Containers, Currents, and Composition: An Analysis of Place-Based Rhetoric and Writing Practices in Relation to the Regions of Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Palau, Chuuk and the Marshall Islands
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2015-12
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[Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [December 2015]
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Abstract
Analyzing texts written by Micronesian politicians and writers from 1979 to the present, the work of this dissertation is to illustrate the role of place values, rhetoric, and writing in constructing a Micronesian counter-narrative that differs sharply from U.S. rhetoric that constructs the regions as isolated, small, dependent, and non-writing. Previously, work conducted in the Micronesian regions of Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Palau, Yap, and the Marshall islands has focused primarily on health care, public policy, anthropology, and primary education. Little to no attention has been paid to the role of U.S. rhetoric upon the region and the justification of policies that work against indigenous values of writing and learning. However, this dissertation works against this research gap as it pays particular attention both to the function and form of U.S. rhetoric toward Micronesia and, more importantly, to Micronesian writing and Micronesian perspectives about rhetoric and composition.
This project specifically examines Micronesian place-based rhetoric within several writing forms and genres that have been relatively unexamined in the past. Starting in Micronesia itself, this dissertation looks at the rhetoric emerging from the political and public writing of Yapese politician John Mangefel. This political writing illustrates a legacy of rhetorical sovereignty in Micronesian writing that contradicts historical rhetoric painting the regions as dependent upon U.S. economic control. Additionally, this study traces the history of this counter-narrative through to the present, and looks at how survival and resistance are articulated in diverse ways in Micronesian online writings written from O‘ahu and across the Pacific. Ultimately, in establishing this rhetorical genealogy from past to present, this dissertation works to identify how this rhetorical legacy can influence and shape the writing classroom. In interviews with Micronesian college students studying in O‘ahu and writing teachers working closely with Micronesian students, the final chapters of this project propose pedagogical and institutional reforms in the ways that rhetoric is framed and taught at the university level for Micronesian students.
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Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2015.
Includes bibliographical references.
Includes bibliographical references.
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Micronesia, rhetoric, indigenous, composition
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Theses for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (University of Hawaii at Manoa). English
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