Unearthing deep roots: tapping rhetoric's generative power to improve community and urban development projects

Abstract

Several key questions about evaluating the University of Nevada, Reno’s Campus Master Plan from a “deep roots” perspective are worth considering, both in relation to the 2019 Rhetoric Society of America Project in Power, Place, and Publics at the University of Nevada, Reno (RSA Project) and in relation to others that gather rhetorical scholars and community leaders for the purpose of developing productive outcomes: What methodologies are needed for rhetorical scholars to explore and assess the collective and historic identity of groups situated in urban place and space? How can we interrogate the practices associated with an immersive cultural experience in a scholarly working group? How can a deliberative framework inform similar future projects? In this article, we advance three essential tasks for rhetorical scholars to engage in when undertaking such projects: (1) use more of rhetoric’s generative power and less of its critical/analytical power in order to articulate multiple possible avenues for developing places and spaces; (2) conduct extensive on-the-ground research to uncover the “collective identity” of various stakeholders and to show how those identities can productively inform planning; and (3) identify common ground as well as intractable differences among stakeholder positions and provide inventive ideas for managing both.