Prof Godfrey Steele’s latest book finds the links among culture, communication and the way we fight
By his own assertions, Professor Godfrey A Steele has always been interested in discovering the links between seemingly unrelated topics and integrating them.
A prolific writer with years of experience in the field of communication, Steele, Professor of Human Communication Studies at UWI St Augustine released a new book entitled Communication, Culture, and Conflict: Trinidad and Tobago and the Wider World in July of this year. The book, published by Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, explores the connections among how people communicate in non-traditional cultural settings when conflict is present. It is the main text in a new course proposal, Integrating Communication, Culture, and Conflict, being considered for approval.
The first part of Communication, Culture and Conflict focuses on elementary or primary school students, a population that is often neglected when addressing topics such as conflict management, empathy, and social learning. Professor Steele used the film Toy Story, specifically the conflict between Buzz Lightyear and Woody, as an innovative tool for assessing how primary school children learn about conflict resolution.
Covering 24 schools in Trinidad and Tobago, the findings provided some perspective on variables such as gender, school type, and geographic location when examining the highlighted topics. The book is divided into a further two sections with sections two and three investigating communication, culture and conflict in the university and workplace settings, respectively. Part two covers topics such as undergraduate student accounts of intercultural conflict, and questions if graduate students share the view of theorists on the use of the caucus in mediation. The third and final section zeroes in on the media’s coverage of conflict in work cultural contexts, from wage negotiations to oil spills. In all sections of the book, these elements are explored over a wide range of media from animated film to news coverage.
Professor Steele’s passion for bridging the gap between topics that might seem unconnected steered him through a first degree in Literature, a Master’s in Education, and a PhD in Linguistics. He would eventually take up teaching and research in Health Communication, the experiences of which provided the material for his first three books. Later, his dual focus incorporated the wider field of Communication Studies. Having been awarded the opportunity of a sabbatical from 2020 to 2021, Professor Steele was able to prepare his book in time for release after years of data collection and essay writing from 2003 to early 2021.
He credits his discipline for the laborious process to his early experiences in life and his upbringing. A UWI Premium Teaching Award Winner (2000), Professor Steele reflected on his teachers: “[for] a great deal of the discipline that I managed to develop over the years... I always credit my early teachers”.
In the authoring of this book and any other works before or after, Professor Steele seeks to help fill the gap of population-specific literature that exists. The hope is that these works will provide communities within the Caribbean, scholarly or otherwise, with access to the plethora of human communication literature that exists in, and especially those that pertain to, the Caribbean.
As for next projects, Professor Steele continues to challenge tradition by working to flesh out the Caribbean context in the area of Human Communication. He will be giving his inaugural professorial lecture on January 27, 2022, on the topic “Human Communication Studies: What, Why and How from a Caribbean Perspective”.
“This body of work allows me, as an academic, to fly the university’s flag and show how much The UWI and the Caribbean are contributing to understanding ourselves, each other, and the society within which we live, work, and play,” he says.
For more information and to purchase Communication, Culture, and Conflict, visit https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/communication-culture-and-conflict.
