International Rhetoric Research Articles

Southeast Asian cultural landscape, resistance, and belonging in East Timor's FRETILIN Movement (1974–75)

The diversity of national imaginings within the East Timorese resistance movement against the Indonesian Occupation (1975–99) became visible through the country's post-independence politics. Namely, the contradiction between the returnee leaders and those who fought in East Timor over the representation of FRETILIN (the major nationalist movement since 1974) has been an important fault line. This article attempts to understand this discrepancy through a comparison of FRETILIN's campaigns in Tetun and Portuguese and how different audiences interpreted them. The article argues that FRETILIN modified its international rhetoric when it became a popular Tetun language movement to attract Timorese commoners. The Tetun version of FRETILIN provided sources for Timorese national imaginings based on local beliefs, sacred landscapes, and Southeast Asian social relations that deviated from how international audiences understood FRETILIN. This article thus contributes to the literature on Southeast Asian resistance and nationalism by revealing Timorese ideologies of resistance and nationhood.

Urban greenspace as a climate change adaptation strategy for subtropical Asian cities: A comparative study across cities in three countries

Interest in nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation in cities is growing. Whilst there is a growing field of scholarship in a European and North America setting, research on the policy and governance of urban greenspace for climate adaptation in subtropical Asia is limited. Given the different development patterns, environmental characteristics and governance arrangements in subtropical cities, plus their comparatively large population and high climate risk, this is a significant knowledge gap. In response, this paper evaluates competences – skill sets, capabilities, and supporting policy and legislation – to enact adaptation through greenspace across different governance contexts; and assesses how international rhetoric on nature-based adaptation becomes localised to subtropical Asian city settings. We conduct interviews with stakeholders, plus review of relevant policy and city-specific research, for three cities with different governance and development contexts: Hanoi (Vietnam); Taipei (Taiwan); and Fukuoka (Japan). Across all three cases, we find that institutional structures and processes for connecting different remits and knowledge systems are a bigger challenge than a lack of appropriate policy or individuals with the required technical knowledge. However, opportunities for civil society participation and consideration of justice issues vary between the cities according to the socio-political context. These findings illustrate the value of individuals and organisations able to work across institutional boundaries in linking greenspace and adaptation agendas for subtropical Asian cities; and the importance of competence in collaboration with developers and civil society so that the rapid development or regeneration seen in subtropical Asian contexts does not tend towards green climate gentrification. More broadly, our findings show that the diverse nature of subtropical Asian cities means the role of greenspace in climate adaptation is likely to be context-specific, and thus that caution must be exercised against uncritically importing best practices from exemplar cases elsewhere.

Into the Contact Zones of Heritage Diplomacy: Local Realities, Transnational Themes and International Expectations

Heritage is increasingly promoted as a tool for economic and social development to help rebuild societies that have suffered conflict and deep social trauma. Heritage diplomacy is an emergent form of cultural relations that forms a ‘contact zone’ between different stakeholders and divergent expectations. This paper explores some aspects of this field of heritage diplomacy and develops a basic typology by contrasting the tension between the uses of ‘charismatic heritage diplomacy’ and more ‘careful heritage diplomacy’. It examines differences between local realities and international expectations of heritage by bringing together two case studies: one from a Creative Europe–funded project where civil society actors develop strategies for working with the difficult heritage that lies behind nationalist myths, and the other from a British Council–funded programme dealing with endangered heritage in the MENA region. Critical studies of heritage-making often pitch the local against the international, with grassroot activities contrasted with international rhetoric surrounding heritage places, objects and practices. However, this dichotomy can mask other actors and social dynamics, not least the subtleties of how the collective traumas of conflict play out in the cultural field. The idea of heritage diplomacy as a ‘contact zone’ (Clifford 1997) highlights that heritage-making in (post-)conflict cultural relations is an ontological encounter between international agents and the traumatised communities for whom the stakes are, inevitably, higher. Mediated through the transnational best practices of heritage professionals, and through the visible pragmatism of civil society heritage activists, the impacts of heritage-making nevertheless remain complicated and entangled.

Transformation of Communist Media Content and Public Space According to the Discourse ‘39Pact: Exiting the “Labyrinth” as an Act of Communication

This text is about one of the longest processes of political communication, which, decades on, influences politicians of various generations of the Central, Eastern and Western Europe, contents of media and self-awareness of the audience. The process isn’t over yet, this is obvious not only from the document adopted by the EP but also from an international political rhetoric. Analysis of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 1939 in media (D’39Pact) and related national and international decisions is the axis of information conflict between the East and the West concerning thousands of fates. Those thousands of people had and still have different historical narratives – some people justified the Pact and implemented it, others were fighting for the elimination of its consequences, yet others fell victims to it, with a death toll estimated in the millions. But not everybody’s narratives are based on true arguments.Let’s look at the way the system of propaganda collapsed and the public opinion was transformed in countries of Central and Eastern Europe in 1988-1989. Moving from a lie to (hopefully) the historical truth. Review of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the main axis of such transformation (protection of environmental and cultural valuables, choice of one’s viewpoint, legislative requirements and other rights were contextual aspects of this axis). During this period in the previously mentioned region the control of public space was on the decline.This view will be based on a single thematic discourse: the provision of consequences of the 1939 Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and criticism in communist model media of Lithuania and neighbouring countries. It may be called D’39Pact.D‘39Pact in general has several narratives (it may also be seen from the EP Resolution), but taking into consideration the interpretation of Jurgen Habermas’s Communicative Action, the analysis of transformation of 1988-1989 two of them would suffice, one of which is that of the authorities of the USSR and the other one – that of its opponents. Let’s call opponents USSR dissidents, protestors, underground press (samizdat) and press of public movements which was published legally.Narrative of the USSR authorities: the treaty was the inevitable and no annexes (secret protocols) exist.Narrative of the opponents: based on secret protocols of the treaty, the USSR and Nazi Germany divided the countries and destroyed their political, military, cultural elite and finally – their population of various social layers.Medias, as the main participant of the public space, most clearly disclose the collision of such narratives and transformation in D‘39Pact. The purpose of the article is to discuss the circumstances of transformation of MMPT from the historical perspective and of the public space and come across the factors, which influenced the strongest role of MMPT interpretative accomplishments. Considering the way out of the “labyrinth” regarding the D’39 Pact, we see some similarities with the situation that now exists in Russia.

Growing hungry: The politics of food distribution and the shifting boundaries between urban and rural in Dar es Salaam

Abstract 'Growing Hungry' considers the continued relevance of Raymond Williams's seminal text, The Country and the City, through the case study of socialist era Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This article juxtaposes state and international rhetoric that sought to administer African development through fixity of populations while the livelihood of many of Tanzanians relied on travelling and living between city and country. Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's first president, was particularly driven to avoid the migration of urban Tanzanians to the city and developed a staunch anti-urban GE 273 policy. This policy was accompanied by a moralising rhetoric that portrayed urbanites as slothful and obstacles to rural nation-building. And yet, as state channels for food distribution began to fail, as did attempts to depopulate the city, the state's new approach sought to turn as much of Dar es Salaam into agricultural space as possible and in the process make workers out of 'parasites'. Urban agriculture and family networks becomes key bulwarks against hunger in the city by the early 1980s and, somewhat ironically considering the state's anti-urban stance, this very act of ruralising the city expanded the city into its hinterland.

Rewriting Liminal Geographies: Crusader Sermons, the Katherine Group, and the Scribe of MS Bodley 34

ABSTRACT Much of the Katherine Group's critical history has centered on its West Midlands regionalism and dialect. This article disrupts this regional focus to think more internationally. What is this manuscript's place among the more international events and religious trends sweeping continental Europe in relation to the Crusades? This article will focus on crusader sermons and their connection to the Katherine Group in order to reframe the reading of the manuscript. The author evaluates the Katherine Group's participation in international crusading rhetoric and how it performs an imaginative version of “geopiety.” The author also examines the scribal note at St. Juliana's end and how it directly borrows from a popular circulating crusader sermon. This English text is casting itself as part of an international genre fixated on a different geography—the eastern Mediterranean—that highlights the geographic and generic liminality of these texts.

Asylum Discourse in New Zealand: Moral Panic and a Culture of Indifference

ABSTRACTRecent law changes in New Zealand allowing for the detention of a “mass arrival” of asylum seekers reflect a concerning international rhetoric and associated policy trend in Australia and the United Kingdom towards those seeking asylum. This paper argues that, although the New Zealand public has not (yet) reached a “moral panic” that is prevalent within international contexts, there are concerns about a “culture of indifference” in relation to asylum seekers. By providing a policy analysis about asylum seekers and an examination on the associated discourses utilised in international contexts, this discussion presents the New Zealand context through the process of risk signification. The paper discusses how the social work profession can respond to this culture of indifference through addressing collusion (often through silence) with oppressive asylum policies, the need for stronger advocacy and action, and the associated role of social work education.

Metaphors of language: the Vepsian ecology challenges an international paradigm

At present Veps, a Finno-Ugric minority in north-western Russia, live in three different administrative regions, i.e., the Republic of Karelia, and the Leningrad and Vologda Oblasts. Due to several socio-economic and political factors Veps have experienced a drastic change in their communicative practices and ways of speaking in the last century. Indeed, Vepsian heritage language is now classified as severely endangered by UNESCO. Since perestroika a group of Vepsian activists working in Petrozavodsk (Republic of Karelia) has been promoting Vepsian language and culture. This paper aims to challenge an international rhetoric around language endangerment and language death through an analysis of Vepsian language ecology and revitalisation. Vepsian ontologies and communicative practices do not always match detached metaphors of language, which view them as separate entities and often in competition with each other. The efforts to promote the language and how these are discussed among the policy-makers and Vepsian activists also do not concur with such a drastic terminology as death and endangerment. Therefore, this paper aims to bring to the surface local ontologies and worldviews in order to query the paradigms around language shift and language death that dominate worldwide academic and political discourse.

From rhetoric to reality? Putting HIV and AIDS rights talk into practice in a South African rural community

Whilst international rhetoric on HIV and AIDS frequently invokes discourses of human rights to inspire and guide action, translating universal rights talk into practice in specific settings remains a challenge. Community mobilisation is often strategy of choice. We present a case study of the Entabeni Project in South Africa – in which a foreign-funded NGO sought to work with female health volunteers in a deep rural community to increase their access to two HIV-relevant rights: women's rights (especially gender equality) and rights to health (especially access to HIV- and AIDS-related services). Whilst the project had short-term health-related successes, it was less successful in implementing a gender empowerment agenda. The concept of women's rights had no purchase with women who had little interest in directly challenging male power, foregrounding the fight against poverty as their main preoccupation. The area's traditional chief and gatekeeper insisted the project should remain ‘apolitical’. Project funders prioritised ‘numbers reached’ over a gender empowerment orientation. In the absence of (1) a marginalised group who are willing to assert their rights; and (2) a context where powerful people are willing to support these claims, ‘rights’ may be a blunt tool for HIV-related work with women in deeply oppressive and remote rural communities beyond the reach of international treaties and urban-based activist movements.

Sexuality and Social Reproduction: Reflections from an Indian Feminist Debate

This article tries in a preliminary manner to establish links between sexual labour, the negotiations of everyday life and the reproduction of social relations. The context for this interrogation is the recent ban in 2005 on dancing in beer bars in the Indian city of Mumbai; the attempts by the state to legitimise its action amidst a range of national and international rhetoric on sexual labour, and the voices of women who were disenfranchised due to the state ban. Women’s interrogation of their role in sexual labour and their struggle for dignity and respect in the domain of work is discussed in the light of the negative discourse weighing against them, while also bringing in historical and contemporary accounts of other forms of ‘stigmatised’ labour. The attempt is to understand how notions of dignity and respectability are intertwined with shifts in gender, caste, class locations and the struggles of social movements. Significant in this discussion are various examples of how women choose to ‘move away’ in their constant search for livelihoods and survival. The article is an attempt to illuminate how an expanded notion of social reproduction could recognise labours of different kinds with the voices of those embodying these labours having a say in how justice and entitlements should devolve.

The international peacebuilding paradox: Power sharing and post-conflict governance in Burundi

At first glance, Burundi represents a successful negotiated transition to peaceful governance through power sharing, and a justification for regional and international peacebuilders' involvement. It is undeniable that Burundi is safer than it was a decade or two ago. Most notably, while Burundi was once known for its ethnic divisions and antagonism, today ethnicity is no longer the most salient feature around which conflict is generated. Nevertheless, this article argues that the Burundian experience illuminates international peacebuilding contradictions. Peacebuilding in Burundi highlights the complex interplay between outside ideas and interests, and multiple Burundian ideas and interests. This is illustrated by the negotiation and implementation of governance institutions and practices in Burundi. Outsiders promoted governance ideas that were in line with their favoured conception of peacebuilding, and Burundian politicians renegotiated and reinterpreted these institutions and practices. Even as international rhetoric about peacebuilding emphasized liberal governance and inclusive participation, narrower conceptions of peacebuilding as stabilization and control became dominant. Thus, encounters between international, regional, and local actors have produced governance arrangements that are at odds with their liberal and inclusionary rhetorics. Paradoxically, the activities of international peacebuilders have contributed to an ‘order’ in Burundi where violence, coercion, and militarism remain central.

Access to Knowledge and the Promotion of Innovations: Challenges for Pacific Island States

In the island countries of the south Pacific traditional knowledge informs access to, use and production of cultural artifacts, flora and fauna, medicines, plant stocks and the management of natural resources. All too often however, this indigenous knowledge is ignored by the intellectual property regimes expressed in the formal legal systems of these countries. With pressure to develop trade and use resources to earn income as well as agendas to encourage inward investment from foreign enterprises, the acknowledgement of and accommodation of traditional knowledge and indigenous intellectual property rights is at risk of being marginalized or misrepresented. All too often western-centric IP laws are adopted which tend to favor industrialized nations’ perceptions of the role and function of intellectual property.At the same time, however, there is international rhetoric recognizing the rights of indigenous people and the rights of autonomy of developing states to determine the pace and form of development. There is also regional acknowledgement of the valuable role of traditional knowledge and global demand for the preservation of biodiversity, land and sea-based eco-systems and traditional cultures.Pacific islands are torn between the desire and demand to exploit traditional knowledge and advocacy of its protection and preservation. The situation is not helped by plural legal regimes which reflect not only a legacy of colonial rule, but also international obligations and expectations, regional initiatives, and national responses and the recognition of customary law as a formal source of law.This paper considers comes of the current dilemmas facing Pacific island states, which, while they have a rich cultural heritage and extensive unwritten traditional knowledge, are also facing the challenges of compliance with externally imposed goals through the development of intellectual property laws fit for the twenty-first century.

Gender and community-oriented wildlife conservation: views from project supervisors in India

Many international agreements, such as the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity, posit that successful community-oriented (community-based) wildlife conservation depends on partnerships with stakeholders of different class, ethnicity, and gender. Gender is of particular interest because it often relates to environmental use, attitudes, and knowledge and operates across other key categories. This study uses fieldwork, interviews, and a survey of 52 project heads in India to address two research questions: (1) How are gender issues viewed by supervisors of community-based wildlife conservation projects, in relation to their work? (2) What types of resources would be most useful to project heads seeking to promote gender equity through their conservation work? The results suggest that while there is widespread support for integrating gender equity issues into community-oriented wildlife conservation, many believe that gender may be a potentially distracting and secondary issue. Several reasons for the variation in views were identified including the following: the dearth of relevant empirical research about gender issues in wildlife conservation; ambiguities about the concept of gender itself; and a lack of opportunities to critically discuss the role of gender equity issues for conservation. These factors may contribute to a disconnection between international rhetoric and on-the-ground practice as it relates to gender and community-oriented wildlife conservation. Increased opportunities for professional capacity building among project supervisors and staff members, coupled with increased collaboration between social and natural scientists, will be important for strengthening the links between international conservation policy and on-the-ground practice.

NGO 'Lawfare' Exploitation of Courts in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

NGO 'Lawfare' Exploitation of Courts in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Community‐level Responses to Disability and Education in Rwanda

This article explores the meaning of community and perceptions of disability in Rwanda, as revealed through a community‐based ethnographic study. This study took place in Rwanda in an educational policy context driven by international rhetoric about human rights, inclusion and the arguably unachievable Education for All targets. We argue that the emphasis on the inclusion of marginalised groups in Rwanda’s current education policy is a reality on paper, but not in practice. However, we explore the potential for a deeper understanding of community responses to disability, and ways in which the rhetoric and reality gap can be bridged. We consider some of the attitudinal and infrastructural barriers in educational settings and argue that Rwandan communities are resourceful, and can be supported to respond appropriately to children with disabilities.

Engaging with teachers’ knowledge: promoting inclusion in Zambian schools

Current efforts to ensure that every child completes a full cycle of primary education are hampered by chronic poverty and prolonged conflict in the South. It is estimated that 75 million children of primary age are out of school and that one‐third are disabled. This paper contrasts the exclusionary impact of the global digital and communication divide with the international rhetoric of Education for All. Access to information has increased in our brave new world, but inequitably. In this paper insights are explored from a study carried out by the Enabling Education Network in schools in Northern Zambia, in which reflective writing played a role in generating locally relevant teachers’ knowledge. Although there was only minimal evidence of the benefits of the digital revolution, the Zambian teachers successfully developed a problem‐based approach to including disabled children in education as part of their commitment to child rights.

Binding the Nation: National Service in America

The United States has been at war for more than seven years, and end to its struggle against religious extremism is nowhere in sight. Thus far majority of campaign has been waged by military. With prolonged counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq has come a growing realization that more alienated youth could appear on world's battlefields unless United States begins to win more decisively war of ideas. There is broad agreement among scholars and government officials that power, power to persuade, is essential as core element of America's response to al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups. International opprobrium regarding extraterritorial rendition of terrorist suspects and treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib has greatly damaged America's reputation, although recent reorientation in US diplomatic positions and military techniques is beginning to restore that esteem. To offer world more than prevailing image of a heavy-handed hegemon, United States will have to shed sense of fear that has characterized so much of America's domestic and international rhetoric in new century. To renew values that make this nation strong will require a strong sense of American identity, as well as a willingness and readiness to face pressing national challenges. There is little in recent fabric of American political or cultural life to encourage such a sense of common resolve, but without a competing positive reality to offer world, countering lure of extremism's narrative may prove beyond reach. Americans today share little in way of a national story, especially one consisting of shared experiences and struggles. The populace is two generations beyond World War II, last war that demanded and received full measure of America's dedication and resolve. Wartime service of any kind has touched relatively few Americans, and other programs of service to nation have attracted limited participation. In years following 9/11, idea of civilian national service has received renewed consideration on part of thinkers and politicians. Without strong national leadership on issue, however, this debate has generated little action. Given promise concept of national service holds for strengthening foundations of America's national identity, moment is ripe for new voices to emerge on its behalf. This article argues that civilian national service can contribute to nation by forging a new sense of national community, rebuilding connection between rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and restoring sound civil-military relationships. In many ways, groundwork has already been laid, but existing spark of an idea needs to be fanned into reality. Challenges Protracted International Struggle With hindsight, Americans will understand struggle in which United States is currently engaged far better than is now possible. Terminology such as the Global War on Terrorism probably will not sufficiently define conflict in end, given that term's unsatisfying focus on a tactic of warfare and diffuse nature of adversary it implies. Whatever descriptor, it is a generational struggle that has high stakes for future of United States and world. With results obtained to date after seven years of conflict, it is now clear that a purely military solution is inadequate. The depths of anger and alienation that are wellspring of insurgent recruitment cannot be completely eradicated by means of bombs and bullets. Getting at roots of an insurgency has, throughout history, involved application of a combination of hard and soft power. This formula has never been more true than at present, when terrorism's proponents are able to draw from a seemingly worldwide supply of disaffected peoples. …

Fear and Loathing in Jus Cogens

We were somewhere around custom on the edge of the convention when the doctrine began to take hold.1 The purpose of this essay is to take a Hunter S. Thompson-like journey to the heart of international law, to circumvent the banality of the discipline-a place that is viciously overcrowded...where almost everybody seems vaguely happy2-and ascend the discipline's heights in search of norms that have profound meaning. Despite the attractiveness of seeking to remedy breaches of the most fundamental global rules, the trek may be a frustrating one. As will be seen, the unyielding proliferation of arguments has at times threatened to reduce the international legal world to one in which there is not much left except..., well, fill in the blank.3In its 2005 decision in the Bouzari case,4 the Ontario Court of Appeal stated categorically that the prohibition against torture has become a rule of cogens-a peremptory norm of international law that sits at the apex of the law's hierarchy. Likewise, in its National strategy for combating the US executive branch declared that violence against civilians is today viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy, or genocide: behavior that no respectable government can condone or support and all must oppose.5 Together, these abuses form the worst of contemporary human rights violations, joining a rarified-if growing-club of abuses that are universally condemned as beyond the pale of legally acceptable conduct in a world notoriously few universal rules. Like the sexual enslavement of women, the execution of children, and other unfathomable crimes, the twin evils of torture and terrorism have each become a jus cogens norm, [or] a proscription [that] binds the community of States.15It takes little imagination for international lawyers to perceive a benefit to the project of expanding the category of cogens. It is at once a compelling psychological association of normative superiority universality,7 leading to non-derogable obligations of states to refrain from the preempted conduct and, in addition, to extradite and/or punish those who engage in it.8 On the other hand, when it comes to civil remedies for Canadians who suffer torture or terrorism, the cogens label appears as to be, as one commentator has dubbed it in a famously cynical essay, a rhetorical device with no substantive content; ...merely an insubstantial image of a norm, lacking flesh and blood.9 The purpose of this article is to investigate that perplexing state of affairs. How can it be that torture and terrorism fit the bill for the worst possible international law violations, but in Canada, its tradition of proud adherence to advances in the field of human rights and its leading role in humanitarian legal developments both within and without international institutions, the category of cogenshas been rendered meaningless for the victims of these transgressions?The problem, of course, is that in international law, as elsewhere, one can have too much of a good thing. The doctrine of cogens is no exception to the rule of embarrassment of riches, civil rights such as gender equality and even contentious norms such as the right to food falling under its expanding girth.10 In a way that is reminiscent of a subject matter in a gonzo journalism tract, the nature of cogens has gotten lost in the swirl of debate around it. In writing about the doctrine, one is tempted to do as Hunter S. Thompson did in covering the car race that is the ostensible subject of his most renowned book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:But first we need the car. And after that, the cocaine. And then the tape recorder, for special music, and some Acapulco shirts. The only way to prepare for a trip like this was to dress up like human peacocks and get crazy, then screech off across the desert and cover the story.11As arguments and counter-arguments circle around the barren terrain leading to cogens, it seems evident that one must keep moving the momentum of international rhetoric. …

Beyond banality? Ethical responses to evil in post-September 11 International Relations

In recent years, International Relations has witnessed a resurgent interest in the concept of 'evil' both in domestic and international political rhetoric, and in contemporary scholarship. This article examines three of the most recent contributions to what is a growing body of scholarship, all of which try to make sense of evil in the contemporary world and offer an ethical response to the problem of its prevalence. In particular, it highlights the extent to which Hannah Arendt's notion of the 'banality of evil' permeates contemporary conceptualizations of the term and questions whether this remains a useful and indeed appropriate conceptualization of evil in the post-September 11 world.

Diplomatic effects of international rhetoric

(2003). Diplomatic effects of international rhetoric. The Journal of International Communication: Vol. 9, Intercultural Relations, pp. 76-82.