Date of Award

2026-08-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

English Rhetoric and Composition

Advisor(s)

Lucía Durá

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how institutional communication, state bureaucracy, and Indigenous sovereignty intersect within Rhetoric and Writing Studies (RWS) and Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). Current TPC research increasingly focuses on social justice; however, the field still lacks ethical frameworks to deal with the complicated dynamics of transnational Indigenous Environmental Justice Communication (IEJC). This study addresses this gap by examining how two distinct Indigenous communities - the Tharus of Chitwan, Nepal, and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Tigua Indians of El Paso, Texas - communicatively navigate, contest, and resist state environmental policies.

Grounded in decolonial Distant Comparativism, Mestiza Consciousness, Rhetoric of Silence, and nepantla, this qualitative, constructivist study analyzes two main institutional sites: national environmental policy texts (U.S.'s NEPA 1969/2025 and Nepal's EPA 2019) and physical museum exhibitions (the Tharu Cultural Museum and Research Center, Nepal, and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Cultural Center, United States). Grounded theory coding reveals how state policies use a neutral, clinical language that creates a regulatory erasure, reducing Indigenous sovereignty to a basic stakeholder status. Likewise, museum exhibits use spatial containment and temporal distancing to romanticize Indigenous ecological practices, silencing modern resource and land claims.

To counter these shared dynamics of eco-bureaucratic oppression, this research formalizes the I.N.D.I.G.E.N.O.U.S. framework for IEJC. Consisting of ten actionable, decolonial pillars, the framework gives RWS and TPC scholars and practitioners guidance on non-extractive tribal-state partnerships, technical writing pedagogy, and relational accountability in global environmental governance.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

170 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Shankar Paudel

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