Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue

The tradition of individual responsibility where individuals deliberate, morally evaluate, and then decide on a course of action is dear to the heart of Western ethical and legal codes and informs many contemporary practices of therapy, education, and organizational life. It also typically isolates, alienates, and ultimately invites the eradication of the otherùa step toward non-meaning. A vast range of current thinking places this view of the independently responsible individual in strong question. In Relational Responsibility, the authors attempt to transform the concept of responsibility in such a way that the relational process replaces the individual as the central concern. This volume invites practices that replace alienation and isolation with meaning-building dialogue. It is structured in a way that demonstrates their ideas. In Part I, McNamee and Gergen examine relational responsibility followed by their analysis of a challenging case study involving the issue of child sexual abuse. Part II contains responses from scholars and practitioners from the fields of communication, psychology, therapy, and organizational development that extend the original dialogue set out by McNamee and Gergen. Part III is a rejoinder to Part II in redirecting and augmenting the original conception and practice of relational responsibility. Relational Responsibility touches on a number of different disciplines, including communication theory, sociology, social theory, interpersonal and group communication, conflict management, and child abuse.

Table of Contents:
Preface - Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J Gergen Situating the Conversation PART ONE:RELATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY An Invitation to Relational Responsibility Relational Responsibility in Practice A Case in Point PART TWO: EXPANDING THE DIALOGUE: RESONANCE AND REFIGURATION When Stories Have Wings - David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney How Relational Responsibility Opens New Options for Action Collaborative Learning Communities - Harlene Anderson Relational Moves and Generative Dances - Ian Burkitt On Being Relational in an Accountable Way - John W Lannamann The Questions of Agency and Power The Uncertain Path to Dialogue - Sallyann Roth A Meditation Relational Responsibility - Mary Gergen Deconstructive Possibilities Relational Responsibility or Dialogic Ethics? A Questioning of McNamee and Gergen - Stanley Deetz and William J White Responding and Relating - Michael J Mazanec and Steve Duck Response-Ability to Individuals, Relating and Difference Co-Constructing Responsibility - Karl Tomm Inspiring Dialogues and Relational Responsibility - Eero Riikonen Creating Relational Realities - John Shotter and Arlene M Katz Responsible Responding to Poetic `Movements′ and `Moments′ Relational Inquiry and Relational Responsibility - Robert Cottor and Sharon Cottor The Practice of Change A Circle of Voices - Peggy Penn and Marilyn Frankfurt `Just Like Max′ - Walter Eggers Learning in Relation Waiting for the Author - Maurizio Marzari PART THREE: CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION Relational Responsibility - Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J Gergen The Converging Conversation

About the Author :
Sheila McNamee, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and Vice President and Co-Founder of the Taos Institute.  She is internationally known for her contributions to social construction theory and practice, focusing on dialogic transformation in psychotherapy, education, healthcare, organizations, and research.  She is author of several books and articles, including Research and Social Change: A Relational Constructionist Approach (with D. M. Hosking, Routledge, 2012), Relational Responsibility:  Resources for Sustainable Dialogue (with K. Gergen, Sage, 1999), and is co-editor of The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice (with M. Gergen, E. Rasera, & C. Camargo-Borges, 2020) and Education as Social Construction:  Contributions to Theory, Research, and Practice (with T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, E. Tseliou, Taos WorldShare, 2015). Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor in Psychology at Swarthmore College, and the President of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his contributions to social constructionist theory, technology and cultural change, the self, aging, education, and relational theory and practices. His major writings include, Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. His most recent work Beyond the Tyranny of Testing: Relational Evaluation in Education (with Scherto Gill) offers a relational constructionist alternative to the destructive practices of testing and grading in education. Gergen lectures throughout the world, and has received numerous awards for his work, including honorary degrees in both the U.S. and Europe.