A Rhetoric of Becoming: USAmerican Women in Qatar

Abstract

Nancy Small Studies in Rhetorics and Feminisms Edited by Cheryl Glenn and Shirley Wilson Logan Information and Pricing 978-1-64317-319-1 (paperback, $29.99); 978-1-64317-320-7 (hardcover, $59.99);  978-1-64317-321-4 (PDF, $19.99); 978-1-64317-322-1 (EPUB, $19.99) © 2022 by Parlor Press, with illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. 233 pages. Bookstores : Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book A Rhetoric of Becoming: USAmerican Women in Qatar takes Western feminism abroad into the complexity of transnational spaces. Working at interdisciplinary intersections of rhetoric, feminist theory, narrative inquiry, and expat studies, Nancy Small interweaves conversational interviews with observations of the author's own six years living in the Middle East. A shared lifeworld of paradoxical positionings emerges, grounded in certain uncertainty, empowerment and vulnerability, hypervisibility and invisibility, and freedom and restraint. Expat women developed nuanced rhetorical strategies grounded in feminist principles of listening, reflexivity, and adaptation through and beyond these positionings. Participants gradually recognized the scope of their white, Western privilege and consequently became highly aware of injustices surrounding them. However, amid their awakening to positionality and power, they remained sensitive to their precarity and limited agency. Rather than retreat to their expat golden ghettos, participants learned to leverage their positioning and developed strategies for resisting unjust systems. Through their storytelling, a new feminist tactic emerges as a substantive contribution to the scholarly field: micropraxis —small, purposeful acts of resistance and justice—creates potential for subverting patriarchal systems. Outcomes of this project are easily imported into a wide array of local spaces, as globalization, immigration, increasing diversity, and ongoing recognition of unjust systems bring th