Disputatious Rhetoric and Political Change: The Case of the Greek Anti-Mining Movement
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321715624425 |
| Author | Sophia Hatzisavvidou |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
624425PSX0010.1177/0032321715624425Political StudiesHatzisavvidou
research-article2016
Article
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(1) 215 –230
Disputatious Rhetoric and
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
Political Change: The Case
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0032321715624425
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
of the Greek Anti-Mining
Movement
Sophia Hatzisavvidou
Abstract
Rhetorical scholarship has significantly contributed to our understanding of the role of
confrontation in engendering social and political change, but it traditionally over-emphasises
its moral aspect, which results in the simplification of public issues and the radicalisation of
identities. This article introduces a distinct form of political rhetoric and analyses the rhetorical
conventions that constitute it. Drawing material from the anti-mining movement formed in the
region of Halkidiki, Greece, the article proposes that disputatious rhetoric, through employing
the techniques of parrēsia, melodrama and antithesis, proves pertinent to the articulation
of dissent, the formation of collective subjects, and the projection of a counter-hegemonic
discourse which challenges dominant neoliberal practices and discourses. Disputatious rhetoric,
the article concludes, encodes the possibility of social and political change, not least because it
impacts on the meaning attributed to actions and prevents the solidification of a single narrative
or discourse as commonsensical.
Keywords
rhetoric, disputation, political change, social movements, parresia
Accepted: 2 November 2015
Introduction
Those who study public discourse have long pointed to the connection between rhetoric
and change. Kenneth Burke, for example, identifies as the basic function of rhetoric ‘the
use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human
agents’ (Burke, 1969: 41). In a similar way, Lloyd Bitzer affirms rhetoric as ‘a mode of
altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of
Department of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Sophia Hatzisavvidou, Department of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross,
London SE14 6NW, UK.
Email: s.chatzisavvidou@gold.ac.uk
216
Political Studies 65 (1)
discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action’ (Bitzer,
1968: 4). Indeed, rhetoric in describing reality also intervenes in it, enriching and shaping
an audience’s perception of a situation or issue and inviting it to respond to them. Through
‘proving, pleasing, and persuading’ (Finlayson, 2014), rhetoric negotiates preferences
and judgements, transforms attitudes, and inspires action. Rhetoric is constitutive of
change, because it institutes new meanings and perceptions.
Naturally, then, social movements as collective agents that seek or resist change
have attracted the interest of rhetoricians, particularly in the United States where since
the 1960s scholars have systematically explored the rhetorical strategies employed in
the discourse of social movements (e.g. Cathcart, 1978, 1980, 1983; Condit, 1990;
Griffin, 1952, 1969; McGee, 1980, 1983; Simons, 1970, 1972; Smith and Windes,
1975; Wilkinson, 1976; Zarefsky, 1980). These earlier explorations inform contempo-
rary works of the rhetoric of movements that aspire to bring about or resist change
related to environmental, social and political problems (e.g. DeLuca, 2001; Lakoff,
2011; Peeples, 2008; Peeples et al., 2014; Pezzulo, 2001; Schwarze, 2003, 2006;
Sovacool, 2008). At the centre of this scholarship is the issue of how the tactical use of
symbols – words, signs, images, bodies – contributes to our perception of reality and
invites us to act accordingly (Morris and Browne, 2001: 1). The rhetoric of activism,
what Morris and Browne call ‘the management of symbolic resources’, is bound up
with calls for and attempts to generate social change.
Employing tools from the theory of rhetorical analysis, this article outlines a form of
public discourse which is associated with resistance against the hegemony of neoliberal
modes of organisation and production, as well as with the effectuation of change, affirm-
ing that this is a process that takes place amidst conditions of confrontation. The article
suggests that although rhetoricians have previously associated social movements with
confrontation, still we lack a coherent and more specifically political understanding of the
sort of rhetoric employed by political collectivities that seek to contest dominant neolib-
eral framings and narratives. This is the form of rhetoric that this article identifies as
disputatious rhetoric and that it suggests is exemplified in the case of the Greek anti-
mining movement. The latter not only expresses dissent against a particular economic
intervention in the natural and social environment of the region of Halkidiki in Northern
Greece, but it also features the political nature of the controversy. Furthermore, it influ-
ences the meaning attributed to the practice of investing in extraction activities by a mul-
tinational corporation and it configures the public’s perception of the issue, invoking
change in public discourse and consciousness.
The article opens with a brief introduction of the anti-mining movement in the forest
of Skouries and continues with a discussion of disputatious rhetoric, which is defined as
the form of rhetoric that not only expresses dissent against a hegemonic constituency, but
also registers in public discourse a viewpoint that departs from the dominant neoliberal
one, disrupting its pre-eminence as common sense. The analysis shows how by employ-
ing three rhetorical conventions, namely parrēsia, melodrama and antithesis, the Skouries
movement has influenced the public’s understanding of the need to ‘protect foreign
investments at any cost’ in order to achieve growth, even at the expense of social and
natural environments. Even though the outcome of an attempt at persuasion remains
always dependent upon structures and mechanisms that surpass the constituencies that
pursue it, the study of disputatious rhetoric casts analytic light on the processes of fram-
ing and forwarding arguments for social and political change, and it also points to the role
of rhetoric in mediating between structure and agency.
Hatzisavvidou
217
#Skouries
The economic crisis in Greece provided the opportunity to the governing coalition of Nea
Demokratia and Pasok to regulate environmental legislation in order to facilitate activi-
ties such as mining and fracking, even in areas close to protected natures. Under the
rubric ‘protection of foreign investment at all costs’ (Granitsas, 2013), the austerity-
imposing governing coalition encouraged and facilitated the implementation of large-
scale projects that, allegedly, would raise revenue and boost the economy – and change
the Greek landscape in unprecedented and irreversible ways. The region of Halkidiki is
one of the places where controversy over this issue emerged and escalated, when a mining
exploration and extraction project started. This is the site where the anti-mining (or anti-
gold) movement, a resistance movement against the construction and operation of mines
and processing plants in the Skouries forest, focuses its action, although it has developed
links with other movements both in Greece and abroad.
The project is collectively known as ‘Kassandra mines’ and includes the construction
of an open pit gold mine in the Skouries site, on Kakavos mountain, as well as under-
ground mines and processing plants in the Olympiada and Stratoni sites. Eldorado Gold
Corporation, a multinational company based in Canada, is the major investor of the pro-
ject and has undertaken its development and operation under highly dubious circum-
stances. Mining activities are not unknown to the residents of the area; from antiquity
through to the Ottoman era, the mining sites in Northern Halkidiki were the main source
of income for the majority of the locals of the so-called ‘Mademohoria’ (a complex of 12
villages in the area). While during the twentieth-century small-scale mining projects
flourished, more recently worries related to the intensification of mining activities sparked
strong reactions amongst local residents and environmental groups. As a result, TVX
Hellas, the sister-company of the Canadian TVX Gold that had carried out the activities
since 1995, declared bankruptcy and activities stopped in 2002.
The events that rallied the anti-mining movement began with the transfer of Kassandra
Mines to the newly created company Hellas Gold in 2003. As Greece stumbled into reces-
sion, a large mining investment project started when exploitation rights for more than
300 thousand acres of land were transferred to the Vancouver-based company Eldorado
Gold, fuelling objection to the plans to turn Halkidiki from a unique protected site of
nature into a site of intensive mining activities. The notorious transfer procedure that has
resulted in low revenues for the state, along with the experience of past mining operations
in the form of boom-and-bust enterprises that ‘left behind piles of sandy gray tailings and
[a] yellow sea’, as well as fears for the overall environmental degradation of the area,
sparked division between those who oppose the project and those who believe that the
investment will fund valuable jobs in the crisis-laden villages...
To continue reading
Request your trial