Creating Rhetorical Subjectivities: Negotiating the Precarity of the Homo Oeconomicus in the Neoliberal Workplace

<p>The ubiquitous impact of the neoliberal economy on our everyday life leads to questions of rhetorical significance. This project strives to incorporate service labor experience as a source as well as an effect of rhetoric thereby embodying materialist notions of the body at the site of production. I explore neoliberal discourses through the phenomena of outsourcing and offshoring by interviewing service industry employees that have experienced job uncertainty within a Fortune 500 corporation. By studying narratives, this project explores how the material effects of rhetoric are able to determine discourses of power relating to production. Thus, this study questions the persuasive element of being a worker within the precarious and the flexible workspace. It also contends that rhetoric in this regard incorporates material effects upon the body of the worker. In essence, the materialist embodiment of neoliberal's immanence lies within rhetoric.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Rossman, Leslie Lynne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Josh Hanan, Ph.D.
• Christina Foust
• Bernadette M. Calafell

• Homo Oeconomicus
• Materialism
• Neoliberalism
• Offshoring
• Outsourcing
• Communication
• Economic Theory
• Speech and Rhetorical Studies

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-2240