Human Rights Ngos and the Sponsoring of Public Activism
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2007 Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights NGOs and the Sponsoring of Public Activism Christopher Todd Minnix University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Minnix, Christopher Todd, "Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights NGOs and the Sponsoring of Public Activism. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/407 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Christopher Todd Minnix entitled "Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights NGOs and the Sponsoring of Public Activism." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Mary Jo Reiff, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Janet Atwill, Michael Keene, Rosalind Hackett Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Christopher Todd Minnix entitled “Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights NGOs and the Sponsoring of Public Activism.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Mary Jo Reiff Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Janet Atwill Michael Keene Rosalind Hackett Accepted for the Council: Linda Painter Interim Dean of Graduate Studies (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) PROFESSIONAL PUBLICS/PRIVATE CITIZENS: HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS AND THE SPONSORING OF PUBLIC DISCURSIVE ACTIVISM A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Christopher Todd Minnix May 2007 Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Todd Minnix All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To Jay, who has shared with me her beautiful spirit and profound intellect, and who is the reason for my sincerest happiness in work and in life. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During this project, I have been fortunate enough to benefit from the guidance of a stellar committee and from the support of a wonderful community of friends, family, and colleagues. Without the contributions of each of these individuals, this project would have not been possible, and each of these individuals have played an important role in teaching me how to conduct my work with professionalism and passion. The support that I have received for my research through the University of Tennessee has been formative to this work. I would like thank the University for awarding me a John B. Emperor Fellowship in the Fall of 2005, which gave me the time necessary to research and draft this project. The initial research for this project was also funded by a generous summer research grant from the Scholarly Activities Research and Incentives Fund, a grant I shared with Dr. Janet Atwill. Lastly, I would like to specifically thank the University of Tennessee’s department of English, which provided me with an excellent teaching fellowship, as well as several research fellowships that furthered my understanding of the field of Rhetoric and Composition. The grace and generosity shown to me by my dissertation committee is rivaled only by the depth of their expertise and the insightfulness of their commentary. Dr. Janet Atwill has worked with me on this project for the past three years and has been a true mentor, guiding me through the steps necessary to place my work in the context of the field of Rhetoric and Composition. The expert advice I have received from her has been crucial to this project and to my professionalization. I have also been fortunate enough to work with Dr. Michael Keene, whose attentive advice and commentary have helped me more fully understand the audience of this work and the steps necessary to publish this iv work. Dr. Rosalind Hackett has been a source of inspiration and guidance throughout the reading of this dissertation, and I am especially grateful for her insightful analysis of this project’s discussion of visual rhetoric, which has helped me more fully comprehend the relationship of this project to the increasingly visual nature of human rights advocacy. There is no amount of gratitude that can repay Dr. Mary Jo Reiff for her role as advisor, mentor, and advocate. Without Dr. Reiff’s expert guidance this dissertation would have not been possible. Dr. Reiff’s expert command of the field of Rhetoric and Composition, along with the care and generosity with which she approaches her colleagues and students make her a model of excellence that I only hope to someday aspire to. You have been a true mentor and model for me Dr. Reiff, and I am a better scholar from having had the chance to work with you. I have been blessed with an amazing group of family and friends who have made this project possible. My parents, Don and Emily Minnix, have been a true source of support and have believed in my potential from a young age, and I will forever be endebted to them for the love that they have shown me. I am also indebted to Jan and Dick Jessee, who have been a constant source of support, advice, and humor over the past four years. Thank you so much for believing in me and for the continual love that you have shown me throughout this process. Lastly, Jay Jessee, my beautiful wife and intellectual partner, provided me with a brilliant and supportive audience for the ideas in this dissertation, and has continually shown me the joy in considering the possibilities that life has to offer. Thank you for the v beautiful life that you have given me, and for the way that you have enriched my mind and spirit. I love you. vi ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the role of human rights Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in sponsoring public deliberation and activism. Activists who take part in an NGO’s campaigns encounter a system of genres that aligns their human rights literacies and discourse with the NGO’s ideological and organizational structure. The genres that activists use thus play a powerful socializing role, placing the discourse of activists within a complex context of organizational discourse that not only embodies specific human rights exigencies, but also specific organizational rationales for addressing those exigencies. Human rights NGOs, while often reflecting an ideology of a common, unified voice for human rights, are in fact heterogeneous networks of discursive agents that are linked together through complex interdiscursive exchanges. I argue that these rhetorical exchanges reflect a set of mediating rhetorical strategies that NGOs employ to translate their professional advocacy into terms and genres accessible to their membership and to their public activists. This analysis is developed from a case study of the organizational structure and discursive communities of Amnesty International (AI) and the influence of Amnesty‘s advocacy structures and techniques on the NGOs and social movements that lobby for human rights. Chapters one and two analyze the problem of discursive agency in discussions of global and transnational civil society, aligning critical discussions of the development of global public opinion with critiques of the growing professionalism of human rights NGOs. In chapter three, I trace the relationship of AI’s professional genres to the international institutions of human rights policy and law. Chapter four examines the activist genre system of Amnesty International and the vii role of professional discourse plays in framing opportunities for the activism of Amnesty’s members. I then turn in chapter five to an analysis of the multi-modal genres and web genres that AI has utilized to construct public awareness of its campaigns. Chapter six concludes the study by tracing out the implications of this analysis for theories of the public sphere and global civil society. I argue that genre analysis provides a means for understanding the social contexts, discursive agencies, and embodied literacies of contemporary public discourse. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION . .1 Rhetorical Studies of Human Rights NGOs . 8 Overview of Chapters . .11 II. DISCURSIVE AGENCY IN TRANSNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY: HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS, PROFESSIONALISM, AND THE PROBLEM OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON HUMAN RIGHTS. .16 Human Rights NGOs, Discursive Agency and the Rhetoric of Global Civil Society. .21 The Professionalization of Human Rights NGOs and the Technical Rationality of Human Rights Discourse . 31 Genre, Intertextuality, and the Multiple Agencies of Professional Publics. .37 Texts and Genres Analyzed . .51 Conclusion. .54 III. “BEARING WITNESS” IN THE TECHNICAL SPHERE: