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" Rhetorically refiguring public policy: Rhetoric, post-colonialism, and the strategic redeployment of “National Geographic”'s Afghan Girl "
Rae Lynn Astion Schwartz
D. B. Hingstman
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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54509
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TL24463
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3225668
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| Main Entry
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Rae Lynn Astion Schwartz
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| Title & Author
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Rhetorically refiguring public policy: Rhetoric, post-colonialism, and the strategic redeployment of “National Geographic”'s Afghan Girl\ Rae Lynn Astion Schwartz
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| College
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The University of Iowa
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| Date
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2006
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2006
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| Page No
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166
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| Abstract
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In this project I query the relationships between visual discourses (representations), rhetoric, postcolonial theory, and public policy. Specifically, I seek to understand the ways in which the circulation of visual images signifies and organizes meanings, or sense making, for U.S. constituencies. Thus, these discourses come to constitute, and become constitutive of, evidence of the attributes of visualized and visualizing subjects, who are then figured into U.S. policy. I examine the reemerging discourses of National Geographic 's Afghan Girl in 1985, 2002, and 2003 in order to offer explanations as to how the uptake of visual images figures rhetorically to render U.S. government policies both intelligible and acceptable to American audiences. Simply, this is a rhetorical history of the Afghan Girl in context with U.S. public and political culture. Specifically, I consider Reagan's 1985 covert directive toward Afghanistan, the post-9/11 emergence of biometric technologies and related national ID card debates, and the recent U.S. deployment of multicultural capitalism to the Middle East. I aim to supplement and move forward the contemporary conversation within and between rhetorical theory and criticism, postcolonialism, representation, and U.S. public policy. My critical reading of the Afghan Girl has lead to five theoretical contributions to the field of rhetorical studies. First, the relationship between rhetoric, postcolonial theory, representation and public policy need not be confined to the histories of territorial occupation per se; second, iconicity should not denote a homogenous understanding of representations across time and audience, but instead should signify a common familiarity evoking (not necessarily the same) emotional response; third, the rhetorical representation of colonial narratives and the images and attitudes that accompany them are often found in the figures and terminology that circulate along with public policy; fourth, traditional theories of postcolonial studies have much to gain from a theory of rhetorical circulation and visual rhetoric; and finally, the readings of hegemonic texts provide the conditions of possibility for the emergence of counter-hegemonic theories of resistance.
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Social sciences; Language, literature and linguistics; Afghan Girl; National Geographic; Postcolonialism; Public policy; Rhetoric; Strategic redeployment; Composition; Womens studies; International law; International relations; 0681:Composition; 0453:Womens studies; 0681:Rhetoric; 0616:International relations; 0616:International law
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D. B. Hingstman
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The University of Iowa
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