| Description |
Peaceful Uprising grew out of civil disobedience actions taken in 2008 by Tim DeChristopher on behalf of the environment, when he illegally bid on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land parcels to withhold them from businesses that would exploit that land. The resulting collective is the focus of this dissertation. The examination of the collective Peaceful Uprising reveals how collectivity is essential to social protest and how it is a rhetorical process that is essential to social movement rhetoric. This collectivity is defined as both a group that makes a whole and the qualities that make up and maintain that group, such as feelings of belonging, staying power, and an affect of hope. Additionally, these are the major rhetorical processes by which a social movement creates and maintains a sense of the collective. In understanding how collectivity is created and maintained within social movements, machines of mobilization-the active creation and deployment of a collectivist cultural assemblage focused on social protest and change-is a unique heuristic that allows social movement rhetoric scholars to better understand the rhetorical invention of collectivity. The rhetorical processes of collectivity and machines of mobilization are primarily examined through the participatory critical research (PCR) method, wherein I became part of the Peaceful Uprising movement in order to critically observe how they, as a machine of mobilization, interact with the state; how they use music/song rhetorically, particularly the utilization of citationality; and their use of place/space, especially in a post-9/11 world of restrictions. |
