Genre as textual agency: Using communicative relationality to theorize the agential-performative relationship between human and generic text

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative relationality. Specifically, genre is theorized as a form of textual agency whereby generic texts and organizational actors form agential-performative relationships that script action and shape professional epistemologies. The case examines how agential-performative relationships between wildland firefighters and safety rules changed when a new US Forest Service policy, Doctrine, altered safety rule practice. Findings from 12 years of Doctrine documents and firefighting accounts from 37 firefighters revealed that pre-Doctrine commissive relationships with safety rules compelled members to follow them, enabling dissent and passive learning about hazards. Post-Doctrine, directive relationships enabled flexible decisions, but expanded the job’s scope and constrained dissent. Theoretical contributions to textual agency and genre studies are discussed.