April 29, 2022

I’ve previously discussed Foss and Griffin’s idea of invitational rhetoric and how it would benefit our students in the composition classrooms, but what, exactly, does it look like in modern society? How could the principles of invitational rhetoric possibly be beneficial in the ‘real world’?

While the label, invitational rhetoric, is relatively new; the concept itself is not. An unsung hero of the Civil Rights movement was using the principles of invitational rhetoric to promote freedom for all humans. While Ella Baker may have worked for Dr. King for only a short period of time during the early-to-mid 1960s, she was constantly organizing social movements without actually leading them. According to DeLaure in her article Planting Seeds of Change: Ella Baker’s Radical Rhetoric, she claims that “in [Baker’s] organizing, she consistently strived to promote equality, recognize the immanent value of all humans, cultivate self-worth, and encourage self-determination” (15). Baker did her best to identify with the members of the communities while helping them to identify with each other. In doing so, she promoted the aforementioned principles. Her organization of social movements also centered around the “invitational practices of offering perspectives and creating external conditions of safety, value, and freedom” (DeLaure, 17). Baker was often recognized for her ability to listen to her audience much more than speaking to them. According to DeLaure, “listening accords respect to other speakers and is clearly a vital part of creating external conditions of safety, value, and freedom” (19).

Social activism is a common place where invitational rhetoric can be found. The question then, is how well is it received by the audience? While Baker may have found success in her organizational activities to promote social reform in the 1960s, forty years later Terry Tempest Williams did not find the same measure of success. Swiencicki evaluates the application of invitational rhetoric in Williams’ book, The Open Space Democracy. Published three years after the tragedy of 9/11, the book aims to invite readers into a conversation in order to understand “her critique of civic culture” that formed in the years that followed that fateful day (152). Remembering that invitational rhetoric is intended to go “beyond the patriarchal bias of ‘persuasion, influence, and power’ and toward feminist principles of ‘equality, immanent value, and self-determination’” it is disappointing to read of Williams’ many failures (152-153). Though, to be honest, those failures should not sit on Williams’ shoulders alone; instead, those she invited into the conversation and who then denied her can share that burden of failure. We must remember that this refusal to engage, because it is the individual’s choice, is still considered part of invitational rhetoric, because it was allowed under the external condition of freedom. Williams tried on various occasions to invite those ‘in power’ into a conversation in order to exchange ideas and understand personal motivations. Each of these individuals who Williams invited into conversations held positions of political power and chose to trample on her beliefs, rather than listening without judgment, not offering her the same external conditions of safety or value. Anyone who believes in the principles of invitational rhetoric and reads Williams’ book with an open mind will see that her “twofold move of gesture and publicity helps reveal the complex ways that the invitational mode achieves change” (161). Granted that change may not happen immediately, but it will happen.

I would encourage those who participate in social activism to employ the principles of invitational rhetoric. 1.) Teach your audience about the issue at hand, 2.) hear your audience’s response, and 3.) engage in a civilized discussion where both sides can learn from each other. This reciprocal knowledge gathering is essential in compromising on an issue and moving policies forward for the better of society as a whole.

 

DeLaure, Marilyn Bordwell. “Planting seeds of change: Ella Baker’s radical rhetoric.” Women’s Studies in Communication 31.1 (2008): 1-28.

Swiencicki, Jill. “Rhetorics of Invitation and Refusal in Terry Tempest Williams’s The Open Space of Democracy.” Women’s Studies in Communication 38.2 (2015): 151-166.