College Composition and Communication

6 articles
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decolonial rhetorics ×

September 2023

  1. Another Temporarily Hopeful Intervention: Cultural Rhetorics as a Commitment to Indigenous Sovereignty, Cultural Continuance, and Repatriation of Land and Life
    Abstract

    In “Our Story Begins Here” (2014) the CR Theory Lab offers key concepts related to cultural rhetorics such as constellating and relationality. Drawing from decolonial theory and practice, these concepts allow cultural rhetoricians to develop a scholarly practice that is reflective of the cultural community they are a part of and write for and to address the long histories and cultural practices of the land they dwell on. Where the CR Theory Lab is committed to a decolonial practice invested in the theories and lived experiences of the tribal nations people of Turtle Island, they also offer that it isn’t the only approach to cultural rhetorics. I argue that both scenarios reflect a larger political and cultural issue regarding how the occupied territories of Turtle Island (also known as the United States) don’t know what to do with tribal nations people, our fight for sovereignty, or our ongoing effort for cultural continuance. In other words, I will make an argument that maps how our discipline’s approach to decolonial theory, cultural rhetorics, and Indigenous rhetorics reflects the ongoing efforts of survivance and resurgence of Indigenous people.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202332665
  2. Stories and/as Civic Pedagogies: Toward Participatory Knowledge-Making in Cultural Rhetorics
    Abstract

    This essay argues for attention in cultural rhetorics scholarship to stories as effective civic pedagogical tools informed by participatory knowledge-making practices. Drawing on a multiyear “mobile cinema democracy project” based on the physical circulation across Africa, Europe, and North America of a successful African democratic story told in the multi-award-winning documentaryAn African Election, I attend to both the documentary and its larger contextual project, “A Political Safari: An African Adventure in Democracy Building.” I demonstrate the ways that the African storytelling traditions of collaboration upon which this project rests offer us cultural rhetoricians key opportunities to reimagine inclusive knowledgemaking practices in using stories as civic pedagogies. My analysis reveals how such knowledge-making practices might orient our work against the grain of hierarchical, exclusionary, colonial practices and toward decolonial approaches that are truly participatory and inclusive.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202332671

December 2022

  1. Translingual Praxis: From Theorizing Language to Antiracist and Decolonial Pedagogy
    Abstract

    In this article, we call for translingual praxis—an antiracist and decolonial pedagogy that interrogates, with students, language ideologies and their political histories. Amplifying the voices of scholars of color, we provide a rationale for and illustrate four strategies for delinking our language work from the legacies of racism and colonization.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202232276

February 2022

  1. Hip-Hop and the Decolonial Possibilities of Translingualism
    Abstract

    Drawing on Kenyan hip-hop, this article: (1) illustrates the decolonial possibilities of translingualism, including paths to linguistic decolonization; (2) showcases how translingualism can facilitate the recovery of Indigenous hybrid languaging practices; (3) highlights how global Western capitalism threatens translingualism’s decolonial potential; and (4) offers further implications for rhetoric and writing scholars and teachers.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202231872

September 2020

  1. Chicanx Murals: Decolonizing Place and (Re)Writing the Terms of Composition
    Abstract

    Drawing from an interpretive decolonial framework that understands multimodal writing as the act of creatingco-composedknowledge, this article analyzes Chicanx murals as multimodal compositions that exemplify the continuation of the Aztectlacuilolitztlipractice of writing with images. This work also invites rhetoric and composition scholars to reexamine Western understandings of history, particularly the history of writing.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202030893

September 2018

  1. In the Absence of Grades: Dissonance and Desire in Course-Contract Classrooms
    Abstract

    Acknowledging students’ and instructors’ desires for grades as affective carriers of achievement, belonging, and identity can move us beyond ideals of socially just assessment, making space for decolonizing action and explorations of how the classroom community and the field grapple with the dissonance between being a writer and being a student.

    doi:10.58680/ccc201829783