How do the Kara, a small population residing on the eastern bank of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, manage to be neither annexed nor exterminated by any of the larger groups that surround them? Through the theoretical lens of rhetoric, this book offers an interactionalist analysis of how the Kara negotiate ethnic and non-ethnic differences among themselves, the relations with their various neighbors, and eventually their integration in the Ethiopian state. The model of the "Wheel of Autonomy" captures the interplay of distinction, agency and autonomy that drives these dynamics and offers an innovative perspective on social relations.

" A]n engaging, thought-provoking, and generative volume. Simultaneously wide-ranging and coherent, these essays explore the complex roles that rhetorical engagements - artful, resonant, and often transcending the solely verbal - play in shaping social life and the always emergent cultures at the heart of anthropological inquiry." . Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz

"This volume is a welcome continuation of the Rhetoric Culture Project's efforts to bring anthropology and rhetorical studies together. It does an excellent job illustrating the way that 'culture is founded in rhetoric' just as 'rhetoric is founded in culture'... The specific anthropological perspectives offered by the collection is] extremely useful and thought provoking, especially valued for the theoretical models and case studies that illustrate the shaping of culture by particular rhetorical activities." . Steven Mailloux, University of California, Irvine

"Just as rhetoric is founded in culture, culture is founded in rhetoric" - the first half of this central statement from the International Rhetoric Culture Project is abundantly evidenced. It is the latter half that this volume explores: how does culture emerge out of rhetorical action, out of seemingly dispersed individual actions and interactions? The contributors do not rely on rhetorical "text" alone but engage the situational, bodily, and often antagonistic character of cultural and communicative practices. The social situation itself is argued to be the fundamental site of cultural creation, as will-driven social processes are shaped by cognitive dispositions and shape them in turn. Drawing on expertise in a variety of disciplines and regions, the contributors critically engage dialogical approaches in their emphasis on how a view from rhetoric changes our perception of people's intersubjective and conjoint creation of culture."