Talking about Race: Community Dialogues and the Politics of Difference (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) - Hardcover

Walsh, Katherine Cramer

3.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

9780226869063: Talking about Race: Community Dialogues and the Politics of Difference (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226869067 ISBN 13: 9780226869063

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2007

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

It is a perennial question: how should Americans deal with racial and ethnic diversity? More than 400 communities across the country have attempted to answer it by organizing discussions among diverse volunteers in an attempt to improve race relations. In Talking about Race, Katherine Cramer Walsh takes an eye-opening look at this strategy to reveal the reasons behind the method and the effects it has in the cities and towns that undertake it.

With extensive observations of community dialogues, interviews with the discussants, and sophisticated analysis of national data, Walsh shows that while meeting organizers usually aim to establish common ground, participants tend to leave their discussions with a heightened awareness of differences in perspective and experience. Drawing readers into these intense conversations between ordinary Americans working to deal with diversity and figure out the meaning of citizenship in our society, she challenges many preconceptions about intergroup relations and organized public talk. Finally disputing the conventional wisdom that unity is the only way forward, Walsh prescribes a practical politics of difference that compels us to reassess the place of face-to-face discussion in civic life and the critical role of conflict in deliberative democracy.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Katherine Cramer Walsh is associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of Talking about Politics: Informal Groups and Social Identity in American Life, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Review:

"[Talking about Race] examines the content of community dialogues, offers interviews with a variety of individuals involved in these dialogues, and analyzes national data on attitudes on racial/ethnic diversity. . . .An especially interesting and relevant chapter analyzes the dynamics of public officials and residents in dialogue about racial issues. . . . Overall, this book is a comprehensive yet accessible study of a very important subject for an increasingly diverse democratic nation. . . . Highly recommended." (N. Krause Choice 2008-01-01)

"Talking About Race: Community Dialogues and the Politics of Difference represents a substantial undertaking by Katherine Cramer Walsh. Walsh embarks on a large-scale study of community dialogues on race in multiple sites to ask how public talk comes into being and what goes on within it. . . . She provides a rich review of literature on democracy theory, difference verses unity in dialogue, theories of urban public policy, and deliberation. What is particularly impressive is that the author consistently traces the intellectual lineage often back to the original canonized scholars. . . . This text’s greatest strength is the depth and diversity of the methodological approaches, its organization and transparency, in addition to the literature reviewed." (Manoucheka Celeste Journal of Communication Inquiry)

"Walsh's text is careful and original. It fills a gap in our understanding of deliberative democracy and offers a substantial empirical contribution to the study of race in American public attitudes." (Melissa Harris-Lacewell Perspectives on Politics)

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.