Articulation Theory Research Articles

Tripping over Boundary-Stones: Reflections on Engaged Scholarship

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. John Freely, Strolling Through Athens: Fourteen Unforgettable Walks Through Europe's Oldest City (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2004), 111. 2. Dwight Conquergood, “Between Rigor and Relevance: Rethinking Applied Communication,” in Applied Communication in the 21st Century, ed. K. N. Cissna (Mahwah, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995), 80, 85. 3. In addition to Cox, most notably: V. William Balthrop, Carole Blair, Lawrence Grossberg, D. Soyini Madison, Della Pollock, and Julia T. Wood. 4. Reviewer 1, decision letter for submission to Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, email message to author, June 20, 2009 (emphasis added). The essay since has been revised and accepted for that venue. 5. This trend is broader than the field of rhetoric. Though sometimes forgotten, for example, more contemporary cultural studies scholarship also was born of concern with the empirical world and not the theoretical. Perhaps most concise and well known is Stuart Hall's argument: “Theory is always a detour on the way to something more important.” Stuart Hall, “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities,” in Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, ed. Anthony D. King (London: Macmillan, 1991), 42. For more on cultural studies’ approach to theory as a detour rather than an end unto itself, see Jennifer Daryl Slack, “The Theory and Method of Articulation in Cultural Studies,” in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), esp. 113–14. 6. Siva Vaidhyanathan, “The Googlization of Universities,” NEA 2009 Almanac of Higher Education, 2009, p. 66, http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubAlmanac/ALM_09_06.pdf. I am indebted to Ted Striphas for sharing this timely essay with me and for providing feedback on this essay overall. 7. This paragraph was developed in dialogue with Rachel Hall; she generously has given me permission to borrow some of her thoughts and eloquence. Any errors or awkwardness undoubtedly are mine. 8. Debra Hawhee, Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); R. Marshall and A. Bleakley, “The Death of Hector: Pity in Homer, Empathy in Medical Education,” Medical Humanities 35 (2009): 10. 9. Rachel Hall, “‘It Can Happen to You’: Rape Prevention in the Age of Risk Management,” Hypatia 19 (2004): 1–19. 10. Phaedra C. Pezzullo, “Resisting ‘National Breast Cancer Awareness Month’: The Rhetoric of Counterpublics and Their Cultural Performances,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89 (2003): 345–65; Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Environmental Justice (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007); The Holland Dutch, “Toxic Tour,” Self-Starter, track 3, compact disc, 2008. The CD is available at The Holland Dutch, “Self-Starter,” cdbaby, http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hollanddutch. Additional informationNotes on contributorsPhaedra C. PezzulloPhaedra C. Pezzullo is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University

Articulating and Contextualizing Multiple Literacies in an Urban Setting

This study uses articulation theory to frame how social actors and institutions in an urban community in Columbus, Ohio, form linkages and understandings about computer and information literacies. Using interviews with 33 key educators (e.g., principals, computer literacy teachers, library media specialists, district integration specialists), public librarians, and directors from local recreation and community centers, the results show not only how members of this community construct computer and information literacies but also how the participants support these literacies with available resources. Different structural and cultural barriers and opportunities are identified that impact how computer and information literacies are articulated within this community.

Articulating Scientific Practice: Understanding Dean Hamer's “Gay Gene” Study as Overlapping Material, Social and Rhetorical Registers

Rhetoricians have tried to develop a better understanding of the connection between words and things, but these attempts often employ a logic of representation that undermines a full examination of materiality and the complexity of scientific practice. A logic of articulation offers a viable alternative by focusing attention on the linkages between the competing material, social, and rhetorical registers in which scientific knowledge is produced and discovered. An examination of extant criticism of Dean Hamer's “gay gene” study illustrates the utility of articulation theory as a guide to the rhetorical criticism of science.

RETHINKING THE COMPETENCIES OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNERS AS INFORMATION ARCHITECTS

In this paper, the author depicts how the work of the instructional designers can be re-thought within the framework of information architecture. The paper briefly provides an overview of the main definitions of the information architect along with the major information architecture designs by describing the changing landscape in more detail from the perspective of the Articulation theory. It then moves into a discussion of the similarities between an information architect and an instructional designer. The paper concludes that the instructional designers should adopt a multidisciplinary perspective in order to design effective learning spaces and that there must be a link between the information architecture and the previously un-articulated disciplines in order to develop a disciplinary identity of instructional designers.

Big Food and the Body Politics of Personal Responsibility

Under the threat of obesity-related legal claims, food industry advocates have responded with rhetorical efforts to articulate obesity to a body politics of “personal responsibility.” This article extends Laclau and Mouffe's (1985) theory of articulation to Foucault's (1977) spectacle of the scaffold to critique verbal and visual articulatory efforts that position “personal responsibility” alongside social values such as “common sense” and “consumer choice” and against a shamed fat body. The article offers an extended critique of publicity campaigns by the Center for Consumer Freedom in which the fat body is used as an object of disdain and ridicule—a shaming signifier deployed to silence suggestions that the food industry bear some responsibility for American obesity.

Voyeurism and Resistance in Rap Music Videos

Longstanding explanations of the controlling effect of white consumers/producers on minority production can obscure the negotiation and struggle of artists over their images, and particularly the ways in which dominant ideologies can be disarticulated from their meanings and rearticulated as critical observations on contemporary social relations. Rap group dead prez's video for the song “Hell Yeah!” is most accurately read from the perspective of articulation theory, since the group's oppositional use of the “gaze” reworks dominant representational discourses of race and class.

Ballistic missile defense and articulation theory

In this paper, I use articulation theory to examine the political discourse which surrounds the Bush Administrations proposed ballistic missile defense shield. I argue that there are three central articulations used by the Bush Administration to garner public support for the ballistic missile defense shield. They are: 1) the articulation of missile defense with national security; 2) the unity formed out of terrorism and the threat of a missile attack by rogue states; and 3) the articulation of missile defense with technological inevitability and progress. I illustrate how these dominant articulations discursively serve to garner support for the proposed shield by setting the parameters around which discussions of missile defense can take place. My primary argument is that the discursive unities made by the Bush Administration out of such elements as terrorism, technology, progress, and capitalism functions to perpetuate and justify a larger American project of exceptionalism, unilateralism, and military hegemony.

Authenticity, Invention, Articulation: Theorizing Contemporary Hawaiian Traditions from the Outside

AbstractThis article theorizes potential contributions of outsider analysis to the study of contemporary indigenous traditions, taking Native Hawaiian canoe voyaging and repatriation disputes as its primary examples. The argument proceeds by specifying analytical contributions of articulation theory in contrast to limitations of invention and authenticity discourses. A shared liability of the latter discourses is identified in their tendency to reify identity in ways that preclude engagement with the full range of cultural articulations constitutive of living tradition. Cultural struggle, in particular, is theorized as the aspect of identity articulation that is most explanatory of the character of tradition and least addressed by theories of invention and authenticity.

Technology/Ideology: How Ideological Fields Influence Consumers' Technology Narratives

Abstract Through a systematic study of consumer narratives, this article models how technology ideologies influence consumer-level thought, speech, and action. Applying critical discourse analysis and articulation theory approaches, a semiotic square model represents the relations between Techtopian, Green Luddite, Work Machine, and Techspressive ideological elements in an ideological field. The narratives of individual consumers move between ideological elements in ways suggested by the model's semantic relations. The results reveal novel aspects of consumers' dynamic relations to technology ideology and invite further investigations of technology and consumption ideology.

Analysis of the Color in the Movie <Spider-Man 3> through U. Eco's Theory of Triple Articulation

Analysis of the Color in the Movie <Spider-Man 3> through U. Eco's Theory of Triple Articulation

Textual Mainstreaming and Rhetorics of Accommodation

In this essay I examine the problematics of mainstreaming within one site of composition studies research—the composition anthology. Specifically, I apply articulation theory and feminist disability theory to argue that the mainstreaming of disability narratives within composition readers, when articulated with a theory of individual subjectivity, legitimizes the belief that accommodation is an individualized process. Thus accommodation becomes synonymous with “fitting in,” a definition that locates the responsibility for adaptation within the “abnormal” body rather than within the institutions and ideologies that construct it as such.

Making Sense of ‘God Hates Fags’ and ‘Thank God for 9/11’: A Thematic Analysis of Milbloggers' Responses to Reverend Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church

Since June 2005, the Reverend Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) have conducted protests at funerals of U.S. military personnel killed in the War on Terror. Investigating a webring of military blogs, we conduct an analysis of vernacular responses to the WBC's protests. Articulation theory informs our analysis as we characterize the ideological work performed in vernacular responses to the protests. Bloggers' responses demonstrate that the WBC exposes ideological tensions involving freedom of speech and religious expression, enactments of citizenship, injustice in the justice system, and disciplined military bodies out of control.

The new imperialism: Using critical discourse analysis and articulation theory to study George W. Bush's freedom doctrine

In this paper, I examine how Articulation Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis can be used to examine the Bush administration's ‘Freedom Doctrine’ as it appears in official speeches, press releases, and interviews. I also look at possible alternatives to the dominant militaristic interpretation of international events and foreign policy, and recommend other areas of research and study related to the Bush doctrine and the discursive practices that surround it. My overall argument, however, is that this particular doctrine has nothing to do with freedom, liberty, or justice as claimed by the Bush government. Rather, I argue that this doctrine is actually a veiled attempt to exert and extend America's economic, military, and political hegemony globally. We need a new approach to national security—a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration. (John F. Kerry)

Constructing the Other: A Critical Reading of The Joy Luck Club

ABSTRACT This article is a critical reading of the movie The Joy Luck Club. Grounded on Stuart Hall's theory of articulation, the author explored how the movie text constructed Chinese culture as the sexist, oppressive, mysterious, inscrutable, exotic, and savage cultural/racial Other. The representation of the negative Other in turn sustains the myth of the White middle-class American culture as the positive Self. This construction reflects the new Orientalist/Assimilationist paradigm, which poses a double bind on minority groups. On the one hand, it insists that members of minority groups need to cast off their cultural identities and to obey and follow the rules of the dominant group. However, on the other hand, it insists on the exotic otherness of minority group members. A close examination of the movie text is part of a political project that treats popular culture as resources for public pedagogy. That is, engaging in popular culture should be more than a process of deconstruction. It should also strive to provide the possibility for alternative narratives to counter negative media representations.

Queer Writes

The history of the “Queer Stories” class at the University of Montana illustrates the role of articulation in identity politics. This study explores discursive power in academic, media, and legal arenas, analyzing a history of representation in a setting where the signifier queer produces a discursive explosion. Bringing articulation theory to bear on a specific queer context, this essay shows how discourse can produce change, how academic “writes” are instrumental in the struggle for “rights.”

Reflections of a Black Woman Professor: Racism and Sexism in Academia

This essay examines the interdependence of racism and sexism in academe. To frame the discussion, the theory of articulation coupled with hegemony was used. The narrative examples cited in this essay illustrate a White supremacist hegemonic structure supported in academia. The essay explicates and illuminates issues of marginalization in academia because it increases awareness about interlocking systems of domination in academia at the microlevel, and, in doing so, exposes important meanings of marginalization at the macrolevel. Further, salient intersections between discourse and hegemony are critically analyzed because the role communicative interactions play in articulating the experiences of marginality become primary.

Beyond Progressive Liberalism and Cultural Relativism: Towards Critical Postmodernist, Sociohistorically Situated Perspectives in Classroom Studies

In this paper we propose that classroom studies in the TESOL field tend to subscribe to either of the following two normative orders: (a) progressive liberalism, and (b) cultural relativism, without reflexively recognizing and meta-analysing these normative frameworks and their social, historical, and political situatedness. Drawing on Foucault's (1981) methods of historical excavation, we attempt a critical analysis of the socio-historical situatedness of these modernist normative orders. By building on relational analysis from critical educational studies (Apple, 1999), critical ethnography (Canagarajah, 1993; Chick, 1996; Kumaravadivelu, 1999; Pennycook, 2001), and the theory and method of articulation from cultural studies (Slack, 1996), we propose critical postmodernist, socio-historically situated perspectives in classroom studies and educational research as alternatives that break away from the modernist determinism of reproduction theories on the one hand, and radical postmodernist relativism on the other. We illustrate how such perspectives can contribute to our understanding of classroom practices with two classroom examples from Hong Kong schools, and we attempt to show the potential of these perspectives for contributing to the opening up of possibilities for change.

Towards a rearticulation of women‐as‐victims: A thematic analysis of the construction of women's identities surrounding gendered violence

This essay argues for a more sophisticated understanding of women's identities in relation to gendered violence. Inductive analysis of in‐depth interviews with individuals from various organizations that attempt to end violence against women was conducted. First, the her‐story of women being labeled and constructed as victims is explored. Second, articulation theory is advanced as a means of rearticulating women's identities. Third, excerpts from interviews with participants are analyzed. Finally, this study considers both the theoretical and practical implications of how the discursive and material constructions of women's identities affect strategies aimed at ending gendered violence.

Hegemony and globalism: Kenneth Burke and paradoxes of representation

Kenneth Burke's concern for the processes of identification underlying rhetorical action can play an important role in mediating tensions between globalism and community interests. Looking to imagination's potential for bridging gaps between individuals and groups offers to combine certain of Burke's key insights with recent theoretical work on hegemony. Bringing Burke into conversation with articulation theory provides conceptual tools for holding social orders open for rearticulation, and for rearticulating the democratic imaginary. This conversation stresses the need to translate universal concerns into particular contexts, which remains a contentious process requiring imagination.

Indigenous Articulations

Taking its inspiration from the thought and action of Jean-Marie Tjibaou, this essay proposes a comparative analysis of "articulated sites of indigeneity." It explores the advantages and limitations of translating North Atlantic cultural studies approaches into island Pacific contexts. Stuart Hall's articulation theory is proposed as a partial way beyond the stand-offs created by recent debates around the "invention of tradition." The dialectic of indigenous and diasporic histories, roots and routes, is explored with regard to experiences of post-and neocolonial interdependence and pragmatic sovereignty.