Toward a rhetoric of care: tracing the rhetoric of a homeless service center via participatory critical rhetoric and narrative

For this thesis I volunteered my time at Poverello House, the largest organization currently serving the homeless population in my hometown of Fresno, California. Engaging with the scholarship on rhetorical ethnography, rhetorical field methods, participatory critical rhetoric, and procedural rhetoric, I analyzed the procedures and the rhetoric I experienced as a new volunteer in this organization. Using ethnographic field notes, I assembled the “text” and analyzed the themes present in the rhetoric along with reflecting on the potential impact of that rhetoric on the communities served. In the spirit of the immanent politics that animate participatory critical rhetoric, I grounded my research in care ethics. Ultimately, I aimed to provide recommendations for what a rhetoric of care could look like in service situations, derived from my experiences with the organization, extant scholarship, and my analytical work. Thus, I argue that Poverello House – through their organizational documents and the in situ rhetorical landscape encountered by volunteers and clients – employs rhetoric in ways that both align with and depart from the framework of care ethics. They frame themselves, their work, their labor force, and the clients they serve in ways that serve to control and structure volunteer subject positions and elicit generous responses from the community.