Sarah E. Dempsey

Assistant Professor
Organizational Communication

Areas of Specialization:
(1) organizational and communication-based dynamics of advocacy and social change contexts, including international development, U. S. philanthropy, and community organizing, (2) how globalization produces novel forms of domination while also allowing for unique opportunities for progressive social change and transformative resistance, and (3) discourses of environmental justice, sustainable development, and technology.

Data analysis draws from critical/cultural approaches and includes ethnographically informed discourse analysis, the analysis of media texts, and archival research.

Current Research:
An examination of the politics of representation and discourses of
grassroots participation within social change organizing

Collaborative research focusing on the negotiation of difference and
leadership within transnational feminist networks

CIRA Collaboration on Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction in
North Carolina, Center for Integrating Research and Action (CIRA)
http://www.cira-unc.org/

Recent Publications:
Dempsey, S. E. (forthcoming). The Increasing Technology Divide:
Persistent Portrayals of Maverick Masculinity in Advertising. Feminist
Media Studies.

Dempsey, S. E. (2007). Towards a critical organizational approach to
civil society contexts: A case study of the difficulties of
transnational advocacy. In B. J. Allen, L. A. Flores & M. P. Orbe
(Eds.), The International and Intercultural Communication Annual (Vol.
30, pp. 317-339). Washington, D. C.: National Communication
Association.

Dempsey, S. E. (2007). Negotiating Accountability within International
Contexts: The Role of Bounded Voice. Communication Monographs, 34(3),
311-322.

Dempsey, S. E. (2006). A review of Valentine M. Moghadam's
"Globalizing women: Transnational feminist networks" and Richa Nagar
and the Sangtin Writers' "Playing with fire: Feminist thought and
activism through seven lives in India." Women's Studies Quarterly, 34,
1 & 2, 481-486.

Courses Regularly Taught:
COM 050: Globalizing Organizations
COM 525: Organizational Communication
COM 629: Special Topics in Organizational Communication

Future/Projected Courses:
COM 050, Globalizing Organizations. The purpose of this course is to provide an introductory critical/organizational communication approach to globalization. By the end of the semester, students will be familiar with a range of perspectives on the communicative and ethical issues that arise within a diverse set of global and multinational forms of organizing.

COM 629, Organizing for Social Change. This advanced level undergraduate seminar expands upon COM 525 to explore the central characteristics and defining features of values-based, advocacy, and social change organizing, paying particular attention to the unique communicative and ethical difficulties that arise within these contexts. The latter half of the course provides a historicized account of the globalization of these organizational contexts to focus on international development, the rise of NGOs, and new forms of transnational advocacy networks.

Graduate Level Seminar, Critical Approaches to Globalization and Resistance. This course provides graduate students with an introduction to critical and cultural theories of globalization and transformative resistance, with a focus on transnational organizing, broadly understood.

Current Work with Graduate Students:
COMM 629 serves as a “bridge course” for graduate students interested in organizational approaches to non profits, NGOs, and processes of advocacy, social change and international development; recently directed independent studies with graduate students around the topic of “organizing for social change.”