This special episode interviews Dr. Kefaya Diab, a Jordanian scholar of Palestinian origin who is postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University in the United States. She discusses her research about the role of affect in activist work–a phenomenon she terms “a sense of agency”–and provides examples from the Tunisian Arab Spring and from academia itself.
We then ask Kefaya about her response to seeing that our podcasting team was composed of all white or white-passing members. Collin apologizes for complacent recruiting practices that made this podcast complicit with the white supremacy that is still so prevalent in our field. And Kefaya concludes by offering important suggestions about how we can build an inclusive podcasting team and advance antiracist work in our field moving forward.
This special episode is a part of The Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival 2020, organized by Charles Woods, which has this theme: “The Digital Future of Rhetoric and Composition.”
Kefaya Diab holds a Ph.D. in rhetoric and professional communication. She currently serves as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University (2018–2021). In her research, she engages rhetorical theory and cultural (digital) rhetorics in theorizing activist movements in the Arab world. In teaching, she adopts labor-based learning contracts and a critical pedagogy that invites students to utilize digital rhetorics and composition as tools to promote social justice.
Global Rhetorics
Global Rhetorics