The ‘Contact Zone’

The Wisconsin union campaign to preserve collective bargaining rights is an example of a contact zone. It is a place where arguments and issue campaigns become Argument as Issue Campaigns, it is a place where people need to be heard and where people need to listen for there to be the potential for transformation.

“To be heard is power. But to hear-to really hear- is to be transformed” (1).

In an effort to be heard, and in reaction to being transformed by what they were hearing and experiencing at their expense, Union workers and supporters, engaged in campaign practices such as political advertisements which attempted to send messages both to Walker and his political and civic supporters, as well as others (including, but not limited to, civil and political union supporters). 

For example, in an ad produced by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America Kathleen Slamka, an electrician from WI , stated that what was going in WI “is republican class warfare, an attack on the middle class, this is a battle we need to win” (Kathleen Slamka, an electrician from WI who spoke out). 

Richard Scoby also stated in the ad, that his presence as a protester was “not selfish, its just survival”. 

In moments where people's livelihoods are threatened, the "contact zone" which is partially seen in this ad, becomes increasingly important. The "contact zone" needs to be entered by those to which this ad is appealing to: those on the other side of the campaign, those who distance themselves from the campaign, those who want to be invisible, those who stand on the margins, those who are being spoken for, those who may not realize their interconnectedness to the issues being raised, etc.

Exploring the "contact zone" through the metaphor of Argument as Issue Campaigns invites us to expand our understandings, to set thoughts of solipsism aside, to engage listening practices, to engage speaking practices, and to imagine a place where limits are transformed, and imagine a place where potentials can emerge. 

What is most challenging about this space, these conceptions, is that the symbolic practices of rhetoric, of argument, are real. The issues are real. The people are real. Their interests are real. This is a space where competing interests meet, where ideologies clash, where values clash, where rhetoric is material as well as symbolic, and where without willingness to listen, without compassion and appreciation for the other- solutions may be found at the expense of others. It is ultimately a place of discomfort.

It is no wonder that those with significant power over others may chose to avoid this space and move forward without discomfort, and with confidence that they are acting in the best interests of those with whom they are speaking for, and without listening to. But, in those rare moments, when humility is embraced, when people stop and listen, it is in these moments, that transformation can occur. But, how often in Argument as Issue Campaigns are participants willing to engage the "contact zone"? And who is it that is most interested in the "contact zone"?