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.”

