Abstract

ABSTRACT This article situates itself within recent calls for rhetorical studies to expand its regional and cultural scope, offering an analysis of rhetorical constitution in republican Ecuador. Identifying the unavoidable ethical problems that arise when rhetoricians travel, the article argues for a flexible, learning-focused approach to rhetorical historiography that neither abandons existing rhetorical concepts nor rests easily in the face of their limitations. In light of the new insights that emerge when Burke's constitutional theories encounter Ecuador's complicated constitutional scene, the article suggests that our understandings of how rhetoric works can be tempered—both bent and strengthened—by displacement.