Presenters:

  • Veronica Arellano Douglas
  • Anastasia Chiu
  • Joanna Gadsby
  • Alana Kumbier
  • Lalitha Nataraj (aka Lali)

Presentation #

Veronica talks about how their community of practice has come about

  • Veronica says she wrote a blog post about a year ago about relational-cultural theory and her feelings… that’s what she does. { This is probably the blog post—Ryan } Research on feminized labor dovetails with relational focus

  • They’re a reading group, they share perspectives

Alana’s intro to relational cultural theory:

  • Stone Center at Wellesley College, feminist model of human development; clients mostly white heterosexual women in relationships

  • later folks (women of color, queer folks, etc) recognized the limits of looking primarily/exclusively at sexism, now about other systems of oppression as well

  • First tenet of relational-cultural theory is connection
    • Judith Jordan: “Connection is at the core of human growth & development… We all grow in, through, and towards relationship.”
    • Alana says that she often uses this with students to focus on the connections we build, that we competence in connection, not alone

Anastaia: Second tenet is mutuality

  • appreciation for the wholeness of the other person & their subjective experience
  • intersubjective mutuality; goes beyond simple recognition and toward (affirmation? I missed that word)… two-wayness.
  • how she puts this into cataloging work is to consider:
    • will users see themselves accurately and thoughtfully in the catalog?
    • how to balance cataloging work?
  • relational instinct is very much about efficiency, authority… how to balance humanity in cataloging & interoperability of the file

Veronica: mutuality really helps facility what bell hooks calls “engaged pedagogy” where students as well as teachers grow through the process

  • respect for knowledge & experience that people bring into classroom
  • mutuality also has helped Veronica think about her relationship to work, helps reframe her workplace as not a concept but a collection of people

Joanna: empathy

  • in relational context, “empathy” goes beyond common place sense of this
  • requires a well-differentiated sense of self & appreciation for the other person
  • very much a mutual flow of empathy & appreciation for each others’ humanity
  • mutual, multi-directional, not just “I feel your pain” which is unidirectional and can be shallow
  • if we demonstrate that we can respond to another’s pain, we go beyond recognition, it goes beyond neutrality
  • it’s bold to approach the reference desl; we should recognize that
  • one-shots can be invasive to classroom community that we visit
  • anticipatory empathy, orient the students when they come to class; have some sort of grounding in “here’s where we are, here’s the nearest water & restrooms, we all need to be humans, including me” so orients people in space as well foster a feeling of connection and atmosphere of care

Joanna: vulnerability

  • a person’s ongoing ability to represent themselves in a relationship more fully
  • decentering herself as the authority & letting students lead the way more

Lalitha: vulnerability also pertains professionally, particularly for marginalized people who might not feel comfortable representing their authentic self at their institution

  • can create safe spaces
  • draw from personal & professional experiences to build connection with students, particularly when disclose own experiences & marginalization, i.e. within Chicana / Latinx communities at school
  • openness, Judith Jordan says we must be open to moving, to being moved (I missed most of that quote)
  • can be open if not trapped in a “power over” dynamic, where one person sets the rules of the situation

Anastasia: openness in dynamics of our work

  • what sort of harm is done to the people our systems are in relation with?
  • how can we make Library of Congress subject headings more open to community input, LCSH currently changes / grows through a weighty & lengthy process
  • bias in the publication process tilts LCSH process of finding “literary warrant” against the interests of marginalized communities being better represented through LCSH terms
  • Violet Fox’s cataloging lab is a good move toward power-with dynamics for cataloging

Veronica: power with dynamic

  • our profession is feminized but not feminist
  • practice of relational cultural theory actively subverts power structures by actively dispersing power (two other things as well that I missed)
  • desire to lift everyone up together
  • as a new manager she sees how it can be isolating, but also tension about laying her managerial duties at the feet of those she manages, since she’s a manager not only in name but also in salary difference
  • team meetings don’t just talk about things they need to accomplish but also their feelings & concerns, talk about their emotional labor as teaching librarians
    that sounds great & rosy, but there’s also conflicts

Alana: valuing conflict

  • “conflict positive” was something Alana heard from a student recently
  • there’s a lot of really valid reasons for conflict to happen
  • conflict as not a threat but as an opportunity for accountability
  • hear how people experience a situation & hear their perspective
  • listen to everyone, then respond together
  • takes a growth mindset and trying to move into that together
  • try to get beyond who did what & its effects, but to listen for the underlying systems & practices and see what of those can be altered

Veronica: leads us into a small group discussion

Small Group Discussion Share-out #

  • Audience discussion/questions/comments (good use of microphone so far!)

Emily Drabinski: a lot of this work is predicated on being at an institution that’s workable

  • Joanna says that presenting these ideas as big ideas is in order to see if there are small places to put these things into our work

Person 2: “Struggle with sense of wanting to the this work, but also there’s an American cultural tendency to be very transactional.”

  • In a professional setting, how might the transactional be more professional / effective?

Person 3: Conflict.

  • She & another of her colleagues acknowledge & model respectful disagreement in from of the students they supervise

Karen, Northeast U in Boston

  • Appreciates concreteness, things like orienting students in building; One of the first things one of her colleagues always asks in a consultation is “can I get you a cup of water?” Anther person talks about being intentional. Third in group talked about own supervisor about being transparent about information, not hiding until everything’s settled. Lunchtime reading group, in critical librarianship. Allows them to be more informal, outside usual dynamics

Person 5: She’s conflict averse & works with people who are conflict averse. How to you point out a problem without being labeled the problem?

(I think that was her question)

  • Alana: aversion to conflict is part of how institutions resist equity, diversity, inclusion work; how can we have diversity / difference without recognizing that this takes work?
  • Anastasia: therapist suggests the tactic of saying that you want to bring the point of conflict back up again later, preparing each other for the discussion so it doesn’t just toxically linger but also so that there’s consent about revisiting the conflict again in the safest possible situation
  • Lali: one thing great about her current department is that it’s built on a lot of trust; psychological safety, they feel that around each other so they can focus on a goal and put aside other interpersonal things that could create tension to push toward the goal
  • Veronica: important for people in quasi-positions of power to protect those with less power; as the instruction coordinator she takes on the role of saying no to inappropriate teaching requests, sees that conflict as an moment of affirmation

Person 6: tension between these ideas, which have a lot of salience with students and management, but tension with dynamic of librarians not having expertise recognized by faculty. Can you address that tension?

  • Veronica: relational growth encourages you to keep relationships that help you grow & are healthy and to discard negative ones if you’re in a situation that lets you

Anastasia’s reflection questions:

  • How can you keep this going?
  • (one I missed)
  • What have you heard today that makes you want to move forward with an intentional practice of relational-cultural theory (rct)?

original etherpad