Making-Do on the Margins: Organizing Resource Seeking and Rhetorical Agency in Communities During Grassroots Entrepreneurship

2020 ◽  
pp. 105065192097999
Author(s):  
Prashant Rajan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Contextual Knowledge ◽  
Rhetorical Agency ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Majority World ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication ◽  
Innovation And Entrepreneurship

Innovation and entrepreneurship are important yet understudied pathways in the technical and professional communication (TPC) literature for studying how underresourced people enact agency given weak or absent access to institutions. Despite TPC’s social justice turn and continued internationalization of research and practice, little is known about how economically underresourced entrepreneurs work in the majority world. Drawing on multisited, ethnographic research in communities of such grassroots entrepreneurs in India, the author inquires into the processes by which innovation and entrepreneurship are practiced in extrainstitutional settings of the majority world. Popular and scholarly reports paint a simplistic picture when they claim that grassroots entrepreneurs are resourceful, resilient bricoleurs who possess deep, contextual knowledge of complex problems for which they improvise affordable solutions. Challenging this homogenizing view, the author shares rich accounts of how such individuals navigate the complex sociocultural contexts that constrain and enable bricolage on institutional margins.

Design Thinking in Technical and Professional Communication: Four Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Pope-Ruark
Keyword(s):  
Technical Communication ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
User Design ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication ◽  
Is Design

In this special issue, we explore design thinking as a broad conceptual process as well as a tool that might align with the work of technical and professional communication (TPC) programs. But what is design thinking? What are the benefits and drawbacks of the process? Can design thinking be used to help students address rhetorical challenges and complex problems? How is design thinking showing up in the field, and does it belong in TPC programs? Four scholars explore these questions in their niche areas: process, usability and user design, technical communication, and industry and programmatic perspectives.

Designing for Empowerment With a Critical Practice Approach

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-55
Author(s):  
Huatong Sun
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Critical Practice ◽  
Critical Design ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

This chapter articulates a practice-oriented critical design approach for empowerment. It situates global design issues concerning structure and agency in a discourse of redistributing power and privileges. It first paints a big picture of the social justice–oriented design scholarship in the disciplines of human–computer interaction (HCI), technical and professional communication, and informatics with its key issues. Then it reviews the development of critical design movement and the turn and re-turn to practice in HCI and design communities. Built on that discussion, it integrates the two into a critical practice approach for empowerment—a relational view of design that centers on everyday practice and aims to transform its inequalities of power.

Curricular Efforts in Technical Communication After the Social Justice Turn

2021 ◽  
pp. 105065192110441
Author(s):  
Godwin Y. Agboka ◽  
Isidore K. Dorpenyo
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

The social justice turn in technical and professional communication (TPC) has inspired a substantial body of progressive scholarship and discussion. But it is not clear how these scholarly efforts have shaped (or are shaping) programmatic and curricular efforts. This article reports the findings of a survey of TPC instructors and an analysis of 231 TPC programs to examine their curricular efforts toward social justice. Drawing from the mixed findings, the authors argue that vigorous curricular efforts in social justice enable TPC to fully and practically demonstrate the core mandate of our discipline.

Using Learner Centered Pedagogy and Social Justice Pedagogy in Post-Secondary Technical and Professional Communication Writing Courses

2019 ◽  
pp. 337-350
Author(s):  
Kimberly C. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Competency ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Social Justice Pedagogy ◽  
Learner Centered ◽  
Pedagogical Choices ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

This chapter discusses the author's approach to implementing social justice and learner-centered pedagogies in a course titled Technical Communication in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter. The author uses the Black Lives Matter movement as a springboard for teaching technical communication students about the responsibilities of workplace writers. Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) make use of a skills-based pedagogy and, at times, omits the importance of providing students with cultural competency skills. However, there is a shift in the field of TPC as some scholars are advocating for the inclusion of topics such as race, culture, gender, and class in pedagogical discussions. Discussed in this chapter are the theories behind the author's pedagogical choices when creating the described course, the student assignments, and the challenges encountered while teaching the course.

Using Learner Centered Pedagogy and Social Justice Pedagogy in Post-Secondary Technical and Professional Communication Writing Courses

2021 ◽  
pp. 161-174
Author(s):  
Kimberly C. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Competency ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Social Justice Pedagogy ◽  
Learner Centered ◽  
Pedagogical Choices ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

This chapter discusses the author's approach to implementing social justice and learner-centered pedagogies in a course titled Technical Communication in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter. The author uses the Black Lives Matter movement as a springboard for teaching technical communication students about the responsibilities of workplace writers. Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) make use of a skills-based pedagogy and, at times, omits the importance of providing students with cultural competency skills. However, there is a shift in the field of TPC as some scholars are advocating for the inclusion of topics such as race, culture, gender, and class in pedagogical discussions. Discussed in this chapter are the theories behind the author's pedagogical choices when creating the described course, the student assignments, and the challenges encountered while teaching the course.

Bridging Analysis and Action

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily January Petersen ◽  
Rebecca Walton
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

This article calls for recognition of ways in which feminisms have, do, and can inform social justice work in technical and professional communication (TPC)—even social justice work that is not explicitly feminist. The authors distill some areas of feminist TPC scholarship that are relevant to future social justice work: (a) epistemological contributions, ways of knowing and methods for discovering them and (b) reclamations of dominant topics, groundwork laid by feminist research on technology and science. They close with nine recommendations to inspire scholars with specific ways to use feminist methodologies and theories to enhance social justice scholarship.

Composing Like an Entrepreneur: The Pedagogical Implications of Design Thinking in the Workplace

2021 ◽  
pp. 004728162110315
Author(s):  
Mason Pellegrini
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Business Success ◽  
Current State ◽  
Composing Process ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
Design Firms ◽  
Fierce Competition ◽  
Technical And Professional Communication

Fierce competition has made innovation increasingly necessary for business success, and this has increased the importance of user-based innovation strategies like design thinking (DT). While many studies in technical and professional communication (TPC) have explored how DT can be used pedagogically, no studies have done this through investigating how DT is used as a workplace composing process. This study does exactly that. First, it presents the current state of research on pedagogical uses of DT in TPC, and then it builds upon those suggestions with an empirical study that chronicles on how two web design firms use DT to make websites. My main suggestion is to teach DT as a recursive process that allows students transcend potentially incorrect assumptions built into design tasks through gathering data not only from users, but from clients as well.

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