress and Hodge, 1979) that developed in and out of Western European contexts. The main premise of the analyses developed from this perspective considers language not as a neutral descriptor of reality, but as
an important instrument in the structuring of power relations in societies. Consequently, CDS strives to uncover how the legitimation of particular control mechanisms occurs, among others, through specific linguistic practices. In spite of its Western European core, and due to its decidedly problem- oriented nature, as well as the constant refinement and broadening of its analytical tools, CDS has progressively become appealing to the larger European continent, as well as to other Western and non- Western contexts such as the US, Australia, or China (Shi-
Xu, 1999; Tracy et al., 2011).
have a set of interactional resources (morphemes, syntactic structures, adjacency pairs, discursive forms, etc.) at their disposal that they can use to engage in observable interaction in meaningful ways; that (2) the meaning of a given interactional resource is constituted by its functionality in the specific moment of its use; that (3) the meaningful use of interactional resources has a systematic basis; and that (4) meaningful interaction requires the cooperation or joint action of all interlocutors involved in any interactional moment. It should be noted that language and social interaction scholars are equally interested in interlocutors' successes and failures at achieving meaningful interaction."
Throughout this study, and as the different analyses take shape, I will explore the possibilities of locating these dynamics within a dialectical cultural frame that can better account for the symbolic and material bases of social (re)production, especially in relation to processes of inclusion and exclusion.
For this purpose, public and semi-private discourses and practices that may contribute to legitimizing and/or challenging a potentially exclusionary understanding of belonging become a particularly relevant area of research. Thus, I propose to dig deeper into the different dynamics of exclusion and inclusion taking place nowadays in the EU, by carefully analyzing discourses at the level of legislation, media representations, and citizens' activism, together with the actions that they may legitimize. My study will try to discern particular understandings of contemporary societies across these different spheres, the shapes that they take, and the relationships, in the form of continuities and/or contradictions that can be established across them.
Analysing discourse is an entreprise that should take into account whose voices are heard and whose are unheard and what is sayable and visible, as well as unsayable and invisible under specific orders of discourse. Silencing is a consequence of the stratification of speakers, discourses and (named) languages according to evolving legitimate models of speakerhood, citizenship, and mobility. La reflexió sobre la connexió entre veus i silenci/silenciament il·luminarà les relacions socials de poder en determinats contextos i les condicions de generació del coneixement als quals, com a analistes del discurs, estem subjectes. O IV Simpósio Internacional EDiSo visa trazer para o primeiro plano o não dito, o não visto e o não escutado, como forma de entender a conformidade, o conflito, a resistência e mesmo a subversão face às ordens discursivas, sociolinguísticas e económicas dominantes na modernidade tardia.
From our study abroad site in Valencia, in this class we will also experience the popular culture of Spain, and discuss its comparative and relational ties to New Mexico, and the US more broadly. Through direct exposure, among others, to flamenco music and dance, social movements, film and TV productions, local festivities, sustainable agricultural practices, or native architectural landmarks, we will explore historical, social and cultural issues shaping past and present-day “Spain,” including: Internal and external colonialism, national(ist) ideologies, past and recent social movements, or economic, geographical, and identity-shaped struggles for equality. In their final projects, students will
develop their comparative, analytical, and critical skills as they work to connect popular cultural items discussed in the Spanish setting to their New Mexican contexts.
This unique program is designed to make sure that you experience the Spanish way of life from a local point of view. You will enjoy the benefits of real, long-term immersion in Spanish culture and language at your own pace.
We will be traveling to Valencia, Spain. Valencia is one of the world's preferred destinations to study abroad due to its unique mixture of traditional Mediterranean and urban culture. You will soak up the city's cultural richness through its world-renowned festivities and cuisine, enjoy its privileged climate and mile-long beaches, and witness Spanish culture, history and society as you wander by its different monuments and historic buildings, join the lively nightlife, or relax with a bike ride, walk, or tapas picnic in one of its numerous gardens.
profesorado, la impartición de las clases, o la (no) participación del alumnado. Por estos motivos, en este panel invitamos a compañeras de EDiSo que deseen participar en una reflexión profunda sobre cómo podemos intervenir en la (in)justicia epistemológica a través de la forma y el contenido de nuestras actividades pedagógicas. Desde incluir una perspectiva
histórica sobre la gramática que nos ayude a verla como resultado de luchas políticas, y no como un principio y fin en sí mismo (Gramsci, 1972), pasando por el análisis de las ideologías sobre las ‘lenguas’ (Zavala, 2012), la reflexión sobre el posicionamiento político lingüístico de las propias docentes (Taboada, 2015) o la revisión curricular para incluir a las
“madres” de nuestras disciplinas (García-Jiménez, 2023) las posibilidades son múltiples y muy necesarias, pero quizás no hayan sido discutidas y compartidas explícitamente en contextos como este Simposio. Por todo ello, invitamos a compartir propuestas de actividades, cursos, asignaturas, lecturas, proyectos del alumnado, y cualquier otra intervención pedagógica que nos ayude avanzar en el objetivo común de la justicia
epistémica en las aulas.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEL1imSfNUpSGKJH80sqiEpW58T-4LmyfrFssqn-McbmA2pw/viewform
This call is for individual proposals, either aiming to contribute to the collective proposals already accepted that have space, or as independent contributions.
You can find the relevant information about the various collective panels that are still receiving individual proposals on the blog of the Symposium (https://simposioediso2023.wordpress.com/2022/11/12/2convocatoria/) as well as the instructions for submission.
Do not hesitate to contact the Organising Committee on this email address: simposioediso2023@gmail.com.
With best wishes,
The Organising Committee - 6th EDiSo International Symposium 2023
Although it always involves a great deal of symbolic action, crisis is also intertwined with the (re)production and challenging of specific material inequalities. This has been, for example, the case with the perceived socio-economic and health-related crises of the last few centuries. While helping to (re)constitute long-standing unequal distribution of material resources across different contexts, these crises have at the same time engendered new logics of social organisation and (not always expected) forms of political reorganisation.
The V EDiSo International Symposium 2021 aims to address these issues by inviting discursive, sociolinguistic and semiotic approaches to the study of disruptions and vulnerabilities in times of crises. It welcomes contributions that shed light on their apprehension, impact and (re)signification, and on what discourse studies have to offer to an understanding of those processes.