Rooting the Study of Communication Activism in an Attempted Book Ban Page: 122
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Rooting the Study of Communication Activism
a marker of strong partnerships, yet there is little agreement on how reciprocity is defined or
applied in those partnerships (Dostilio, et.al, 2012).
To both deepen our understanding of reciprocity and challenge its limits, Dostilio, et al. (2012)
distinguish three epistemological understandings based on an iterative and inductive
conceptual analysis of published articles. They conclude that reciprocity has been defined in
one of three ways: 1) Reciprocity as exchange where community engagement is conceived of in
terms of programs for mutual benefit; 2) Reciprocity as influence, marked by relationships that
are shaped by the participants over time; or, 3) Reciprocity as generative where partners create
something new together. In their study, the authors maintain that because the three frames are
rooted in differing epistemological orientations, they in turn lead partnerships to pursue
different goals. Since we saw our work as having the potential to effect a change not only in
what the participants in our partnership did, but also in who we were as activists and how our
community responded, we consider our action as having the possibilities associated with
generative reciprocity (Dostilio, et al., 2012). More explicitly, we saw glimpses of:
Transformation of identity (at some level)...[that] enables individuals to
learn about and honor each other's diverse perspectives and ways of knowing
and/or doing...Something greater than each respective entities' potential impact is
created, synergistically. (Dostilio, et al., 2012, p. 25)
Generative reciprocity suggests that the partners recognize power, privilege, and the systemic
features of oppression in society and in relationships as they engage in community action.
Unscripted Opportunities
Our eventual protest actions were not exactly planned, but instead they developed from a
somewhat abrupt moment, or what Minnich might call an "imaginative moment" (2003, p. 23)
and what Dostilio, et al. (2012) might call a generative opportunity. That is, because of the local
relationships that Spoma Jovanovic, as the professor of the course, had cultivated with long-
time community partners, she was able to introduce Crawford to Parents Supporting Parents
(PSP), a community based organization dedicated to providing support to parents to ensure
their children's academic success in K-12 education (www.parents-supporting-parents.org).
Crawford's work on the narrative assignment of a social change organization led him to
interview the two leaders of PSP. In addition to detailing how they operated and the successes
and challenges they faced, the women told Crawford that they hoped to have audience
support when they attended an up-coming school board meeting to talk about their concerns
over how the Common Core Curriculum2 was being implemented absent sufficient training and
2 The Common Core State Standards is an initiative of the National Governors Association and the
Council of Chief State School Offices to offer competency benchmarks for K-12 language arts and
mathematics to states that voluntary choose to use them (see http://www.corestandards.org/ for morePage 122
Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning & Civic Engagement
Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 2015
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Jovanovic, Spoma; Congdon, Mark; Miller, Crawford & Richardson, Garrett. Rooting the Study of Communication Activism in an Attempted Book Ban, article, 2015; Greensboro, North Carolina. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1010768/m1/8/: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT College of Arts and Sciences.