2nd Edition
Inside Relationships Critical Creative Case Studies in Interpersonal Communication
The second edition of this book again uses original case studies as a means to bring home to students, through lived experiences, the theories and concepts of interpersonal communication.
Each piece takes an arts-based approach—spanning essays, short stories, scripts, photographs, poetry— and has been newly written for this edition by communication researchers, writers, and artists. The case studies focus on the aesthetic dimensions of relating to illustrate to students the workings of relationship management with regards to friendship, race, class, gender, family interaction, sexuality, and other key topics in relational communication. The case studies are framed from a critical interpersonal perspective to encourage students to consider how power and cultural discourses about relationships influence their relating. Faulkner’s introduction to each section provides important pedagogical content to give context and meaning to the cases that follow. Each case closes with questions for discussion, activities, and additional resources to help students analyze the material.
The book is suited as core or supplemental reading for courses in interpersonal or relational communication.
Foreword: A Critical Need for Critical Case Studies in Interpersonal Communication Pedagogy by Jimmie Manning
Introduction by Sandra L. Faulkner
Chapter 1: What is a Relationship?
Case 1: The ruminating of the Samoan Va (relationships in-between) & the musing and connecting of identity by Fetaui Iosefo
Case 2: Migration Patterns by Kimberly Dark
Case 3: Wellspring by Sheila Squillante
Case 4: Death and the Childhood Imagination by Alana Ritt
Chapter 2: Health, Discourse, Dialectics, and Disclosure
Case 5: Run for their Lives: A Call to Action to Address Black Infant and Maternal Mortality by Erin K. Willer
Case 6: Primary Care by Mary E. Weems
Case 7: Letter to My 14-Year-Old Self by Walid Afifi, Rana M. Shubair, and Salsabeel Hamdan
Case 8: Cancer Triptych by Sandra L. Faulkner
Chapter 3: Families, Parenting, and Communication
Case 9: Life Isn’t All Roses: The Struggles of Adoptive Parenting by Christy Mesaros-Winckles and Andrew Winckles
Case 10: Formative Interactions and Reformative Patterns in Father-son Relationships and Masculinities by Dan S. Strasser
Case 11: A Capitalist and a Christian by Laura Stafford
Case 12: Healthy Happy Homes by Lindsey J. Thomas and Kristina M. Scharp
Chapter 4: The Social Self: Class, Race, and Social Context
Case 13: Black Motherhood: Poems by Nicole Danielle Morris
Case 14: Class and Calamity: In Hindsight by Kate Magsamen-Conrad
Case 15: Class (Inter)Acting by Tasha R. Dunn
Case 16: You Talk Like A White Girl: Blackgirl Identity and Interpersonal Interracial Realities by Robin M. Boylorn
Chapter 5: Race, Nationality, and Gendered Practices in Relationships
Case 17: Tales of Dashing Sasquatch: Skirting Gender Hegemony by Manda V. Hicks
Case 18: Sticks and Stones: Dealing with Discrimination by Lisa K. Hanasono
Case 19: How a board game prompted a conversation with my kids about what it means to be ‘American’ by Jenn McKee
Case 20: Stories of migration and identity from an undocumented citizen in the United States by Monica Cornejo
Chapter 6: Relationship Maintenance
Case 21: Long-Term Love by Laura L. Ellingson
Case 22: College students’ negotiations of work-life balance: Grasping it all in moments of turbulence by Katherine J. Denker and Kendra Knight
Case 23: Dis/connection by Zhenyu Tian and Keith Berry
Case 24: TEN: Marriage in 10 Scenes by Sandra L. Faulkner
Chapter 7: Sexualities and Heteropatriarchy
Case 25: Feminist Killjoy, Childfree by Choice by Bernadette Marie Calafell
Case 26: Does my beard make me look straight?—a series of messy strands by Lore/tta LeMaster
Case 27: The Trials of Coming Out as Trans by Shalen Lowell
Case 28: Learning, Living, and Leaving Monogamy by Tony E. Adams and Dominic A. Walker-Pecoraro
Chapter 8 The Dark Side
Case 29: Bowing Out of Friendship by Julia Galbus Kiesel
Case 30: That Baby Will Cost You: An Intended Ambivalent Pregnancy by Sandra L. Faulkner
Case 31: The Four Ugliest Children by Camille-Yvette Welsch
Case 32: Twintimacy and Twinships by Jordan A. Allen and Nicole T. Allen
Index
About the Authors
Biography
Sandra L. Faulkner is professor of communication at Bowling Green State University where she writes, teaches, and researches about close relationships. Her interests include qualitative methodology, poetic inquiry, and the relationships among culture, identities, and sexualities in close relationships. Her research focuses on how individuals navigate gender and sexuality through interpersonal communication and personal narrative. She often uses poetry, creative nonfiction, and autoethnography to explore her own negotiation of identity as a parent, partner, and professor. She received the 2013 Knower Outstanding Article Award from the National Communication Association, the 2016 Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award, and the 2020 Trujillo and Goodall "It’s a Way of Life Award" in Narrative Ethnography. https://www.sandrafaulkner.online/ https://bgsu.academia.edu/SandraFaulkner
