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Date of Graduation
Spring 2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
School of Communication Studies
Advisor(s)
Alison Fisher Bodkin
Abstract
This thesis examines the ways that rhetorics of resistance can operate in contemporary social conditions. I do this specifically by examining the rhetoric of Judy Bonds, an environmental justice activist who opposed mountaintop removal (MTR) mining in Appalachia. I utilize a qualitative rhetorical approach to examine 34 instances of Bonds’ discourse as well as my own autoethnographic reflections focused on my work with Mountain Justice, a regional anti-MTR activist organization. Pairing the constant comparative method with principles of ideological criticism, informed by theories of place, voice, memory, and narrative, forms this qualitative rhetorical approach. The postmodern turn allows for the multiple, unique, instances of rhetoric to be viewed as fragments of discourse. That is to say that, while each instance of rhetoric is evaluated as having unique properties, the postmodern turn allows for overarching themes and discourses to emerge. Bonds’ rhetoric reveals a unique use of discourses of space, place, and a queered rhetoric of family and family values. Further research may explore the creation of an archive of Bonds’ rhetoric, ways that the image of the cyborg and assemblage theory might illuminate identity relationships in rhetoric of resistance, images of a utopian future for Appalachia, and performances of memorialization within environmental justice movements. Ultimately, though, this research points toward the need to complicate an understanding of the ways that certain tropes and metaphors are deployed as discrete, and rather view them as implicating one another and operating simultaneously within an instance of rhetoric.
Recommended Citation
Davenport, Alex K., "Place, space, and family: A rhetorical analysis of the resistance rhetoric of Judy Bonds" (2015). Masters Theses, 2010-2019. 25.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/25
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
