
Hello,
Originally from Manchester, England, I find myself in Wilberforce, Ohio, via Hong Kong, Colorado, and Washington DC. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at Central State University.
I take a qualitative approach to my scholarship and harness a wide range of data, including interviews, political documents, media texts, and archival documents, to explore questions about the nature and functions of rhetorical challenges to structures of dominance. The overarching question that guides my research concerns how rhetors challenge and disrupt hegemonic structures and practices in order to generate change.
My work on the rhetorical mechanisms involved in Hong Kong’s simultaneous decolonization from Great Britain and recolonization by China is one way in which I address this question. In my doctoral dissertation and previous publications, I have explored how Hong Kong protesters challenge the Communist Party of China’s hegemonic influence using strategies that reflect varying protest ideologies—strategies that are enacted through mechanisms such as the creative performance of national identity and the use of transportation infrastructure, the urban environment, gender constructions, and mundane items and rituals. I also explore how the different ideologies that undergird protest strategies produce particular outcomes for rhetors.