Tracing economic sustainability in the global coffee trade: The rhetoric of the international coffee organization
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International trade organizations represent constituent stakeholder interests along commodity supply chains by rhetorically constructing specific discourses and tropes. As part of its textual canon, the International Coffee Organization (ICO) has developed a rhetoric of economic sustainability. The ICO adapts its rhetorical content, form, and function in response to changing industry landscapes to reify a discourse of economic sustainability in the context of the coffee trade. The present study investigates ways in which the ICO has adapted its textual rhetoric as stakeholder interests become affected by institutional and market forces through the use of a qualitative methodology to identify and discuss ICO texts as they relate to sustainability. Such texts include the six iterations of the International Coffee Agreement, from the constitutive 1963 text up until the most recent 2007 version, as well as conference proceedings, strategic plans, and reports. The study employs critical cultural theory to analyze the data, make connections between extra-organizational industry changes and ICO rhetorical adaptations, and articulate the ICO’s rhetoric of economic sustainability. Findings illuminate ways in which a large multinational institution shapes its policies and practices to construct and deploy a rhetorical strategy, as well as to highlight technical communication’s role. The goal of the study is to better understand ways in which organizations manipulate and deploy data rhetorically – by focusing on one of the most widely-traded and significant commodities in the world.