In February 2013, Celeste Zatarain-Alsina '15 traveled to the University of North Texas in Denton, where she presented her paper, “The Silencing of Anger: A Narrative of a Mother-Daughter Relationship within a Triangulated Family Dynamic.” her presentation was made at the New Voices, New Perspectives Student Research Conference.
A communication major and Posse scholar from Chicago, Zatarain-Alsina completed her autoethnographic paper in Dr. Alina Haliliuc’s course titled ”Exploring Masculinity” in the fall of 2013.
Zatarain-Alsina explains that “this project combines evocative and reflective pieces to make sense of my family’s dynamics and the behaviors I have witnessed in others and myself. I use Bowen’s Theory of Family Dynamics to understand family frictions and exclusions common in triangulated families.”
She continues, “The evocative pieces bring light to common threads among family members, such as silencing one’s anger, which I analyze as a gendered behavior. I examine the effect that silencing had on my mother’s depression, relationships, and on the shaping of my own behaviors.”
View the New Voices, New Perspectives conference program (PDF).