Exploring Resistance from a Rhetorical Perspective

Contemporary accounts of resistance at work have emphasized processes of identity construction and regulation (e.g. Alvesson and Willmott 2002). Case study examinations (e.g. Knights and McCabe 2000; Ezzamel et al. 2001) have been recently extended by detailed studies of the operation of discourse at the level of talk (e.g. Dick and Cassell 2002). This paper adds to these recent accounts by providing an analysis of arguments for and against a technological change project in a UK public sector organization. The objective is to demonstrate how such arguments are constructed to achieve particular interpretations of reality while resisting others (i.e. the use of persuasive rhetoric). In the examples analysed here, rhetorical strategies included: producing a range of identities for ‘the resistant’, IT support staff and others; disputing the ‘realness’ of people, things and processes (e.g. information, participation); producing and negotiating various boundaries (e.g. we/other, production worker/support staff); and drawing on local and broader cultural discourse. In this example, we also see how ‘subjectivity’, ‘agency’ and (political) ‘structures’ may serve as rhetorical resources. This paper argues that the focus on counter-argument (as resistance) demonstrates the disputative, politically oriented and dialogical nature of identity construction.