- Rhetoric is complex and relational: “Rhetoric itself is complex. It travels – from people to texts through people and then through texts and more in sometimes extensive networks, networks framed by institutions and infrastructures. Any rhetoric is relational at its core. This means that rhetoric is messy and cannot be clearly defined through an assembly of texts. We should not feel comfortable relying upon textual analyses to make claims about culture and how things mean” (209).
- Rhetoric is enacted: Rhetoric “has to be enacted. If we want to truly understand and make claims about such a rhetoric, we have to venture into sites that are ancillary to [the site in which the texts exist and the authors who created those texts] where we see the rhetoric in action. These are spaces where humans and nonhumans come together through relationship practices that join people, places and things” (196).
- Rhetoric involves location: “Rhetoric happens is spaces; spaces provide affordances or limitations for rhetoric happening…Institutions are constructed by buildings and by people, and also by policies, processes, procedures, and other acts” (199). Put another way, “the practices of sustainability largely revolves around location. And location is relational of values, meanings, and practices” (201).
Culture
The authors “refus[e] to see culture as contained within artifacts, practices, or ideas. Instead, [they] situate artifacts, practices, and ideas as producers of culture in relation to other artifacts, practices, and ideas, within complex infrastructures and instructional spaces” (199).
Producing Rhetoric
“Producers of a rhetoric of sustainability who desire successful campaigns have to work hard to make sure that their practices are as locally defined as possible in order to persuade their audiences into action. Moreover, they must also take care that their goals are comparable to those of their audiences, because sustainability happens as a local occurrence” (201).
Ecology
Though the authors use the language of sustainability and environmental rhetoric, their arguments can be applied to any rhetoric. They specific use the term ecology in reference to “the institutional, infrastructural, and cultural contexts that shape a larger picture,” “that constitutes a rhetoric of sustainability” (203).