Sarah E. Dempsey

Assistant Professor
Organizational Communication

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

Dr. Sarah Dempsey’s research and teaching focuses on communication, collaboration, and representation in relation to nonprofit, community-based, and gendered forms of organizing. In her research, she draws on qualitative methods and critical/cultural approaches. Recent projects investigate the negotiation of accountability and grassroots representation by international NGOs, gendered representations of communication technologies, and the role of difference within transnational feminism. A current project examines the role of communication and power within campus-community engagement initiatives, and is informed by her work with the Center for Integrating Research and Action at UNC-Chapel Hill, http://www.cira-unc.org/. She is also currently researching the rise of social entrepreneurship, including how it is impacting meanings of work within the nonprofit sector.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Dempsey, S. E. (In Press) Critiquing Community Engagement. Management Communication Quarterly.

Dempsey, S. E. (2009). NGOs, Symbolic Labor, and the Work of Grassroots Representation. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 6, 328-345.

Dempsey, S. E. (2009). The Increasing Technology Divide: Persistent Portrayals of Maverick Masculinity in Advertising. Feminist Media Studies, 9, 37-55.

Dempsey, S.E. (2009) Stakeholder Theory. In S. W. Littlejohn & K. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 929-931.

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

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. (2006). Globalizing Feminist Social Change: A Review of Valentine M. Moghadam’s “Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks,” and the Sangtin Writers’ and Richa Nagar’s “Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, 34, 1 & 2, 481-486.

COURSES TAUGHT

COMM 082: Globalizing Organizations
COMM 625: Communication and Nonprofits
COMM 629: Organizing for Social Change
COMM 629: Communication, Work & Globalization
COMM 703: Communication and the Social
COMM 825: Labor and Collectivity in the Global Context