This book examines Ghana’s use of the fingerprint biometric technology in order to further conversations about localization championed by technical communication scholars. Localization, in this case, refers to the extent to which users demonstrate their knowledge of use by subverting and reconfiguring the purpose of technology to solve local problems. Dorpenyo argues that the success of a technology depends on how it meets the users’ needs and the creative efforts users put into use situations. In User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown, Dorpenyo advocates studying how users of technological systems construct knowledge about the technology and develop local strategies to solve technological breakdowns. By analyzing technical documents and interview transcripts, the author identifies and advances three user localization strategies: linguistic localization, subversive localization, and user-heuristic experience localization, and considers how biometric systems can become a tool of marginalization.

This volume is the first text to provide a comprehensive account of the great books across the academic disciplines written by Africans born in the continent and those who became naturalized citizens of African countries. These great books are those that have had a powerful, important or affecting influence on the author of a chapter in this book, as an individual, and on society. The books included here are mostly of the storytelling type and, thus, not representative of most of the academic disciplines. This volume allows each contributor to write a chapter on a discipline showcasing five great books written by African authors. Each selection is appraised and suggestions made by other experts in a discipline, while every chapter entails an introduction to the topic, a conceptual discussion of the discipline, a book-by-book review of the five books, and a conclusion and recommendations for research using the selected books.

The field of technical and professional communication is young, and research related to it—and specifically usability—is constantly growing. Usability and user-experience researchers are broadening research into studies involving social issues, accessibility, reconciliation, and user advocacy. Amplifying Voices in UX explores the theme of balance in design and UX in three main areas: curriculum design that includes empathy, service learning, and design justice; design and balance for effective medical and health communication; and design to create balance in labor, social, civic, and political movements.

The Rhetorical Mediator reveals how and why scholars and user experience (UX) researchers can include Indigenous technical communicators and oral interpretation practices in their interdisciplinary conversations. Nora Rivera analyzes the challenges that Indigenous interpreters and translators face in Peru, Mexico, and the United States as a means of understanding their agency and examines the various ways in which technical and professional communication, translation and interpreting studies, and UX research can better support the practices of Indigenous interpreters and translators. In places where Indigenous language translation and interpretation are greatly needed, Indigenous language mediators often lack adequate systems to professionalize their field while withstanding Western practices that do not align with their worldviews. Through a “design thinking” methodology based on her work organizing and participating in an Indigenous-focused interpreter and translator conference, Rivera examines testimonios and semi-structured interviews conducted with Indigenous interpreters and translators to emphasize dialogue and desahogo (emotional release) as Indigenous communication practices. The Rhetorical Mediator advocates for Indigenous language practices that have been sidelined by Western scholarship and systems, helping to create more equitable processes to directly benefit Indigenous individuals and other underrepresented groups. This book benefits specialists, including UX researchers, technical and professional communicators, interpreters and translators, and Indigenous professionals, as well as academics teaching graduate and undergraduate methods, Indigenous rhetoric and translation, and UX courses.

Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work provides action-focused resources and tools—heuristics, methodologies, and theories—for scholars to enact social justice. These resources support the work of scholars and practitioners in conducting research and teaching classes in socially just ways. Each chapter identifies a tool, highlights its relevance to technical communication, and explains how and why it can prepare technical communication scholars for socially just work. For the field of technical and professional communication to maintain its commitment to this work, how social justice intersects with inclusivity through UX, technological, civic, and legal literacies, as well as through community engagement, must be acknowledged. Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work will be of significance to established scholar-teachers and graduate students, as well as to newcomers to the field. Contributors: Kehinde Alonge, Alison Cardinal, Erin Brock Carlson, Oriana Gilson, Laura Gonzales, Keith Grant-Davie, Angela Haas, Mark Hannah, Kimberly Harper, Sarah Beth Hopton, Natasha Jones, Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo, Liz Lane, Emily Legg, Nicole Lowman, Kristen Moore, Emma Rose, Fernando Sanchez, Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Adam Strantz, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, Josephine Walwema, Miriam Williams, Han Yu

As technical communicators continue advocating for justice, the field should pay closer attention to how language diversity shapes all research and praxis in contemporary global contexts. Designing Multilingual Experiences in Technical Communication provides frameworks, strategies, and best practices for researchers engaging in projects with multilingual communities. Through grounded case studies of multilingual technical communication projects in the US, Mexico, and Nepal, Laura Gonzales illustrates the multiple tensions at play in transnational research and demonstrates how technical communicators can leverage contemporary translation practices and methodologies to engage in research with multilingual communities that is justice-driven, participatory, and reciprocal. Designing Multilingual Experiences in Technical Communication is of value to researchers and students across fields who are interested in designing projects alongside multilingual communities from historically marginalized backgrounds.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Africa presents to a broad readership an accessible, comprehensive, up to date, and topical comparative analysis of sociological thinking in Africa. Sociological discourse about African societies has been challenging and difficult, due to a lack of both comprehensive analyses and holistic sociological evidence that covers Africa from past to present times. This Handbook brings together latest analyses of sociological phenomena from the best scholars working on numerous thematic areas. It provides contributions that locates African sociological thinking in historical context and takes a critical look at its current manifestations across the continent. This collection builds upon an existing body of literature which has demonstrated that while the analysis of African societies has long been an item on the agenda of sociologists worldwide, advances of the decolonial critique made notably by African scholars in Africa enhances the scholarship of the sociology of Africa. Thus, the collection is premised upon the understanding that in order to understand the sociology of Africa as significant intervention, the participation and representation of African ways of knowing and doing is a critical starting point. This Handbook comprises a series of scholarly and interdisciplinary perspectives on current debates over how best to unpack sociological imaginations in African context. The scholarly contributions, therefore, are based on both perspectives illustrating the importance of specificity in sociological phenomenon. The Handbook is arranged in seven parts: Context and Perspectives; Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality; Medical Sociology: Political Economy and Development; Crime and Violence; and The Family and Education. Premised on the importance of African ways of knowing and doing, these chapters offer sociologists, researchers, and students an invaluable starting point for a fuller understanding of African sociology.