Date of Award
2025-05-01
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English Rhetoric and Composition
Advisor(s)
Lucia Dura
Abstract
This dissertation examines the representational strategies used by six aid organizations operating in Nepal, focusing on how they discursively construct socio-economic realities and power relations between themselves and their stakeholders. Employing a methodological framework that integrates Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and visual analysis within a broader content analysis approach, the study critically assesses website artifacts from Save the Children, Plan International, Oxfam, Care Nepal, ActionAid, and Christian Aid, along with insights from the writing instructors who participated in the study. Grounded in anti-essentialist theoretical perspectives drawn from Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Antonio Gramsci, and Stuart Hall, the research reveals that the aid discourse constructed by these organizations centers on influencing and persuading Western donors through hegemonic narratives of scarcity and vulnerability-narratives that often undermine the dignity and privacy of the stakeholders. Such representational rhetoric promotes the stakeholders' dependency on aid organizations, reproduces existing inequalities, and obscures the strengths of local agencies, thereby legitimizing the role of international aid as an essential solution. By amplifying stakeholders' problems and offering simplistic solutions, these narratives sustain global power asymmetries and perpetuate the West's paternalistic ideology. Extending this decolonial rhetorical analysis to writing pedagogy, the dissertation proposes incorporating representation-related visual artifacts as a critical tool for enhancing students' rhetorical analysis skills and developing their critical awareness of representation, identity, power, and discourse in writing classrooms. This study contributes to scholarship on representational rhetoric, visual rhetoric, and writing pedagogy in the context of Global South-Global North relations.
Language
en
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
Copyright Date
2025-05
File Size
186 p.
File Format
application/pdf
Rights Holder
Hem Lal Pandey
Recommended Citation
Pandey, Hem Lal, "Interrogating Representational Rhetoric of Aid Discourse: Artifacts Analysis and Pedagogical Implications" (2025). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 4432.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/4432