Starke-Meyerring, Doreen

Part of the "Perspectives on Writing" series. This study follows a local environmental group as it shapes a civic identity, before and after a municipal election, towards taking up a speaking position within the participation framework of city governance. This is an exploration and analysis of the tense co-existence of conflicting, oppositional identities, of marginality and power, in the context of local environmental conflict. The central question revolves around how this local group participates in the construction of civic discourse and community knowledge to build its political capital, and how, at the same time, it retains its activist discourse and marginal identity. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to current interdisciplinary scholarship on the issue of public participation in government decision-making and discourse studies on marginal identities and identity development. In this context, it is an effort to provide an analysis of how discursive rhetorical strategy functions in civic identity development and how the management of available discursive resources can enable citizen participation without disabling an activist identity. --From first paragraph of book chapter.