Technical Communication Quarterly Jan 2006

Rhetorical Agency, Resistance, and the Disciplinary Rhetorics of Breastfeeding

Amy Koerber

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on interviews from a qualitative study, this article extends theorizing about rhetorical agency and resistance by analyzing how breastfeeding advocates and their clients resist medical regulatory rhetoric. The resistant acts that interviewees describe begin with a negotiation of discursive alternatives and subject positions framed by the grid of disciplinary rhetoric about breastfeeding. But in some acts of resistance, breastfeeding women use both discursive and bodily actions to disrupt the intelligibility of this grid and what it deems possible. When such disruption occurs, the results are unpredictable and so must be understood as more than the occupation of preexisting subject positions.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
2006-01-01
DOI
10.1207/s15427625tcq1501_7
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism qualitative research
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (36)

  1. DeVasto (2024)
    Toward Rhetorically Infused Methods for Relational Network Modeling: The Visual…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Bastian et al. (2023)
    Toward Disruptive Agency
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Cameron (2023)
    Agentive assemblages in online patient spaces
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Edwards et al. (2022)
    Black Women Imagining and Realizing Liberated Futures
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Diab (2021)
    The Rise of the Arab Spring through a Sense of Agency
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Show all 36 →
  1. Wang (2021)
    Chinese Women’s Reproductive Justice and Social Media
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Fiss (2021)
    Ridicule, Technical Communication, and Nineteenth-Century Women Performing Coll…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Rajan (2021)
    Making-Do on the Margins: Organizing Resource Seeking and Rhetorical Agency in …
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. McCaughey (2021)
    The Rhetoric of Online Exclusive Pumping Communities: Tactical Technical Commun…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Vinson (2020)
    Helping Everyday Rhetors Challenge Reproductive Injustice(s) in Public
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  6. Shelton (2020)
    Shifting Out of Neutral: Centering Difference, Bias, and Social Justice in a Bu…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  7. Stephens et al. (2019)
    A Framework for User Agency during Development of Interactive Risk Visualizatio…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  8. Novotny et al. (2019)
    Data Our Bodies Tell: Towards Critical Feminist Action in Fertility and Period …
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  9. Martin et al. (2018)
    Stories They Tell: The Rhetoric of Recruiting Independent Consultants
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  10. Petersen et al. (2018)
    Bridging Analysis and Action: How Feminist Scholarship Can Inform the Social Ju…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  11. Pickering (2018)
    Navigating Discourses of Power Through Relationships: A Professional and Techni…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  12. Carradini (2018)
    An Organizational Structure of Indie Rock Musicians as Displayed by Facebook Usage
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  13. Reed (2018)
    Building on Bibliography: Toward Useful Categorization of Research in Rhetorics…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  14. Jones et al. (2017)
    The Social Justice Impact of Plain Language: A Critical Approach to Plain-Langu…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  15. Jones (2017)
    Rhetorical Narratives of Black Entrepreneurs: The Business of Race, Agency, and…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  16. Peter (2017)
    “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”: Jihadist Tactical Technical Communica…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  17. Jones (2016)
    The Technical Communicator as Advocate: Integrating a Social Justice Approach i…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  18. Milbourne (2016)
    Disruption, Spectacle, and Gender in Eighteenth-Century Technical Communication
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. DeVasto et al. (2016)
    Stasis and Matters of Concern: The Conviction of the L’Aquila Seven
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  20. Novotny (2015)
    reVITALize gynecology: reimagining apparent feminism's methodology in participa…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  21. Kuehl et al. (2015)
    Designing public communication about doulas: analyzing presence and absence in …
    Communication Design Quarterly
  22. Graham et al. (2015)
    Statistical Genre Analysis: Toward Big Data Methodologies in Technical Communication
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  23. Frith (2014)
    Social Network Analysis and Professional Practice: Exploring New Methods for Re…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  24. Rawlins et al. (2014)
    Agency and Interactive Data Displays: Internet Graphics as Co-Created Rhetorica…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  25. Burleson (2014)
    Communication Challenges in the Hospital Setting: A Comparative Case Study of H…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  26. Schuster (2013)
    Naked Politics: Nudity, Political Action, and the Rhetoric of the Body , by Bre…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  27. Graham et al. (2013)
    Multiple Ontologies in Pain Management: Toward a Postplural Rhetoric of Science
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  28. Hoover (2012)
    The posthuman grant application
    Computers and Composition
  29. Grabill et al. (2012)
    Messy Rhetoric: Identity Performance as Rhetorical Agency in Online Public Forums
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  30. Andrus (2010)
    A Legal Discourse of Transparency: Discursive Agency and Domestic Violence in t…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  31. Graham (2009)
    Agency and the Rhetoric of Medicine: Biomedical Brain Scans and the Ontology of…
    Technical Communication Quarterly

References (20) · 2 in this index

  1. 10.1542/peds.100.6.1035
     ↗
  2. Apple, R. D. (1987). Mothers and medicine: A social history of infant feeding, 1890-1950. Madison: University…
  3. Biesecker B. (1992)
    Philosophy and Rhetoric
  4. Blum, L. M. (1999). At the breast: Ideologies of breastfeeding and motherhood in the contemporary United Stat…
  5. Britt, E. C. (2001). Conceiving normalcy: Rhetoric, law, and the double binds of infertility. Tuscaloosa: Uni…
Show all 20 →
  1. Burger King apologizes to breast-feeding mom. (2003). CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West…
  2. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life (S. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California…
  3. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage.
  4. Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality Volume I: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Vintage.
  5. Hausman, B. L. (2003). Mother's milk: Breastfeeding controversies in American culture. New York: Routledge & …
  6. Herndl (2004)
    Introduction to the Special Issue: The Legacy of Critique and the Promise of Practice
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. Koerber, A. (2002). U.S. breastfeeding education and promotion, 1978-99: A feminist rhetorical analysis. Unpu…
  8. Maher, V. (Ed.). (1992). The anthropology of breastfeeding: Natural law or social construct. Oxford, England: Berg.
  9. Quandt, S. A. (1995). Sociocultural aspects of the lactation process. In P. Stuart-Macadam & K. A. Dettwyler …
  10. REEVES (1996)
    Language, Rhetoric, and AIDS: The Attitudes and Strategies of Key AIDS Medical …
    Written Communication
  11. Schryer, C. F., Lingard, L., Spafford, M. & Garwood, K. (2003). Structure and agency in medical case presenta…
     ↗
  12. Scott, J. B. (2003). Risky rhetoric: AIDS and the cultural practices of HIV testing. Carbondale: Southern Ill…
  13. Spivak, G. C. (1992). More on power/knowledge. In T. E. Wartenberg (Ed.), Rethinking power (pp. 149-177). New…
  14. Van Esterik, P. (1995). The politics of breastfeeding: An advocacy perspective. In P. Stuart-Macadam & K. A. …
  15. Yalom, M. (1997). A history of the breast. New York: Knopf.
CrossRef global citation count: 54 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Res Rhetorica Dec 2024
    Persuasive strategies in competitive debates: A corpus rhetoric approach ↗
    Marcin Będkowski; Kinga Rogowska
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory argument qualitative research
  2. Philosophy & Rhetoric Sep 2024
    Where’s the Rhetoric? Imagining a Unified Field ↗
    Joshua Hanan
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism composition theory genre theory discourse analysis cultural rhetorics argument qualitative research quantitative research digital rhetoric social media grammar and mechanics gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric affect and writing body and rhetoric editorial matter
  3. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Jun 2024
    Zoetropes and the Politics of Humanhood ↗
    Michelle G. Gibbons
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism decolonial rhetorics qualitative research race and writing gender and writing
  4. Philosophy & Rhetoric Dec 2023
    Limit Formations: Violence, Philosophy, Rhetoric ↗
    Omedi Ochieng
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis voice and style argument qualitative research social media race and writing gender and writing editorial matter
  5. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Sep 2023
    Rhetoric of Democracy in the Americas ↗
    José G. Izaguirre
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis decolonial rhetorics graduate education qualitative research race and writing public rhetoric book reviews