From Stigma to Resistant Career Discourses: Toward a Co-Cultural Career Communication Model for Non-Dominant Group Member

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Keywords

Roma career theory, co-cultural theory, culture of honor, stigmatized groups, resistance

Abstract

Career communication focuses on Western and dominant members’ work and careers in formal economies. Applying co-cultural theory to anthropological data, we show how groups, such as the Roma people, operate within dialectics of inclusion-exclusion, dignity-stigma, individual-collectivity, and legality-illegality to construct career discourses marked by resistance and resource recuperation. Building on Lucassen, Willems, and Cottaar (1998), we have identified five characteristics of Romany experiences of work and resistance: (a) the entire family functioning as the work unit; (b) mobility; (c) preference for self-employment; (d) the rhetoric of recuperation; and (e) work used as resistance toward dominant majorities. In doing so, we offer an ideological critique of career and the Roma. Our model is applicable to other marginalized groups.

Was this content written or created while at USF?

No

Citation / Publisher Attribution

Intercultural Communication Studies, v. 21, issue 3, p. 1-17

Share

COinS