Park(ing) Day Outline via Rhetoric and Performance
In the in-person iteration of this class, we would have covered rhetoric and performance as an additional lens through
which to analyze communication artifacts. The linked event, which is now an international day, would have been our
primary case study. While we will not be able to discuss the details of what this approach entails, recognizing that the
main features consider how mobile bodies argue or are argued about (body politics), how communication functions in
moments of transition and uncertainty (social drama), and how communication is a public phenomenon of including and
excluding social practices and norms (public culture) should be sufficient for continuing to use this example as a sample
outline. Utilizing this “method,” those three components would be what you examine in your analysis. Other methods
would guide your analysis through other components: from strategies of disruption (feminist) to objectives and features
(narrative). For any method you choose, your essay will follow the same general format, including application of a
method through its procedures.
I. Introduction
a. Introduce the reader to the topic
i. Source that states how, in many downtowns, about 70% of space is committed to car traffic
ii. Source on urban space as contested terrain of uses/issues
b. Research Question (RQ): How might people re-envision their built environments?
c. Thesis: Park(ing) Day, as performed, is an embodied counternarrative to the construction and use of
public open space.
II. Description of artifact
a. Park(ing) Day background
i. History of installation event (topical source)
ii. Purpose = open-ended and playful (topical sources: “manifesto” + essay by a founder)
b. Situating Park(ing) Day within topics (other sources) [note these as “keywords” used in searches]
i. Transportation
ii. Open space (and uses within urban environments)
iii. Civic participation (and communication)
III. Description/justification of method
a. Culture as in process and always adapting and changing [a key assumption of the method]
b. Sources on performance (why is this method valuable?) + re-imagining uses of space
IV. Analysis: [Note: An analysis could follow aspects of all three sections, OR three features in one section]
a. Body Politics: Park(ing) Day uses bodies in open space as an argument for rethinking how we build
spaces that move people; how do we know, and rethink, our environments through our bodies?
i. Examples in participating: producing a park(ing) installation
ii. Examples in participating: accepting an invite to engage with the installation
iii. Parkcycle (mobile, pedal-powered park): from participating anew in parking spots to
participating anew on roads (space of circulation)
b. Social Drama: Park(ing) Day creates and reflects tensions that exist when attempting to produce
alternatives to car culture.
i. Various interests in rethinking car culture (public transit-dependent [financial],
environmental, civic engagement)
ii. Various dependencies on car culture (parking, lack of public transit, cultural expectations to
drive, sprawl built around cars)
iii. Responses to the event (positive and negative)
c. Public Culture: As public interactions produce and reproduce cultural norms, Park(ing) Day attempts
to challenge certain norms by producing the space for particular kinds of practices.
i. Civic dimension of social life: car culture as instrumental vs. dominates space
ii. Staged event to open up different modes of engagement/participation
iii. Local laws that enable and prevent certain uses: producing space within those limits
V. Conclusion
a. A bodily counternarrative to producing urban spaces, Park(ing) Day delights and annoys
b. Park(ing) Day flips the expected use of space and reflects different viewpoints on how best to use
public space
c. The event suggests that public space is constantly produced and can be produced in new ways (back
to method) + is a potential template for how people might re-envision their built environments in
other ways (back to RQ)
