Negative Ecologies

      LeFevre and Edbauer share a common egalitarian, “ecological”  understanding of rhetoric. LeFevre’s casts invention as a social act which “stresses the dialectical relationship of the individual with society and culture” and also “involves a variety of social relationships with real and imaginary others” in the process of generating unique ideas; culture/Others and the rhetor are inseparable (46-47). LeFevre further articulates that within historical narratives, “individual persons and episodic events do not exclusively shape history; larger, less obvious movements may shape individuals and events” (41). Invention is shaped over time through extended, organic processes. Edbauer’s ecological model of the rhetorical situation almost precisely aligns with LeFevre’s understanding of invention. For her, “an ecological...rhetorical model  is one that reads rhetoric both as a process of distributed emergence and as an ongoing circulation process,” much like how components of a city work together to create itself and the movements which occur within it (13). LeFevre and Edbauer essentially argue that the contributions of each part or exigency is holistically, organically interrelated in the act of invention and in the rhetorical situation.

      What LeFevre and Edbauer incorrectly imply, however, is that the contributions of each exigency to the inventive act/rhetorical situation are equal. Did Edbauer consider the socio-economic demographics of individuals who bought the “Keep Austin Weird” stickers and T-shirts? Is the involvement and input of society/audience equal to the input of the rhetor herself in the creative process? What if the rhetor is a minority - how do her actions and associations with the dominant culture change? I argue that Royster’s position, and that of many other thinkers who discuss issues of minority voice, complicates the essentially equal and egalitarian vision that both LeFevre and Edbauer strongly imply. Not every exigency plays an equal part in rhetoric. In Edbauer’s seemingly symbiotic world of the rhetorical situation, its clear that particular movements, rules, and circulations privilege and exclude certain other movements, rules, and circulations. These exclusions, I argue, mostly likely happen to minority groups. To be part of the symbiotic process requires equal participation, and underprivileged groups often don’t have that “rhetorical currency” to engage in those circulations. In LeFevre’s world, the rhetor works with an imagined audience or seeks feedback and engages in culture. This is presuming a rhetor that has had the skills/education and resources necessary in order to invent in these complex ways. How is invention different if a person of a lower socio-economic status attempts to generate new ideas? What are her struggles, then? Furthermore, Royster clearly demonstrates that boundaries along racial/gendered lines place her in certain subject positions where her voice is usurped, misunderstood, or altogether ignored. How is invention different when an African American woman speaks to other African American women as opposed to a group of white colleagues?  Royster gives the example of a colleague who was appreciating her use of her “authentic voice” when Royster tried to “share the sounds of [her] historical place and to connect those sounds with systems of belief so that deeper understanding might emerge” during a discussion (36-37). After this incident, Royster stopped participating in the conversation; she stopped inventing altogether. Invention and the rhetorical situation become altogether different processes in which the rhetor analyzes and grapples with dominant audiences and exigencies. Royster complicates LeFevre and Edbauer by showing how egalitarian rhetorical processes are the ideal we work toward - not our reality.