Results by title

In Reproductive Labor and Innovation, Jennifer Denbow examines how the push toward technoscientific innovation in contemporary American life often comes at the expense of the care work and reproductive labor that is necessary for society to function. Noting that the gutting of social welfare programs has shifted the burden of solving problems to individuals, Denbow argues that the aggrandizement of innovation and the degradation of reproductive labor are intertwined facets of neoliberalism. She shows that the construction of innovation as a panacea to social ills justifies the accumulation of wealth for corporate innovators and the impoverishment of those feminized and racialized people who do the bulk of reproductive labor. Moreover, even innovative technology aimed at reproduction—such as digital care work platforms and noninvasive prenatal testing—obscure structural injustices and further devalue reproductive labor. By drawing connections between innovation discourse, the rise of neoliberalism, financialized capitalism, and the social and political degradation of reproductive labor, Denbow illustrates what needs to be done to destabilize the overvaluation of innovation and to offer collective support for reproduction.

John Logie Baird, Britain's foremost television pioneer, experimented with video recording onto gramophone discs in the late 1920s. Though unsuccessful at the time, his experiments resulted in several videodiscs, some 25 years before the videotape recorder became practical. These videodiscs - called Phonovision - remained neglected over the decades, considered by experts as unplayable.

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.