2015 | CaMP Anthropology

Page 99 of my dissertation provides a short glimpse of a key tension which characterizes Israeli Life Coaching as well as other projects of self-realization and therapeutic technologies. In a heading on page 99, I named this tension “from introspection to instruction” to describe coaches’ and trainees’ negotiations with the neoliberal and therapeutic notion of cultivating reflexivity and following the specific instructions of a professional authority. Scholars such as Michel Foucault, Nikolas Rose, James Faubion and others have extensively theorized how healers and experts of the soul exercise their power through the cultivation of their patients’ reflexivity. One of my contributions to this line of exploration is a focus on a local style of speech called dugri (direct speech) that entails a certain notion of caring and reshapes, in specific ways, the ethical dilemma between liberation and domination.

Dugri refers to utterances spoken in a blunt manner, as a form of criticism aimed at one’s interlocutor which symbolizes intimacy, authenticity, care, and courage. In short, dugri speakers speak their minds in a straightforward manner that is sometimes even intentionally aggressive. The logic behind dugri is that only someone who truly cares about their interlocutors will put him/herself at risk by expressing an unpopular critical view (Katriel 1986). Accordingly, this also means that smiling politely and avoiding confrontation is seen as inauthentic and careless.

The prevalence of dugri style of speech among Israeli life coaches, which encompasses making concrete assertions and determining what is right and wrong for a specific trainee, undercuts some global therapeutic notions which favor self-reflection and self-realization over such local professional calculations. In my dissertation I show how Israeli coaches and their trainees negotiate these two discourses – the global and local – as well as these two types of caring, in their effort to balance between focusing on the trainee’s abilities to be reflexive and centering around the coach’s expression of his/her authenticity as well as expert knowledge and power.

Dugri is idiosyncratically Israeli. But could such styles also be found in other cultures? Recently I had a chance to view the new Netflix documentary about the famous American life coach Anthony Robbins titled: “I am not your Guru” (which I highly recommend: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80102204?trackId=14277281&tctx=0%2C0%2C6f297f89-3322-4f91-b3ba-1ec0cb44108c-50113145). Robbins very vividly demonstrates an aggressive type of fearless speech, and I wonder – is it part of what renders coaching so popular in other places around the globe too? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new technology of selfhood which challenges the hegemony of a reflexive, psycho-therapeutic emotional style?

Reference:

Katriel, Tamar

1986 Talking Straight: Dugri Speech in Israeli Sabra Culture: Cambridge University Press.

Tamar Kaneh-Shalit. 2015. Positive Thinking without a Smile: Self and Care in Israeli Life Coaching. Phd dissertation, University of Haifa.

Tamar Kaneh-Shalit, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow at the department of sociology and anthropology at Ben-Gurion University. She is a psychological anthropologist who is interested in self and emotions; education and care professions; media, immigration and identity. In her current research project she studies the emergence of emotional discourse in the academic world; how universities define and practice caring for students’ emotional well-being and mental health in USA and Israel. This study is in collaboration with colleagues in Russia and Israel. You can reach her at tkaneh@gmail.com.

“Is Ford Madox Ford’s statement “Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you,” accurate for the dissertation?

In short: not really.

Especially for long winded texts such as my own, titled “Purism, Prescriptivism, and Privilege: Choctaw Language Ideologies and Their Impact on Teaching and Learning (University of Oklahoma, 2015),” page ninety-nine likely occurs in an early chapter. In fact, my page ninety-nine, occurring in the methods chapter, rather dryly details survey design, contacting and consenting procedures, and interview and observation timeframes. Not only is the content of this page rather boring, it does not relate the more interesting methods substance, which, in my opinion, concerns the collaborative and reflexive nature of community-based sociolinguistic research and issues in representing voice.

This entire chapter, to my thinking, with its dry tone and disconnected content, fails to represent the work. It does illustrate, though, the challenges in writing for two audiences, as necessitated by writing a dissertation with and for a community while attempting to satisfy an academic committee. The methods chapter stands apart from the remaining content, presented in a first person ethnographic style, in which I and my consultants share voice. (In fact, the final written product is the result of collaboration and careful review, word by word, by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Language Committee.) The remaining work attempts a sensitive and critical examination of how Choctaw language ideologies impact teaching practice and learner motivation, and, ultimately, language persistence. Page ninety-nine addresses none of the ways that ideology shapes conceptions of authorization, standardization, orthography choice, and socio-linguistic authentication.

So, perhaps page ninety-nine is not as accurate a test of the quality of a dissertation as for the novel, Ford’s subject. Then again, to a non-academic audience, page ninety-nine of the dissertation, whether describing methods or actually delving into findings, may just represent the rather esoteric, sometimes unapproachable, and, let’s face it, boring nature of much academic work. Perhaps if dissertations were written as are novels, to engage the reader, page ninety-nine would be a fair test of quality. After all, when dissertations are revised for publication, the early chapters are often summarily cut. Page ninety-nine of my dissertation is fated to footnote status, where, I firmly believe it belongs.

Kickham, Elizabeth. 2015. “Purism, Prescriptivism, and Privilege: Choctaw Language Ideologies and Their Impact on Teaching and Learning.” PhD dissertation, University of Oklahoma.

Elizabeth Kickham, Adjunct Professor at Oklahoma University, Norman

CaMP Anthropology

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Tamar Kaneh-Shalit’s Positive Thinking Without a Smile

Elizabeth Kickham’s “Purism, Prescriptivism, and Privilege: Choctaw Language Ideologies and Their Impact on Teaching and Learning”