Intimate Colonialism

Laurie L. Charles is an assistant professor of family therapy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She received her doctorate at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 1999. Her master's degree was conferred at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, her hometown, in 1993. Charles is the author of a forthcoming book on crisis (hostage) negotiation discourse, and author or co-author of numerous articles in the field of family therapy qualitative research, practice, and supervision.Charles' recent work focuses on how systemic family therapists can take a more global, citizen/activist, and human rights perspective to their work. She is currently tracing the migration of her ancestors, Aurelia and Alcario Charles, to Mexican Texas from Spanish Mexico in 1894, with an emphasis on how mestiza women in Texas have balanced gender expectations throughout the past century.Charles enjoys talking about patterns of migration across cultures and continents, teaching therapists how to learn from the resilience of people often marginalized as "other," and studying conversations as a way to learn more about the ways we live, love, and work in contemporary society.Her hobbies include traveling in various seas of diversity (Globetrekker-style) with her husband Eric, walking for miles in the city of Boston and then sitting down to a good Italian meal (accompanied by lots of red wine) in the North End, and, most of all, laughing over coffee with her mother whenever she can find time to migrate back to San Antonio.