Discursive Frictions: Power, Identity, and Culture in an International Working Partnership

Abstract

This article builds on previous work in power, identity, and culture in organizational communication and transnational feminism. Drawing on a six-year capacity-building partnership between a U.S. and a Kenyan team to promote HIV/AIDS education, it explores the discursive frictions that can arise when universal goals, such as science and health, come into contact with the material, cultural, political, and religious realities of local practitioners. These frictions can reinforce and, at times, shift dominant (post)colonial power relations. It ends with a discussion of the theoretical, practical, and material implications of discursive frictions as they relate to power, voice, and identification.