Description
A variety of research areas within rhetorical studies-including everyday and public rhetorics, space and place-based work, material and ecological approaches, environmental communication, technical communication, and critical and participatory action research, among others-have increasingly called for ethnographic fieldwork that grounds the study of rhetoric within the contexts of its use and circulation. Employing field methods more commonly used by ethnographers allows researchers to capture rhetoric in action and to observe the dynamic circumstances that shape persuasion in ordinary life.
Field Rhetoric: Ethnography, Ecology, and Engagement in the Places of Persuasion gathers new essays that describe and theorize this burgeoning transdisciplinary mode of field-based scholarship. Contributors document and support this ethnographic turn in rhetorical studies through sustained examination of the diverse trends, methods, tools, theories, practices, and possibilities for engaging in rhetorical field research.
This fascinating volume offers an introduction to these inquiries and serves as both a practical resource and theoretical foundation for scholars, teachers, and students interested in the intersection of rhetoric and field studies. Editors Candice Rai and Caroline Gottschalk Druschke have assembled scholars working in diverse field sites to map and initiate key debates on the practices, limitations, and value of rhetorical field methods and research. Working synthetically at the junction of rhetorical theory and field practices, the contributors to this collection build from myriad field-based cases to examine diverse theoretical and methodological considerations. The volume also serves as a useful reference for interdisciplinary qualitative researchers interested in doing research from a rhetorical or discursive perspective in various disciplines and fields, such as English, composition, communication, natural resources, geography, sociology, urban planning, anthropology, and more.
About the Author
Candice Rai is an associate professor of English at the University of Washington. She is the author of Democracy's Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention.
Caroline Gottschalk Druschke is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reviews
Rai and Druschke have brought together an outstanding group of scholars to address an important and increasing area of concern for rhetorical scholars: How may we incorporate field methods into our research to study a wider range of rhetorical practices? This volume will appeal to rhetoric faculty and graduate students in both communication and English, as well as scholars in related disciplines who may be interested in a rhetorical approach to studying culture and society."" - Robert Asen, author of Democracy, Deliberation, and Education
Book Information
ISBN 9780817319953
Author Candice Rai
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint The University of Alabama Press
Publisher The University of Alabama Press
Weight(grams) 657g