Using Feminist Rhetorical Practices to Justly Do Rhetoric

Doing rhetoric to further the goals of inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility has prompted our field to consider how our scholarship and methodologies can dismantle whiteways of meaning making (Locket et al. 2021). Predicated on a legacy of whiteness, rhetorical studies has overwhelmingly focused on “white men as rhetorical subjects, Europeanized/Westernized spaces, the public domain, and power elites” (Jones Royster & Kirsch 2012). These patterns of exclusivity have posed a challenge to doing rhetoric that is inclusive of vulnerable populations like racial minorities and gender non-conforming folks. Drawing attention to underrepresented populations through rescue, recovery, and reinscription, feminist rhetorical scholars have been foundational in intervening in these exclusive patterns (Buchanan & Ryan 2010, Jones Royster & Kirsch 2012). However, as feminist rhetorical scholarship expands to offer additional practices for conducting fieldwork, there needs to be more documentation of how to work alongside vulnerable populations without reinforcing the oppression institutions like our universities have already subjected these populations to.

To contribute to this documentation, this presentation draws from my ethnographic research with justice-involved mothers to demonstrate how feminist rhetorical practices can be used to show we are not complaisant with our field or universities’ legacies of whiteness, despite representing these institutions. Recounting conversations with justice-involved mothers and advocates of these mothers, I show how applying critical imagination as an inquiry method (Kirsch & Royster 2010) in the early stages of fieldwork situates the populations we work with as experts. In doing so, we encourage these populations to form our research language—who we recruit, what questions we ask, what spaces we observe, etc.—granting them agency over how we do rhetoric with them. Additionally, I discuss how strategic contemplation (Kirsch & Royster 2010) can be used to move between meeting our goals and requirements as researchers and the needs of the populations we work with. Reflecting on how I used interviews to uncover the primary challenges justice-involved mothers experience and focus groups with these mothers to solicit solutions, I share an example of using strategic contemplation to develop resources. Furthermore, I discuss how using social circulation can allow us to connect our populations with resources beyond the duration of our fieldwork. Using these feminist rhetorical practices to directly do rhetoric with vulnerable populations not only helps to dismantle whiteways of meaning making, but also begins to repair the ruptured relationship between communities and scholarly institutions.