Marking Territory

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study analyzing the interaction of administrative genres and stakeholder beliefs in the Mexican Wolf Blue Range Reintroduction Project (MWBRRP) in New Mexico and Arizona. The author examines this interaction through an analysis of a set of 944 recorded public comments (with administrative responses) concerning the project's federally mandated Five-Year Review. To reconstruct stakeholder beliefs from this data set, the author uses filter theory, a method that works inductively from interpretive decisions made in the face of competing beliefs to produce a ranking of those beliefs' impact on the decision process, called a “filter.” Results suggest that incompatibilities in stakeholder filters, combined with inappropriate generic choices, foreclosed on a possible rhetorical space for cooperation in the MWBRRP. However, some compatibility in stakeholder filters indicates common ground on which administration should focus future cooperative efforts.