Learning from The Identity Project: Accountability-Based Strategies for Intersectional Analyses in Queer and Feminist Rhetoric
Learning from The Identity Project: Accountability-Based Strategies for Intersectional Analyses in Queer and Feminist Rhetoric
Peitho Volume 21 Issue 2 Spring 2019
Author(s): Laura Tetreault
Abstract: This article forwards a rhetorical methodology based on the concept of accountability, responding to recent calls in rhetoric and composition for more work on activism across differences in positionality. An accountability-based framework for rhetorical analysis shifts the questions researchers of activist rhetorics can ask in order to foster practices that are more responsible to communities facing intersecting oppressions. To demonstrate this methodology, the article engages in an accountability-based rhetorical analysis of an example of queer digital arts activism, The Identity Project. Asking to whom and for what an example of activist rhetoric is accountable, in what ways, and with what effects can offer a productive way for researchers to analyze such rhetorics in a way that moves beyond a limiting oppression/resistance or assimilation/radicalism framework.
Tags: Activist rhetorics; digital activism; artivism; research methods; feminist rhetorics; intersectionality; queer rhetorics; race; colonialism; social justice
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