Danielle Endres

Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest

Social movements often deploy place rhetorically in their protests. The rhetorical performance and (re)construction of places in protest can function in line with the goals of a social movement. Our essay offers a heuristic framework—place in protest—for theorizing the rhetorical force of place and its relationship to social movements. Through analysis of a variety of protest events, we demonstrate how the (re)construction of place may be considered a rhetorical tactic along with the tactics we traditionally associate with protest, such as speeches, marches, and signs. This essay has implications for the study of social movements, the rhetoricity of place, and how we study places.

“I Am Also in the Position to Use My Whiteness to Help Them Out”: The Communication of Whiteness in Service Learning

In this essay, we examine the relationship between Whiteness theory and service learning, specifically through an examination of an intercultural communication course we taught. In our analysis of student-written assignments, we reveal how service learning provides a context for students to rehearse and affirm White privilege, despite the fact that they have been exposed to critical theories of Whiteness before engaging in service learning projects. Specifically, we identify and examine two rhetorical strategies that perpetuate White privilege in the context of service learning: (1) the conflation of being White with Whiteness, and (2) using White privilege for charity. Our analysis contributes a significant critique of the use of service learning in communication courses.

Science and Public Participation: An Analysis of Public Scientific Argument in the Yucca Mountain Controversy

While they make valuable and significant theoretical moves, new models of public participation in environmental decision making may not help publics navigate within traditional models of public participation. In this essay, the author builds from Kinsellas (2004) concept of public expertise and examines what she calls public scientific argument. Through an examination of the Yucca Mountain site authorization public comment period, the author analyzes how non-scientist citizens attempt to engage in scientific argument in current technocratic models of public participation. This essay not only calls our critical attention to providing practical resources for citizens faced with current technocratic models of public participation but also challenges new models to more fully consider citizen abilities to engage in scientific argument as a form of technical competency.

From wasteland to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power's environmental injustices

The purpose of this essay is twofold. First, I examine interdisciplinary literature to reveal the environmental injustices associated with the front and back ends of nuclear power production in the USA – Uranium mining and high-level nuclear waste (HLW) storage. Second, I argue that the injustices associated with nuclear power are upheld, in part, through discourse. This essay examines how the term “wasteland” is invoked in relation to HLW waste storage in the USA and contributes to the discursive formation of nuclear colonialism. Examination of this discourse not only contributes to current literature on nuclear colonialism but also to environmental justice research by arguing for the importance of examining the discursive aspects of environmental injustices. Further, the essay adds to current scholarship in energy justice by highlighting the environmental injustices associated with nuclear power.

Sacred Land or National Sacrifice Zone: The Role of Values in the Yucca Mountain Participation Process

Local participation in environmental decision making is a fundamental tenet of environmental justice. This essay examines the participation process for nuclear waste siting decisions and suggests that the lack of a viable means for discussion of competing values is a flaw in the currently used model of participation. Through analysis of the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site in the USA, I show how the lack of discussion of values occludes participation by marginalized American Indians. In particular, I examine the incommensurability between American Indian nations that value Yucca Mountain as sacred land and the federal government that values Yucca Mountain as a national sacrifice zone. I argue that Yucca Mountain acts as a polysemous value term in the controversy. My findings suggest that an environmentally just model of participation in environmental decision making must include a way to account for incommensurable values and cultural differences. Further, I highlight the lessons we can learn from the Yucca Mountain project as we deliberate about what to do with nuclear waste.

Research as a transdisciplinary networked process: A metaphor for difference-making research

[1] While it was Katriel and Philipsen’s (1981) claim, ‘‘that ‘communication’ labels the academic discipline we practice is more or less incidental to the general point being made’’, I believe that we need to recognize that we work within a discipline with terms that overlap with so-called ‘‘native’’ terms for similar behavior. This makes it all the more important that we carefully distinguish researcher’s discourse from everyday understandings.

The Imperative of Praxis-based Environmental Communication Research: Suggestions from the Step It Up 2007 National Research Project

In this essay, we discuss our development and implementation of a national research project on the Step It Up 2007 campaign calling for political action to mitigate climate change. Specifically, we discuss this project as it relates to our goal to engage in praxis-based research that can be accessible to activists, publics, and practitioners. First, we discuss the practice of organizing a national praxis-oriented research project. We offer this project, with its benefits and challenges, as one model for engaged research on relevant environmental issues. Second, we discuss how our research findings can serve as a form of praxis when an effort is made to make the findings relevant to practitioners in environmental campaigns and movements. Reflecting on our process, we offer four suggestions for making connections between environmental communication research and environmental advocates. The essay concludes by discussing the imperative of engaging in praxis-based research about our contemporary environmental crisis.

Communicating Energy in a Climate (of) Crisis

We review energy communication, an emerging subfield of communication studies that examines the role of energy in society, and argue that it is dominated by a crisis frame. Whereas this frame can be productive, it can also be limiting. In response, we propose three areas for future energy communication research—internal rhetoric of science, comparative studies, and energy in everyday life—as starting points for rethinking and expanding energy communication. This expanded focus will continue to contribute to communication theory, add to interdisciplinary energy studies, and supply practical resources for the creation and deployment of just and sustainable energy futures.

American Indian Activism and Audience: Rhetorical Analysis of Leonard Peltier's Response to Denial of Clemency

This essay focuses on the movement to free Leonard Peltier to better understand the relationship between the rhetoric of American Indian activism and non–American Indian audiences. A rhetorical analysis of Peltiers response to denial of clemency in 2001 reveals how Peltier appealed to non–American Indian supporters to join in a broader struggle for American Indian social justice revealing a rhetorical strategy of transference from individual to collective. The essay challenges assumptions of previous research and adds more complexity to our understanding of the rhetoric of American Indian activism.

In Situ Rhetoric: Intersections between Qualitative Inquiry, Fieldwork, and Rhetoric

This special issue examines intersections between qualitative and rhetorical inquiry through (re)introducing rhetorical fieldwork. We define rhetorical fieldwork as a set of approaches that integrate rhetorical and qualitative inquiry toward the examination of in situ practices and performances in a rhetorical field. This set of approaches falls within the participatory turn in rhetorical studies, in which rhetorical scholars increasingly turn to fieldwork, interviews, and other forms of participatory research to augment conventional methodological practices. The special issue highlights four original articles that employ, exemplify, and reflect on the value of rhetorical fieldwork as a form of critical/cultural inquiry. In this introduction, we not only introduce the key themes and articles in the special issue but also compile our take on the state of the art of rhetorical fieldwork in an effort to introduce this form of research practice to those who have not encountered it before.