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Stories of sojourn: A CMM analysis of the intercultural interactions of Malay women
Abstract
Sojourn is a composition of intercultural interactions where people (re)constitute the various forms of life such as cultural patterns, autobiographies, relationships, and episodes. This dissertation is a compilation of the stories of sojourn of three Malay women as interpreted within the theoretical framework of Coordinated Management of Meaning, hereafter referred to as CMM (Pearce and Cronen, 1980). It is an episodic analysis of their reported daily interactions with Americans and other Malays during their sojourn in the United States. This episodic method allowed the reconstruction of stories from the responses elicited through circular questions. The CMM analysis included the similarities and differences in daily interactions, the tensions and emotions that emerged, patterns of resistance, stability, and transformations that were intrinsic in their lived experiences. A review of the three cases revealed that initial episodes with Americans reflected Malay patterns of interaction. These patterns of cultural communication created tensions and misunderstandings. Patterns of intercultural communication emerged after these women recognized that there are differences between their cultural ways. The ability to coordinate these intercultural interactions was a consequence of the implicative effects of their lived experiences. These lived experiences redefined their autobiographical stories and subsequently transformed their actions and interpretations of their told stories. It was also found that emotions have a role as social action that (re)constitute particular situations. Nevertheless, interactions with other Malays reflected a Malay pattern and any attempt to do otherwise was met with resistance. There are several implications of this study for intercultural research. First, the episodic analysis renders sojourn as an experience that is situated and interactive. It provides an in-depth, reflexive and interactive look into the lived experiences of sojourners. Second, this research is a co-construction and interactive process between the researcher and reciprocators for it allowed an active participation of the reciprocators. Third, the analysis reflected the creation of stories within a Malay cultural pattern. This is significant for intercultural research since both the researcher and the women affected the questions, data, and subsequently the findings. Thus, intercultural research is a contextualized and situated account.
Subject Area
Communication|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Pawanteh, Latiffah, "Stories of sojourn: A CMM analysis of the intercultural interactions of Malay women" (1996). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9639017.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9639017