rhetorical maneuvers

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Philosophy and Rhetoric,Vol. 39, No. 4, 2006.Copyright 2006 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

310

Rhetorical Maneuvers:Subjectivity, Power, and Resistance

Kendall R. Phillips

A sense of subjectivity as fluid, dynamic, and multiple has become almost or-

thodox throughout the humanities. The widespread influence of poststructural

thought has seemingly routed earlier Enlightenment notions of a unified, tran-

scendent subject and opened the door for critical approaches to the numerous

and changing manifestations of human subjectivity. The fluidity of the human

subject, however, is not without its bounds or constraints. Indeed, the same lineof poststructural thinking that served to de-center the Enlightenment subject,

especially the work of Michel Foucault, also stipulated that the subject was

positioned by larger formations of discourse over which they had limited if

any control. These two sides of poststructural subjectivityits fluidity and its

positioningestablish not so much two divergent approaches, but the two poles

between which the human subject can be thought to operate. In turn the two

poles of the apparentfixity of the subject position and the seeming fluidity of the

subjectivity manifested within that position suggest the kind of productive ten-

sion through which we are simultaneously limited and enabled by the discourse

formations within which we operate and against which we, at times, resist.

This productive tension between the multiplicity of the subject and the

singularity of the subject position has, of course, been the focus of numerousinquiries. In his later work, Foucault attended to the processes by which the

subject makes itself an object upon which work might be done and urged a more

aesthetic approach to the continuous crafting of the self.1Along similar lines,

Judith Butler has conceived of the subject in terms of its performativity and

the ways that the I is crafted through numerous and fluid citations of existing

power relations. Conceived in this way, the notion of the self is a constantly

changing object crafted and re-crafted out of the points of identification provided

in the exterior fields of power and knowledge. These points of identification, in

turn, provide symbolic anchors by which a subject is moored, at least temporar-

ily, into a particular subject position within which they become identifiable and

intelligible in terms of the broader formation of discourse.


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311RHETORICAL MANEUVERS

In addition to posing a serious challenge to Enlightenment philosophy, thisconception of the self as fluid and dynamic presents some vexing questions con-

cerning the practices of self and the capacity of a subject to offer any meaningful

challenge to the formations of discourse that constitute its existence. As Butler

puts the problem, The paradox of subjectivation (assujetissement) is precisely

that the subject who would resist such norms is itself enabled, if not produced,

by such norms (1993, 15). The theoretical concerns over the relationship be-

tween agency and subjectivity also impact upon a series of political questions

surrounding the nature and possibility of identity politics and recent debates

concerning the importance and efficacy of gaining recognition as a political

move.2Whatever ones position within such debates, it is clear that the question

of subjectivity and its concomitant questions of subjectivation and agency must

be addressed in order to conceive of any kinds of democratic politics.The question of the subject, then, clearly entails broad philosophical and

political implications. Rhetorical scholars have entered this conversation with

a particular concern for the practices that both constitute and challenge the

constitution of the self and many of these scholars have attended specifically

to the points of friction between prescribed positions in which a subject is con-

stituted and the dynamic nature of subjectivity as performed. Following from

the works of Foucault, Barbara Biesecker (1992), for instance, urges attention

to the canon of style as a crucially rhetorical element in the processes by which

the individual negotiates relations of power, knowledge, and subjectivity. In a

similar vein, Bradford Vivian draws from the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix

Guattari to suggest that rhetoricians recognize that the self may be conceived

as a forma rhetorical formthat exists only in its continual and aestheticcreation, in its indefinite becoming (2000, 304). The indefinite nature of this

becoming is, for both Vivian and Deleuze and Guattari, a politically crucial

insight into the ways that subject form becomes not a trap within which the self

is necessarily confined but a potentially creative resource through which new

senses of self may emerge.

The present article seeks to make a modest contribution to this expansive

body of theory by pressing the question of how the multiplicity of the subject is

practiced or, to phrase it as a driving question, what kinds of procedures might

be employed to turn the tensions that exist between subject-multiplicity and

subject-positioning into a rhetorical resource?How does, we might ask, one

speak from ones sense of multiplicity and how does multiplicity emerge within

the everyday practices of self? Theoretically it is clear that the tension between

fluidity of multiplicity and the seeming fixedness of positionality informs daily


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312 KENDALL R. PHILLIPS

practices of the self but, what remains to be more fully explored are the kinds ofprocedures by which this tension is manifested within everyday practices.

Undoubtedly, there are numerous ways in which this tension is manifested

and in the present essay I seek to inquire into the specific procedures of one such

manifestation, which I call a rhetorical maneuver. In the simplest terms, the

rhetorical maneuver is performed at those moments when we choose to violate

the proscriptive limits of our subject position and speak differently by drawing

upon the resources of another subject position we have occupied: for example,

when the corporate CEO speaks as a mother, or when the university professor

speaks as a Latino. As I will elaborate in the following pages, this is a rhetori-

cal movement in which one violates the constraints of one subject position by

articulating the discourse more appropriate to another subject position. While

this is only one way in which the tension between subject position and subjectmultiplicity is performed, it seems an intriguingly familiar example and, as such,

warrants a more thorough examination. In order to facilitate the unpacking of

this specific procedure, I begin this essay by laying out some of the relevant

theoretical literature concerning subjectivity and then, in order to attend more

closely to its everyday practice, I map the rhetorical maneuver along lines of-

fered by Michel de Certeau in his influential book, The Practice of Everyday

Life. Following this explication of the procedures of the rhetorical maneuver,

I return to the broader theoretical and critical concerns over subjectivity by of-

fering some implications.

Subjectivity Positioned and Performed

The underlying tension I attend to in this essay is captured by Stuart

Hall, who writes, The subject assumes different identities at different times,

identities which are not unified around a coherent self. Within us are contra-

dictory identities, pulling in different directions, so that our identifications are

continually being shifted around (1996a, 277). For Hall, these identifications

are the points of contact between the subject and the broader discourses, or as

he contends, identity is:

The point of suture, between on the one hand the discourses and practices which

attempt to interpellate, speak to us our hail us into place as the social subjects of

particular discourse, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivi-

ties, which construct us as subjects which can be spoken. Identities are thus the


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points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices

construct for us. (1996b, 56)

While I chose to not pursue Halls psychoanalytic understanding of these

points of identification, it is worth observing the tension between the multiplic-

ity of identities carried by a subject and the positioning of that subject by a

seemingly unified and coherent position within which they become authorized

to speak and act.

Subjectivity, conceived in this way, is always a tension between the

positioning carried out by the formations of discourse within which we act and

thefluid multiplicity of subjectivity against which such positions are employed.

On the one hand, the subject comes to act by being positioned within broader

and impersonal systems of discourse and these positions, in turn, help to craftones sense of self. Vivian makes the point that, discourse creates subjects by

first creating subject positions from which to speak (2000, 313). These enabling

discourses, in turn, as Sarah Tracy and Angela Tretheway observe, work to

fix identities in particular ways that favor some interests over others and thus

constrain alternative truths and subject positions (2005, 171).

On the other hand, even though limited through its positioning within

discourse, subjectivity remains indeterminate and is always in the unpredict-

able process of becoming. The discourses that serve to fix subjectivity into a

particular subject position, as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe observe, can

provide only a partial fix (1985, 111). The inability of discourse to provide a

final, fixed and unchangeable subject position is due, in part, to the disjuncture

between various formations of discourse and the dispersion of subject positionsacross these various discourses. Instability is introduced into these discourse

formations by the movement of the subject from one discursively constructed

position to another. As we move between discoursesand, thus, between subject

positionswe carry with us the alternative subject positions and discourses and

through our movement introduce a degree of instability, an unfixed-ness, into the

different subject positions we occupy. On this point, Vivian insists that in order

to understand the fluidity of subjectivity, we must assert the movementthe

processof becoming and the encounter with difference it creates (2000, 307).

The movement of individuals among and between subject positions is essential

to conceive of subjectivity as fluid and dynamic.

Crucial to understanding the potential of this movement in terms of the

fluid nature of subjectivity and the partially fixed character of subject positionsand to the larger point of the present essayis the conception of subjectivity as

the taking on of various forms. Our conception of self, as Vivian defines it, is


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created through the adoption and crafting of various forms of self (311). Foucaultmakes this point when contending that the practices by which a subject crafts

their sense of self are nevertheless not something that the individual invents by

himself. They are patterns that he finds in his culture and which are proposed,

suggested and imposed on him by his culture, his society and his social group

(1994, 11). The instability of discourse, however, prevents this imposition

from being complete and the movement of the subject provides a crucial space

in which an element of creativity can be introduced. Felix Guattari provides a

useful metaphor for thinking about this relationship when he notes, One creates

new modalities of subjectivity in the same way that an artist creates new forms

from the palette (1995, 7). In this metaphor the subject-as-artist is afforded

a level of creativity but only in so far as new forms can be derived from the

palette, which is presumably made up of previously encountered forms.It is worth observing here the interrelationship between positions of sub-

jectivity and the forms afforded the subject. Any given subject position provides

a position in a broader formation of discourse within which a subject is afforded

a kind of social existence, a position of intelligibility within a formation of dis-

course and, subsequently, some degree of agency within that discourse. These

subject positions also provide a recognized and recognizableformof subjectiv-

ity appropriate to that subject position. In other words, a subject position is an

intelligible place within a broader formation of discourse, while a subject form

is that recognizable pattern of performance attached to a given position. Ken-

neth Burkes notion of form as the creation of expectations and their fulfillment

is appropriate for thinking about the way that a given subject position creates

the expectation that one will perform in a way that subsequently satisfies thisexpectation.3The position of a university professor, in other words, may have

a degree of latitude in its expectations but there are some apparently obligatory

expectationsattending classes, giving grades, etc.

As noted above, the apparently indissoluble link between a given sub-

ject position and its appropriate subject form is not as fixed and necessary as it

may appear. The movement of a subject between various positions provides a

potential for disruption. Here we might combine Guattaris creative palette

metaphor with Foucaults more dire observation about the imposition of pat-

terns of self. The subjects movement between various forms of self, imposed

upon it in the different positions it inhabits, ultimately provides a palette of

multiple patterns of self. This palette of acquired forms, in turn, provides one

of the important conditions for the creation of new senses of self. Following

the interrelationship of subject form and subject position it seems likely that if

one is able to alter the form of ones subjectivity within a given formation of


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discourse, then one will affect ones subject position within that discourse aswell. Potentially, this alteration of subject position may affect the broader con-

stellation of the discourse formation as well. In other words, to challenge ones

own intelligibility within a network of relations that render one intelligible is

to potentially proffer not only a challenge to ones sense of self but also to the

disciplinary networks that seek to position one. It is a challenge to the points

and practices of identification through, to borrow from Butler, the institution

of a disidentification.

Challenges to points of identification that anchor one within a given sub-

ject position reveal the interdependency of the subject position and the subject

who performs within that position. It is not merely the case that the position

enables the performance but, importantly, the performing subject perpetuates

the existence and contours of the position within which it performs. In turn,performances that violate the expectations of a given subject position will un-

dermine the points of identification of the position itself. As Butler notes, it is

not the case that a subject-position preexists the enunciation that it occasions,

for certain kinds of enunciations dismantle the very subject positions by which

they are ostensibly enabled (1993, 100, 114).

Taken as an abstract theoretical principle, the notion of the creative sub-

ject drawing on prior forms of subjectivity in order to challenge their position

within a formation of discourse and reform it seems sensible. What remain to

be explored are the kinds of procedures through which this reconstruction is

performed. In this regard, rhetoricians seem uniquely positioned to explore these

kinds of re-formations of subjectivity given that such procedures may entail

not only the deployment of discourse but the invention of new positions withindiscourse. In the end, the positioning and re-positioning of a subject within a

broader formation of discourse is always a matter of explicit behaviors. One is

positioned by discourse into a position from which one can speak, but one also

actively participates in this positioning by performing those functions prescribed

to that position. In turn, one can reposition oneself through the kinds of things

one says and does. Thus, positioning and repositioning are active processes and

in order to more fully grasp the complexity of these processes rhetorical schol-

ars need a set of terminology. The theoretical language currently available to

rhetorical scholars pursuing these procedures is rich, as is demonstrated above,

but also remarkably abstract.

In the remainder of this essay, I suggest a conception of one procedure

through which a subject attempts to reconfigure her/his position. At the root of

this concept is the notion of speaking out of placeor, what happens when

one speaks the discourse appropriate to a differentsubject position. This seems


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a particular manifestation of the classical notion ofcatachresis,

the improperuse of a word or stretching of a metaphor. More recently catachresishas been

employed by scholars like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Butler to capture the

ways that those who are erased from a form of discourse, such as the colonized

within the discourse of colonialism or the feminine within the discourse of

patriarchy, re-emerge in odd terms. As Butler puts it, catachresisentails those

figures that function improperly, as an improper transfer of sense, the use of a

proper name to describe that which does not properly belong to it.4

The rhetorical maneuver is a particular variation on this concept because

it involves, in a way, the improper use of proper name. But in this particular

case, the rhetorical maneuver involves the importation of a proper name (or

subject form) from another formation of discourse and into a discursive position

for which this proper name is somehow inappropriate. Such mis-naming ofones self, in turn, challenges the contours of the subject position and the proper

subject form it encourages.

While some conception of self-naming and -performing has always

been part of discussions of the subjectconcepts like persona or ethoswhat

seems relevant here is the deployment of the new/improper name against the

proscriptive contours of an existing subject position. It is the turning against

the pre-existing expectations one arrives in by virtue of being in a given posi-

tion within a formation of discourse. The integrity of a given subject position is

maintained in large part through notions of appropriateness via decorumthe

sense that given ones position one is entitled to speak in certain ways and

about certain things, but also limited in these regards. Performing within the

bounds of ones subject position provides for certain levels of social rewards,at the very least the lack of censure or disciplining, while the violation of the

bounds of decorum which surround ones position can lead to various forms

of social punishment.5Perhaps the greatest danger in violating ones position

is the possibility of exclusion and, therefore, a kind of social death. Our desire

to maintain our position is, therefore, part of our desire for social survival.

Butler describes this desire when noting, Where social categories guarantee

a recognizable and enduring social existence, the embrace of such categories,

even as they work in the service of subjection, is often preferred to no social

existence at all (1997, 20).

The multiplicity of subject positions through which we move, however,

also affords a multiplicity of potential social existences and, as such, a multi-

plicity of interests and desires. The memories of these past positions, then, may

create a potential space in which to formulate challenges to ones present position.

Whatever the underlying motivation, it is clear that within the practices of ev-


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eryday life violations of ones subject position do occur, sometimes accidentallyand sometimes with calculation and, given the preceding theoretical analysis of

subjectivity as position and form, these moments of transgression should prove

potentially productive. The same power relations that dictate the position and

form from which one speaks also, simultaneously, provide a form of agency

that is a potential tool for resistance and reformulation. As Butler notes, The

power that initiates the subject fails to remain continuous with the power that

is the subjects agency. A significant and potentially enabling reversal occurs

when power shifts from its status as a condition of agency to the subjects own

agency (12).6In other words, the same power relations that impose a position

and form on the subject also provide the space from which an altered subject

form can be articulated and, thus, the power relations of subjectivation are, at

least momentarily, reversed. It is to one form of this movement of subjectivitythat I now turn.

The Rhetorical Maneuver

Lets begin with a fairly mundane example. After class a student ap-

proaches me and states, Ive missed some work in the last week and would like

to make it up. Now, at this point, the regular rules of discourse are in placeI

am in the superordinate position and the student in a subordinate one. We are

both speaking from established positions within a larger formation of discourse

and, up to this point, speaking within the appropriate forms as student and

professor. However, the student continues, I think my girlfriend is pregnant

and weve both been really upset. Now, as the professor of the course I am still

within the same regulatory space and, in this case, still fully capable of invoking

my discursive authority and saying no. However, the student has made this

no more difficult by the story of the possibly pregnant girlfriend.

As noted, this is a mundane and typical example of faculty-student

interaction. Most of us who teach have become almost numb to the numerous

births, deaths, illnesses, and breakdowns that are invoked to excuse late or poor

work. However, its banal nature is instructive to the extent that it suggests how

common the creative shift in subjectivity is. In this very common example, the

student is seeking to disrupt the regular patterns of both his and my subject po-

sitions through the invocation of a different subject formnamely, that of his

impending fatherhood. It is worth noting that the students subject positionas


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a student in a university classroomhas not changed, but the subject form heinvokes is notably not that of a student in a university classroom.

The key to this resistant effort is the movement of subject form within

the prescribed subject position. Arriving in an appropriate subject position

studentthe resistant actor then articulates a, literally, inappropriate subject

formpotential father. In this situation, of course, the notion of impropriety is

defined by the lines of expectation and decorum established within this discur-

sive space. One does not, at least in most cases, expect to discuss a students

impending parenthood in a course about, say, rhetorical theory. In spite of the

inappropriateness of this move, it is not hard to see how frequent this type of

resistant act is. We have labels for many of these resistant moves based on sub-

jectivity: coming-out, playing the race card, even passing. Each of these

is an example whereby the resistant actor seeks to undermine or outmaneuverspatial relations of power towards some potential advantage.

As noted earlier, my focus here is not on the interiority of the moving

subject as in Butlers work, nor on the subject form itself, as with Vivian, but on

the movement of subjectivity as a rhetorical resource through which the agency

provided by a subject position is turned against that position. In attempting a

more praxis-grounded approach to the movement of subjectivity, I will map this

maneuver by following the templates of practice suggested by Michel de Certeau

in The Practice of Everyday Life (1984). I utilize de Certeau as a template for

a number of reasons. First, his work has proved remarkably influential within

American rhetorical studies as a means of attending to the practices of power

and resistance.7Second, de Certeaus approach to power and resistance can be

placed in a productive dialogue with the work of other poststructural theorists,especially Foucault. Indeed, de Certeau characterized much of his work as a

kind of corrective against what he perceived as the more monolithic depictions

of power rendered by Foucault and others and, in this way, de Certeaus attempt

to map the quotidian spaces of authority and moments of resistance provides a

useful model for conceiving of the individual practices of resistant subjectiv-

ity.8Finally, a theory of the subject is mysteriously absent in The Practice of

Everyday Life.9While the book is dedicated to the common man who moves

anonymously among fields of power, the notion of a subject and the ways in

which subjectivity is also implicated within practices of power and resistance

is largely ignored.

It seems appropriate here to briefly adumbrate the relevant points of de

Certeaus theory of practice. In The Practice of Everyday Life,de Certeau bifur-

cates power and resistance along an axis of space and time. Power, according

to de Certeau, is maintained via strategies, which are those relations of power


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deployed as a means of maintaining order and control. The crucial aspect ofstrategies, in de Certeaus work, is their reliance on spatial relations:

A distinction between strategiesand tacticsappears to provide a more adequate

initial schema. I call astrategythe calculation (or manipulation) of power relation-

ships that become possible as soon as a subject with will and power . . . can be

isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its ownand serve as the base

from which relations with an exterioritycomposed of targets or threats . . . can be

managed. (1984, 3537)

As de Certeau elaborates this notion, strategies function to turn spaces

into proper places, to maintain propriety and order through surveillance and

panoptic practice[s], and to produce knowledge by their ability to transform

the uncertainties of history into readable spaces (36).As suggested in the above quotation, strategies of power are opposed by

the tactics of resistance available to those who are not provided a proper place

of power. While differences in power certainly play a role in distinguishing

strategies and tactics, the key distinction is the opposition of time to space. As

de Certeau elaborates:

Strategies are actions which, thanks to the establishment of a place of power (the

property of a proper), elaborate theoretical places (systems and totalizing discourses)

capable of articulating an ensemble of physical places in which forces are distrib-

uted. . . . They thus privilege spatial relations. . . . Tactics are procedures that gain

validity in relation to the pertinence they lend to timeto the circumstances which

the precise instant of an intervention transforms into a favorable situation, to the

rapidity of the movements that change the organization of a space, to the relationsamong successive moments in an action, to the possible intersections of durations

and heterogeneous rhythms, etc. (38)Thus, for de Certeau, strategies are those relations based on a sense of

place, while tactics are those actions based on a sense of timing. Deprived of

the proper places secured by strategies, tactics are those procedures that utilize

a kind of cunning intelligence to capitalize on a momentary opportunity for

disrupting existing relations of propriety and, thus, the essence of the tactic is

the Greek concept, kairosthe right moment in time.

As de Certeau conceives it, the distinction between strategy and tactic

relies primarily on the opposition of space and time. The graphic in Figure 1

illustrates de Certeaus notion. Beginning in a position of limited potential force(I), the tactic relies on the memory (II) of past events to seek the right moment

in which to act quickly (thus, less time needed for preparation) (III) in order to


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manifest greater effect (IV). The central components of the tacticthe trans-

formation of memory of past events into rapid action at the right moment - relyon the Greek notions of mtis(a term elegantly excavated by Marcel Detienne

and Jean-Pierre Vernant [1978, 11], who note that it entails a kind of cunning

intelligence, an informed prudence, which utilizes memory to gain a tactical

foresight) and kairos(the right moment in time for maximum effect). It is at this

point, the rapid transformation, where the tactic gains its temporal validity.10

It is also worth observing that de Certeau dissects the movement of

this operation into quadrants. In the first momentthe recognition of less

Forceoccupies a quadrant of Space/Being, in which the actor recognizes

the limitations on her position within networks of spatial propriety. The second

momentthe use of more Memoryoccupies the quadrant of Time/Invis-

ible, in which the actor utilizes the cunning intelligence of memory to gain

foresight of possible moments of advantage; a covert attention to the moment.

The third momentthe action that requires less Timeis essentially the

exploitation of the right moment in time and occupies the quadrant of Time, be-

TACTIC

SPACE TIME

I) less II) more

FORCE MEMORY

BEING INVISIBLE

OPERATING VISIBLE

IV) more III) less

EFFECTS TIME

TACTIC

SPACE TIME

I) less II) more

FORCE MEMORY

BEING INVISIBLE

OPERATING VISIBLE

IV) more III) less

EFFECTS TIME

Figure 1. Adapted from graphs in de Certeau (1984, 83, 84, 85).


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ing opportunistic, and the Visible, as the action is now taken. Thefi

nal momentof the tactical movement is the achievement of more Effect, which occupies

the quadrant of Operating/Space as the action now has its effect on the spatial

procedures of propriety and, if properly executed, achieves maximum effect

because of the exploitation of the moment of opportunity. An example may help

to differentiate the tactic from the maneuver suggested above. In a large lecture

class, students will, at times, begin anonymously but audibly closing book bags

and shuffling paper during the last few minutes of the class. This tactical ruse

is designed to trick the instructorwho has spatial authorityinto believing

the class period has come to an end and, therefore, dismiss the students. This is

tactical because it relies on timing; the ruse, for instance, would hardly have a

chance of working if performed during the first ten minutes or even during the

middle of the class period.Returning to the question of subjectivity as a resource for resistance, it

should be clear that the kinds of social rewards and threats of exclusion that

encourage a subject to willingly subject themselves to the dictates of a given

position and its appropriate form are, essentially, spatial strategies of power.

The capacity to be recognized within a space of discourse and the threat of be-

ing erased from this space, or at least censured within it, are clearly the kinds

of relations that are involved in the maintenance of proper spaces. While

tactics provide one means for resisting the propriety of proper spacethrough

the exploitation of that moment when the strategic eye of power is turned else-

where or the stable rhythms of a readable space are momentarily disruptedthe

tactic does not adequately explain the resources for resistance provided by the

multiplicity of subjectivity.Thus, I will suggest as a friendly amendment the addition of the rhetori-

cal maneuverto de Certeaus conception of strategies and tactics. Paralleling

de Certeau, the rhetorical maneuver is a calculated action determined by the

multiplicity of possible subjectivities,11and can be defined as: the articulation

of an inappropriate alternate form of subjectivity within an already defined

subject position.Unlike tactics, which gain validity through time, or strategies,

which gain validity through space, the rhetorical maneuver gains its validity

from the multiplicity of subject forms and the disruptive potential inherent in

articulating an inappropriate subjectivity. I chose maneuver in order to parallel

de Certeaus terms and to capture the movement or procedure intended as a

skillful or shrewd step toward some objective12and add the term rhetorical

because the inappropriate subjectivity must be articulated.

This notion of articulation is borrowed from Laclau and Mouffe, who

define it as practices that establish relations among elements such that their


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identity is modifi

ed as a result of the articulatory practice (1985, 105). Herethe elements being modified begin with the types of discourse appropriate to a

subject positionas defined by strategic, spatial relationswith the potential

to further modify the constraining spatial relations of the discourse formations

themselves. Thus, the rhetorical maneuver involves the articulation of a subject

form that is inappropriate. It is worth stressing here that, in this context, the

notion of appropriate or inappropriate is defined by the spatial strategies

of a given discourse formation and it is important to recognize that propriety

is another point of identification through which subject form is tied to subject

position. There may be, however, instances in which these limits of positional

propriety run counter to the interests of the person occupying that position.

Hence, from a resistant standpoint, inappropriate discourses will, likely, be

the most useful and effective type of discourse.Analytically, this sense of the inappropriateness of a given subject form

may not be as immediately identifiable. As Ill discuss in more detail later, some

discourse formations may provide a considerable amount of latitude concerning

ones subject form, while others may provide a fairly circumscribed set of pos-

sibilities. For critics seeking to examine an instance of a rhetorical maneuver,

the question of the propriety of a given subject form can only be determined by

examining the history of that given subject positionin terms of the rewards

and punishments afforded to previous utterancesand by attending to the kinds

of reactions a given maneuver provokes.

In Figure 2, I suggest the ways that the rhetorical maneuver parallels the

tactic while remaining a distinct action. Beginning in a position in which the

desires of the actor are constrained by their subject position (hence a poor fit)(I), the actor again utilizes memory (II), but here it is not a recollection towards

opportunistic foresight but of past/alternate subject forms embodied in previ-

ous subject positions. This alternate subject form is then articulated, which

creates a point of disunity within the subject speaking position (III), resulting

in the displacement of the speaking subject (IV) andpotentiallythe regula-

tory spatial relations that constrain that subject position. Or, to return to my

mundane example, the student-as-student is in a weak position to achieve his

desired results (I: less fit), and re-calls the alternate subject form of impending

fatherhood (II: more memory). Upon articulating the discourse of this alternative

subject form, his position of student-as-student becomes less unified through

the introduction of student-as-father (III), resulting in a displacement of his

regular subject position andat least momentarilythe strategic discourse

regularly directed at him (IV).


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In seeking to conceptualize the maneuver in ways parallel to de Certeausnotion of tactic, I have utilized the same quadrant configuration, with one notable

change. Where de Certeau divided Space and Time along the vertical axis, I have

divided SpaceSubject Position and SubjectivitySubject Form. Thus, strategic

spatial relations provide a subject position and an appropriate subject form,

but at the moment of articulation, the subject may choose an alternative form,

one that is inappropriate and, therefore, disruptive.

As with the tactic, the rhetorical maneuver can be thought of as mov-

ing through four quadrants. The first movementthe recognition of a poor fit

between desire and the constraints of the proper subject positionoccupies the

quadrant of Space/Being. Interestingly, this is the same quadrant from which

the tactic originates and, thus, suggests that tactics and maneuvers bear a close

relationship in the sense that ones subject position is in some way inadequate

to ones purposes. The second movementthe utilization of memory to recall

alternate forms of subjectivityoccupies the quadrant of Subject/Invisible

MANEUVER

SPACE SUBJECTIVITY

Subject Position Subject Form

I) less II) more

FIT MEMORY

BEING INVISIBLE

OPERATING VISIBLE

IV) more III) less

DISPLACEMENT UNITY

MANEUVER

SPACE SUBJECTIVITY

Subject Position Subject Form

I) less II) more

FIT MEMORY

BEING INVISIBLE

OPERATING VISIBLE

IV) more III) less

DISPLACEMENT UNITY

Figure 2. The rhetorical maneuver.


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because it is the surreptitious re/collection of inappropriate, alternate subjectforms. The third movementthe articulation of the discourse of the inappropri-

ate subject formprovides a spectacular dissolution of the apparent unity of a

subject position and, thus, occupies the quadrant of Subject/Visible. The final

movementthe effect of the dis-unifying, inappropriate subject form upon

the place of the subject position within the broader formation of spatial rela-

tionsoccupies the quadrant of Space/Operating as it is here that the modifica-

tion of the strategically positioned subject may occur.

While good timing may increase the effect of displacement, the key to

the rhetorical maneuvers validity is its deployment of discourse from an alter-

native, and thus inappropriate, subject form. There is no reason to believe that

the introduction of inappropriate subject-discourse is necessarily dependent on

a particular moment. Indeed, to the contrary, where de Certeau makes the pointthat a tactic is dependent on an occasionthe occasion is taken advantage of,

not created (1984, 86)the maneuver has the potential to create an occasion

through the displacement of strategic relations of subject positions. The articu-

lation of an inappropriate subject form challenges those points of identification

through which a subject is rendered intelligible and identifiablea moment of

dis-identification in Butlers termand, as such, threatens to displace those

strategic relations deployed to maintain intelligibility and order. It is not difficult

to recognize both the commonness of such a maneuver and its potential benefits

for those seeking to redefine their place in a broader formation of discourse.

Coming out as gay or lesbian, while undoubtedly fraught with difficulties,

may, potentially, create an occasion in which relationships (familial, profes-

sional, social) can be redefined in a way perceived as beneficial to the personmaking the maneuver. While timing may be a factor, the rhetorical maneuver

itself is in no way dependent on a prior occasion and, thus, is distinct from de

Certeaus notion of a tactic.

Beyond being theoretically distinct from the tactic and the strategy, the

rhetorical maneuver provides a means for conceptualizing the ways that the

processes of subjectionthe strategic ways in which we are interpellated into

a subject position and the means by which we are disciplined into being within

that position via a particular subject formalso provide resources for disrupt-

ing these processes. Subject positions, thus, must be thought of as ambivalent,

as providing a limiting form of agency but an agency that can be used against

the very strategic relations of power that authorize it. As Butler conceives this,

Power acts on the subject in at least two ways: first, as what makes the subject

possible, the condition of its possibility and its formative occasion, and second,

as what is taken up and reiterated in the subjects own acting (1997, 14). Each


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reiteration of the subject, however, is not identical to its predecessors and theseshifting iterations of the subjects form provide the means by which the relations

of subjectivation can be resisted, reversed, and transformed.

Implications

By introducing the notion of a rhetorical maneuver into the theoretical

and critical language related to subjectivity, of course, I hope to do more than

merely amend the works of Michel de Certeau. If the concept has any purchase,

then it should provide some new avenues towards thinking about those points

of slippage between the positioning of the subject and the discursive formsthrough which the subject acts within those positions. In the final section of

this essay, I sketch out at least three of these potential avenues: agency, artistry,

and memory.

One of the most vexing problems raised by poststructural theories of the

subject has been the question of agency, a question that has received consider-

able recent attention within American rhetorical studies.13At the heart of this

problem is the question of how a subject who is both positioned and formed by

relations of power can acquire an agency that can be turned against this power.

The movement of a rhetorical maneuver suggests this potential agency is located

in the space in between the subject position and the subject form. The subject

may be positioned by relations of power, but once so positioned they may choose

to risk performing an alternative and inappropriate form of subjectivity. By

choosing to speak differently than the form prescribed by a subject position, the

subject invokes the agency provided by a position but invokes it as a reaction

against the contours of that position. Butler approaches the same problem when

contending, Agency exceeds the power by which it is enabled. One might say

that the purposes of power are not always the purposes of agency (1997, 15).

The rhetorical maneuver is one mechanism through which the purposes of

agency are able to escape the purposes of power. A conception of the rhe-

torical maneuver may provide a critical lens through which this play of agency

against power might be more clearly understood.

The agency acquired in the rhetorical maneuver, of course, also entails

a degree of risk. Some maneuvers, perhaps like that of my nervous student,

hold little potential risk while others, perhaps coming out as gay or lesbian,

may hold considerably greater dangers. In part, the degree of risk seems tied

to the apparent permanence of the power relations which serve to position a


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subject. Coming out among a group of close and liberal-minded friends mighthold comparatively little risk, where coming out to fundamentalist relatives

may hold considerably greater risk. In both instances, a rhetorical maneuver

is being performedan articulation of an alternative subject form within an

established subject positionhowever, the distinction is of the rigidity with

which the subject form is perceived as inextricably tied to the subject position.

It might also be worth thinking of subject positions as being either tighter

or looser depending on the acceptable variance in subject forms allowed.

Certainly there are some positions that we occupy that afford us a great deal

of latitude, or looseness, in the ways we perform in that position, while others

do not. In turn, it seems likely that the degree to which the agency achieved by

a rhetorical maneuver is able to affect the relations of power is also correlated

to this sense of rigidityor tightnessand risk: the more rigid the positioningrelations of power are then both the more risk entailed and the more potential

agency for displacing those relations. Agency, therefore, must be conceived

not only in terms of power and the resistance to power, but also in terms of the

risks entailed by invoking it.14

The performance of this reconfiguring entails a kind of turning or twist-

ing of ones self against the defined contours of ones position and this kind of

turning seems to be the essential character of a rhetorical maneuver. The ap-

propriately positioned subject embodies one particularand sanctionedform,

but in the invisible realm of the subjects being, she also contains the memory

of alternative forms of being, which can be thought of as hidden facets of the

self. The rhetorical maneuver, thus, is a kind of turning of the subject in which

the turn reveals one of these unexpected alternative forms. This turn, in turn,can be thought of as twisting the strategic relations of power that positioned the

subject in the first place and, in that subsequent twisting, creating the potential

for a transformation or reversal of those power relations.15

This notion of the turn, or trope, suggests some of the important rhetorical

dimensions of this movement. At one level, returning to the previous discus-

sion of risk and agency, Hayden White points out that the trope is in essence

a deviation from customary language and this deviance is a crucial element in

the workings of a trope. As Nietzsche explores in his On Truth and Lies in a

Non-Moral Sense, once the deviance of a trope has been lost, its potential for

inventiveness has also been lost. Humans are able to live in a secure world of

stability only by allowing ourselves to forget the deviance of our metaphors and

by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creatingsubject (2001, 1176).

Rhetorical maneuvers, as a kind of trope, then will also become com-

monplace as the successful maneuver transforms the nature of the subject posi-

tion against and within which it was employed. The transformative potential of


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such a maneuver is related, at least in part, to the amount of deviation from theprescribed form of that position. And, in turn, its success is measured by the

eventual acceptance of the new subject form as acceptable, even typical.

Conceiving of the rhetorical maneuver as a kind of trope also, of course,

suggests that it be understood in terms of a kind of rhetorical artistry. All turns

are not equal and one of the ways they can be distinguished is in terms of a

kind of aesthetic dimension recognized as a kind of rhetorical artistry. Guattaris

palette, one might say, still relies on the artistic ability of the subject wielding

the brush. In this regard, Bieseckers urging that rhetorical scholars recognize

the canon of style as crucially related to the interplay of subjectivity, power

and knowledge is echoed here. The rhetorical maneuver involves not simply

a turn, but a turn in the form of being, which Foucault thought of as a kind of

aesthetics of existence; a continual re-crafting of the self. In this regard, stylecan be seen as embedded in the classical concern for ethosthe presentation

of self to others.16Seen in this way, the rhetorical maneuver involves trading

in ones establishedor positionedethos for one that is not already accepted

within a particular space. The introduction of this new subject form involves

a deeply artistic ethos, to use Aristotles term, in that the introduced, inappro-

priate subject form relies purely on its artistic rendering and not on any prior

expectations or assumptions.

There are numerous examples of this kind of artistic movement of ones

ethos within the realm of public address. Richard Nixon effected this kind of

move during the Checkers Speech in which his position as political-figure

was rearticulated through his invocation of the subject form of humble family

man and protective father who had no intention of returning his childrens cockerspaniel. A similar, albeit somewhat less effective, maneuver was attempted by

Bill Clinton during his initial response to the Lewinsky hearings. In attempt-

ing to reposition himself as a wounded private man the president declared,

Now this matter is between me, the two people I love mostmy wife and our

daughterand our God. I must put it right and I am prepared to do whatever

it takes to do so. Nothing is more important to me personally. But it is private

and I intend to reclaim my family life for my family. Its nobodys business but

ours. Even presidents have private lives (1998). In both instances, political

figures maneuvered their subjectivity and sought to utilize their private/famil-

ial subject forms as a means of gaining political advantage. In Nixons case,

the maneuver was markedly successful; his detailed description of his humble

background and loving family saved him the vice presidency and salvaged his

political career. In Clintons case, his brief, terse remarks to the nation did little

to spare him the ramifications of the Lewinsky scandal or the impeachment that

would come only a few months later. While there are, undoubtedly, numerous


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factors related to the success and failure of these two addresses, it seems likelythat the rhetorical artistry with which each sought to reconfigure their public

ethos is one.

Finally, in addition to the rhetorical maneuvers political and critical

implications there is at least one potentially interesting avenue for theoretical

exploration: the relationship between memory and resistance. Memory occu-

pies the crucial second step of the rhetorical maneuver and it is this sense of

memory that deserves additional attention. As an initial step in conceiving of

this resistant memory it is worth recalling Foucaults notion of counter-memory.

For Foucault, counter-memory is an utterly different type of historical gesture,

one that separates occurrences from the assumed metaphysical underpinnings

of meaning, identity, and telos. One of Foucaults senses of counter-memory is

worth quoting at length here, where he notes the way history is used in:

the systematic dissociation of identity. This is necessary because this rather weak

identity, which we attempt to support and to unify under a mask, is in itself only

a parody: it is plural; countless spirits dispute its possession; numerous systems

intersect and compete. The study of history makes one happy, unlike the metaphy-

sicians, to posses in oneself not an immortal soul but many mortal ones. (1977,

quoting Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow, 1880, 17).

The memory involved in the rhetorical maneuver resembles Foucaults

sense of this genealogical counter-memory in that it relies on the recollection of

the multiple subject forms derived from the multiple subject positions a person

has occupied and that this recollection functions to dissipate the illusion of a

unified subjectivity (or, in Nietzsches sense, the singular immortal soul.)

Foucaults discussion of genealogical counter-memory, of course, is in

terms of a broader mode of social critique. There is, however, a related concept

from Foucaults later work that is more focused on the notion of individual

subjectivity. The notion is thought, of which he explains: Thought is free-

dom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself

from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem (1997, 117).

As Ive discussed more fully elsewhere (2002), thought occurs at those points

of contradiction between overlapping senses of identity and is crucial in the

process of inventing new discourses.As with the genealogical counter-memory,

thought disrupts existing notions of identity, but, in addition, thought entails

the possibility of constructing new forms of subjectivity and, in so doing, new

contours in a subject position.

The notion of a rhetorical maneuver provides a way of conceiving the

relationship between counter-memorythe disruptive process of recollecting


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alternative subject positions and discoursesand thoughtthe process of prob-lematizing ones subject position and inventing new subject forms. By conceiving

the movement between the (counter)memory of alternative subject forms and the

disruptive articulation of these forms, the rhetorical maneuver suggests the way

counter-memories can be transformed into an inventional moment from which

disruptive discourses might emanate.17Additionally, the rhetorical maneuver

adds to Foucaults two concepts the vital element of a performative articulation

and the potential for rhetorical intervention and invention.

Conclusion

The tension between the fluidity of the human subject and the constraining

nature of the subject position has important implications for our understanding

of the nature of subjectivity and its processes of becoming in the world. This

tension is not solely a matter of the theoretical nature of the subject but also

bears importantly on the practices of the subject as it seeks to negotiate the

space in between its multiplicity and its position within discourses that seek to

fix it. I have introduced the notion of a rhetorical maneuver in order to elaborate

upon one particular procedure through which this tension becomes a resource

by which the subject may redirect the agency of its position against the very

relations of power/knowledge that seek to position it.

Rhetorical maneuvers, as conceived, seem to be remarkably pervasive

actions: when a person asks to leave work early to pick up a sick child or in-

vokes their professional expertise in a family gathering or articulates their ethnic

heritage in a political debate. Each of these instances involves the invocation

of some alternate subject form within a formation of discourse that positions

one differently (i.e., as worker, or son, or citizen). Sometimes these maneuvers

become so commonplace that they become part of the expected form itselffor

instance, the Family and Medical Leave Act has institutionalized the familial

responsibilities of the worker. At other times, however, the rhetorical maneuver

may more dramatically deviate from the prescribed form and, in so doing, afford

both more risk and more potential for disruption and change.

As a critical concept, the notion of a rhetorical maneuver suggests ex-

amination of precisely those moments when the individual subject invokes

some alternate subject form and in violating the limits of their prescribed

position seeks to perform differently. The seemingly ceaseless turning of the

human subject within and against the contours of its various positions speaks,


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ultimately, not only to the nature of the subject but also to its seemingly end-less potential for drawing upon the resources of memory, agency, artistry and

rhetorical invention.18

Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Syracuse University

Notes

1. Foucault conceptualized his later work as attending to the arts of existence, which he un-derstood as those intentional and voluntary action by which men not only set themselves rules ofconduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, andto make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets stylistic criteria(1985, 1011).

2. The debates over recognition as a political strategy have been driven largely by the relationshipbetween political recognition and pursuits of resource redistribution. This question has been mostdirectly pressed in on-going debates between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth (see Fraser [1996],and Fraser and Honneth [2003]) as well as Fraser and Judith Butler (see Butler [1998] and Fraser[1998]). The present essays introduction of the rhetorical maneuver seems to have implicationsfor the issue of recognition and mis-recognition but the depth and complexity of these debatesnecessitates that these implications be more fully explored in some subsequent discussion. 3. Burkes notion of conventional form seems most applicable here. On this form he notes,We might note, in conventional form, the element of categorical expectancy. That is, whereasthe anticipations and gratification of progressive and repetitive form arise during the process ofreading, the expectations of conventional form may be anterior to the reading (1953, 12728). 4. See Spivak (1993) and Butler (1993, 37). 5. On this point, conversation analysts have produced interesting and provocative work onthe on-going process of positioning within conversation and further suggested the importance of

propriety within these positions. On this point see Davies and Harr (1999). 6. It is also worth noting here that for the purpose of the present essay I am bracketing Butlerslarger project of interrogating the space in between Freud and Foucault. Butlers work in The Psychic

Life of Power is focused on the interior nature of the subjects desire of subjection. My purpose hereis the ways that subjection is reconfigured rhetorically. While there is clearly an important pointof connection between this reconfiguring and the desire for change, in the present essay I can onlygesture towards this connection. 7. De Certeaus work features in a number of recent rhetorical studies essays, such as Bates(2003), Bergman (2003), Erickson (1998), Hartnett, (1998), Nakayama and Krizek (1995), andStormer (2002).

8. De Certeau seems to have conceived at least some of his work in opposition to Foucault; seede Certeau (1984, esp. chap. 4; 1998, esp. sec. 4). 9. Indeed, the beginnings of the present essay arose from the ways that Thomas Nakayamaand Robert Krizek utilized de Certeau in their essay on whiteness. The pervasive and anonymousauthority of whiteness was conceived in terms of de Certeaus notion of spatial strategy, a movethat seemed sensible. But, the resistant discourses of non-whites were conceived as tactics. Giventhe reliance of tactics on a notion of timing, this equation of racial discourses with tactics pointed,at least to me, to a theoretical failing in de Certeaus bifurcation of power and resistance based onspace and time. 10. It is worth noting here that the notion of a rhetorical maneuver also seems to rely heavily

on the broad kind of cunning intelligence embodied in mtis. Elsewhere in their discussion of thisGreek concept, Detienne and Vernant observe that, The many-coloured and shimmering natureof mtisis a mark of its kinship with the divided, shifting world of multiplicity in the midst ofwhich it operates and a bit later, Mtis is itself a power of cunning and deceit. It operates through


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disguise. In order to dupe its victims it assumes a form which masks, instead of revealing, its truebeing (1978, 21). 11. A close parallel to de Certeaus phrase (1984, 37). 12. See Websters New World Dictionary (1988, 821). 13. The question of agency was one major component of the 2003 Alliance of Rhetoric Societiesmeeting in Chicago. The wrangling over the relationship between agent, agency and subjectivityhas continued in productive and contentious ways. See Geisler (2004; 2005) and Lundberg andGunn (2005). 14. Butler puts the point eloquently: The subject is compelled to repeat the norms by which itis produced, but that repetition establishes a domain of risk, for if one fails to reinstate the normin the right way, one becomes subject to further sanction, one feels the prevailing conditions ofexistence threatened. And yet, without a repetition that risks lifein its current organizationhowmight we begin to imagine the contingency of that organization, and performatively reconfigure thecontours of the conditions of life? (1997, 29). 15. In her work, Butler also attends to the tropological nature of the subject but, as noted earlier,her attention is on the formation of the subject where my attention here is on the rhetorical perfor-mance of that turn. Butler emphasizes the turning inward or back upon ones self; my focus is onthe turning outwards of one of ones selves. 16. In regards to ethos, consider the ways that Foucault conceived of it as the practice of self onself (1994, 6). 17. It is worth noting here that this counter-memory need not be conceived as only that of anindividual but may also entail broader public countermemories by which a larger communityof individuals might draw upon their collective recollection of an alternate subject form. The link

between the rhetorical maneuver and the larger contours of public memory seems suggestive. 18. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2004 Rhetoric Society of America con-ference in Austin, Texas. The author would like to acknowledge the helpful suggestions of StephenBrowne, Bernadette Calafell, David DePew, Diane Grimes, Catherine Thomas, and Bradford Vivian,as well as the two anonymous reviewers.

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