The Rhetorical Legacy of Wangari Maathai

This book explores and honors the rhetorical legacy of Dr. Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Each chapter provides an analysis of Maathai's public advocacy as she attempted to persuade the world to provide greater protection of earth's habitats.

This book honors the advocacy of Dr. Wangari Maathai, acclaimed environmentalist and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. Dr. Maathai was a gifted orator who crafted messages that imagined new possibilities for human agency and social justice and who inspired action to protect our natural habitats. This collection explores the various strategies Maathai employed in her speeches to create memorable images and arguments for audiences in Kenya and around the world. Specifically, authors examine Maathai's use of storytelling, her creative use of metaphor and local cultural knowledge, and her use of sharp social-political analysis. Authors approach Maathai's rhetoric from both African and Western ways of knowing.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Wangari Maathai and Social Justice Advocacy

Alberto González, Eddah M. Mutua, and Anke Wolbert

Part I: Africa and the Rhetoric of the Green Belt Movement

Chapter One: Bantu Sociolinguistics in Wangari Maathai’s Peacebuilding Rhetoric

Kundai V. Chirindo

Chapter Two: Envisioning Peace and Reconciliation for Kenya: Wangari Maathai’s 2008 Peace Tent Opening Ceremony Address

Anke Wolbert

Chapter Three: The Rhetorical Potency of Storytelling: The Narrative Role of the Hummingbird in the Green Belt Movement

Franklin Nii Amankwah Yartey

Chapter Four: Heroic Transverser: A Rhetorical Analysis of Representations of Wangari Maathai

Wanjiru G. Mbure

Chapter Five: Wangari Maathai’s Rhetorical Vision: Empowerment through Education

Ahmet Atay

Chapter Six: The Green Belt Movement and Rhetoric of African Development Communication

Stella-Monica Mpande and Cleophas Tauri Muneri

Part II: Planting the Future: Sustaining Agency in and beyond the Green Belt Movement

Chapter Seven: The Rhetorical Significance of Maathai's Environmental Advocacy to Critical Intercultural Communication and Black Feminisms

Rachel Alicia Griffin and Gloria Nziba Pindi

Chapter Eight: Wangari Maathai and Mottainai: Gifting "Cultural Appropriation" with Cultural Empowerment

Etsuko Kinefuchi

Chapter Nine: Daughter of the Soil: Wangari Maathai’s Rhetorical Vision of Environmental Justice and Reform

Reynaldo Anderson and D.L. Stephenson

Chapter Ten: Growing the Next Generation: The Sustainability of Wangari Maathai’s Rhetoric of Environmentalism

Ellen W. Gorsevski

Chapter Eleven: Planting the Future: The Spiritual Legacy of Wangari Maathai

Eddah M. Mutua and Susan M. Kilonzo

References

Index

About the Editors

About the Contributors