In this timely and innovative book, Tamar Katriel takes a language and discourse-centred approach to the subject of peace activism in Israel-Palestine, one of the most significant political issues of our time, while also posing more general questions about the role played by language in activist movements – how activists themselves conceptualize their speech and its relationship to action.Viewing activism as a globalized cultural formation that gives shape and meaning to grassroots...

An original ethnographic study about communication and culture in Palestine and Israel during the Twentieth Century, examining three modes of communication—soul talks, straight talk, and talk radio.The vision of communication as authentic dialogue, as the mutual communion of souls, has animated a great many twentieth century discussions of language and communication, both in scholarly writings and in various forms and contexts of popular culture. In its various man...

A nostalgic interest in the past is a well-recognized feature of fast-changing, contemporary societies. It finds its expression in a variety of history-making practices of which the establishment of local heritage museums is a major manifestation in many parts of the world today. Katriel develops a communication-centered perspective on the study of heritage museums and -- by extension -- other tourist sites, highlighting the role of discourse in these institutionalized, yet vernacular cont...

Whenever and wherever people communicate, they contend with powerful and sometimes hidden systems of symbols, meanings, premises, and rules pertaining to communicative conduct, i.e, speech codes.Adding to thirty years of cultural communication research, this ground-breaking volume presents readers with a new set of original, fieldwork-based case studies that examine speech codes in on- and offline settings around the world. Most importantly, Contending with Codes in a World of D...

Global communication can be difficult in the best of circumstances. The contributors in this book take seriously the premise that one can examine communication within specific global settings and scenes with the goal of ensuring that the meanings made among those within specific communities is more clearly understood. This includes recognizing that we often communicate based on specific assumptions and act in ways that have normative bases that are shared with those within communities, but...