THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF AIRPORT (IN)SECURITY RHETORIC: MATERIALISM, AFFECT, AND THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION by George F. McHendry, Jr. A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication The University of Utah August 2013 Copyright © George F. McHendry, Jr. 2013 All Rights Reserved The Unversity of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of George F. McHendry, Jr. has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Leonard C. Hawes , Chair 4/12/13 Date Approved Danielle Endres , Member 4/12/13 Date Approved Thomas Huckin , Member 4/12/13 Date Approved Helene Shugart , Member 4/12/13 Date Approved Mary S. Strine , Member 4/12/13 Date Approved and by Kent A. Ono , Chair of the Department of Communication and by Donna M. White, Interim Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the affective rhetoric of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). After the events of September 11, 2001 airport security was transitioned from a private enterprise to a federal agency. TSA screens millions of passengers daily and costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually. This dissertation argues that the affective dimensions of airport security make resisting TSA difficult in airports and that online resistance to TSA often uses violent and counterproductive discourses. This dissertation is grounded in practices of rhetorical criticism and argues for a materialist orientation to rhetoric. Specifically, it argues that rhetorical criticism has been bifurcated between systems of representation (rhetoric is an approximation of the material world) and materialist rhetoric (rhetoric has force and consequence in the world). This project draws from critical/cultural studies and performance studies to investigate the ways material rhetorics articulate with force to bodies. Additionally, the affective dimensions of rhetoric are explored. This approach to rhetoric forms the method of criticism used to study TSA. A variety of artifacts are mapped and critiqued in this dissertation including airport security checkpoints, images produced by TSA whole body imagers, enhanced pat downs conducted by TSA, TSA training materials, videos of TSA conducting security screenings and online comments reacting to those videos, and field notes from travels through airport security checkpoints. Specific attention is paid for the ways these artifacts evince the impossibility of politics at airports and the fraught relationship between TSA and TSA detractors in online discussions about TSA. This study also examines the relationship among these artifacts. Finally, this dissertation attends to the intense embodied relationship between TSA and passengers. It argues that airport (in)security includes controlling the affective dimensions of air travel. TSA performs routines of security that establish appropriate affect for passengers and when those affects fail TSA fails to secure airports. Failures by TSA encourage violent rhetoric by TSA detractors who advocate dismantling the administration. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT......................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................. ix Chapters I. INTRODUCTION: AN AIRPORT (IN)SECURITY ASSEMBLAGE......... 1 The Transportation Security Administration............................................ 4 Fellow Travelers....................................................................................... 8 Mapping TSA’s (In)Security Assemblage............................................... 10 Deleuze: A Flight Manual........................................................................ 12 Assemblage............................................................................................... 14 Becoming.................................................................................................. 17 Haecceity.................................................................................................. 18 Chapter Itineraries.................................................................................... 20 Openings................................................................................................... 25 Notes......................................................................................................... 26 II. CRITICAL RHETORIC AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES AS RESEARCH ORIENTATIONS—MATERIAL RHETORICS OF DESIRE—RESEARCH IN/AT THE MARGINS.............................................................................. 29 Apologia................................................................................................... 29 Introduction.............................................................................................. 30 Research Assemblage............................................................................... 31 Critical Rhetoric and Performance: Affective/Material Rhetorics........... 34 Performance Studies and Rhetoric’s Materiality...................................... 45 Mind the Gap: A Line of Flight Back to Deleuze.................................... 54 Becoming-Rhetorician—“to think and write differently” ....................... 57 Notes......................................................................................................... 60 III. RE(D)ACTIVE FORCES: MANUALS AND IMAGES: ON BEING SEEN BY THE STATE.......................................................................................... 69 Part I: The Archive................................................................................... 69 Introduction.............................................................................................. 70 Active and Reactive Forces: Towards Re(d)active Forces....................... 71 Airports as Political Spaces...................................................................... 74 Failure to Re(d)act.................................................................................... 77 Imaging the Body: Citizens as Active Threats, Oversight as Reactive Requirements.................................................................................... 84 Surveillance of the Body.......................................................................... 85 Discipline: Imaging a Docile Body.......................................................... 88 Re(d)active Force via Cartoon Images..................................................... 95 Redacting Resistance................................................................................ 98 Conclusions and Implications................................................................... 101 Notes......................................................................................................... 105 IV. THE VIRAL VIDEO AS HAECCEITY FROM METAPHOR TO MATERIAL SWARM...................................................................................................... 111 Viral Videos as Haecceities...................................................................... 113 Public Screens as Sites of Watching......................................................... 119 Watching TSA on YouTube...................................................................... 121 Strip Searching Children........................................................................... 122 “Don’t Touch My Junk”........................................................................... 128 And Those Who Fly? ............................................................................... 135 Implications of Online Resistance to TSA................................................ 138 Conclusion................................................................................................ 143 Notes......................................................................................................... 144 V. THE AIRPORT AS REPERTOIRE AND MY BECOMING- RHETORICIAN........................................................................................... 150 Act II: The Repertoire............................................................................... 150 The Repertoire........................................................................................... 152 Introduction............................................................................................... 153 Performing Rhetorical Field Methods....................................................... 156 Performances of Affect and My Becoming-Rhetorician.......................... 161 The Politics and Poetics of Airport Surveillance...................................... 166 Tacit Admissions....................................................................................... 169 Affects of Difference and Other Utopian Tales........................................ 182 Conclusions............................................................................................... 187 Notes.......................................................................................................... 191 VI. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR MATERIALIST APPROACHES TO RHETORIC THROUGH AN AIRPORT INSECURITY ASSEMBLAGE............................................................................................ 197 Material Rhetorics