“I have the deck”: Leadership, gender, sexual identity construction in U.S. Navy sea-stories. (April, 2019). Paper presented at the Lavender Languages and Linguistics 26th annual conference hosted in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Abstract: In 2011, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly; followed by all occupational specialities throughout the military becoming open to women in 2016. As gender and sexual minorities increase in visibility throughout the military, specifically leadership roles, how are the conceptualizations of masculinity within the military challenged? The current paper analyses leadership practices of gender and sexual minorities in the US Navy. Extensive research exists in the analysis of leadership and its intersection with gender identity, specifically women; however, research across different fields of inquiry that intersects leadership style and sexual identity are nearly non-existent. The military, considered an arbiter of American masculinity, serves as a contrast for gender and sexual minority identity to emerge in leadership style. The data consist of fourteen interviews of Naval Officers of diverse gender and sexual identities who served as Surface Warfare Officers. Of the interviews, I focus on narratives, or sea-stories, elicited in the interviews about standing watch as the Officer of the Deck. Applying a discourse analysis approach and incorporating theoretical frameworks such as intertextuality (Kristeva 1967/1980), and positioning (Davies and Harré 1990), I investigate how identities emerge in the context of leadership. My results suggest how leadership and masculinity are not inherently tied together but instead are complicated by the inclusion of diverse identities traditionally excluded from being masculine. I further argue, the masculine-feminine dichotomy becomes obsolete in institutions, such as the military, as diverse identities become equally represented.
Identity construction in a gentrifying neighborhood through the lens of face and face-work. (March, 2018). Paper presented at the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) in 2018 in Washington, DC.
Abstract: This paper explores the discursive strategies used by residents to construct identity in two demographically changing neighborhoods. Drawing data from the online social network Nextdoor, I examine the metasemiotic descriptions (Weninger, 2009) employed by residents of two Washington DC neighborhoods to define the core community of “engaged citizens” and how they avoid racially coded discourse that marginalizes the existing ethnic community. I focus primarily on discourse pertaining to crime and safety in the corresponding Bloomingdale and Trinidad neighborhood online forums. As residents discuss problem-solving solutions, demonstrating face and facework (Goffman, 1967, Ting-Toomey, 1994), I examine how residents co-construct their identity as a resident, and the ideal identity of the community as a whole. In the past 10 years, Bloomingdale’s ethnic composition reversed as White residents became the majority. Based on census data, Trinidad is moving in the same direction of gentrification. As neighborhoods gentrify, this study examines the development and construction of community identity.
