Routledge Communicating Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Technical Communication (Baywood's Technical Communications)

The purpose of this book is to move our field's discussion beyond issues of diversity in the practice of technical communication, which is certainly important, to include discussions of how race and ethnicity inform the production and distribution of technical communication in the United States. Equally important, this book is an attempt to uncover those communicative practices used to adversely affect historically marginalized groups and identify new practices that can be used to encourage cultural competence within institutions and communities. This book, like our field, is an interdisciplinary effort. While all authors have taught or practiced technical communication, their backgrounds include studies in technical communication, rhetoric and composition, creative writing, and higher education. <br><br>For the sake of clarity, the book is organized into five sections: historical representations of race and ethnicity in health and science communication; social justice and activism in technical communication; considerations of race and ethnicity in social media; users' right to their own language; and communicating identity across borders, cultures, and disciplines. From the Inside Flap This edited collection by Octavio Pimentel and Miriam Williams could not be more important, more groundbreaking, more urgently needed by the profession. Our inattention to issues of race has persisted for so long that it has constrained our thinking and our intellectual imaginations in invisible and insidious ways. A search of Google Scholar in February 2013, using race and technical communication as a specific query, yields exactly two entries: one article by Angela Haas and one by Gerald Savage and Natalia Matveeva. This book by Pimentel and Williams continues and extends the work of these pioneers, opening our eyes to a new and underexplored landscape of technical communication, mapping more precisely how the articulated formations of race and ethnicity and material conditions have shaped and informed the 'production and distribution of technical communication within the United States,' even while we have ignored their profound effects. Pay close attention; this book is well worth the effort! Cynthia L. Selfe, Humanities Distinguished Professor, Department of English, Ohio State University In our increasingly multicultural world, this collection of essays could not be more timely. Fruitfully interdisciplinary, it ranges across topics as diverse as environmental racism, rhetorical strategies of the eugenics movement, the use of Spanglish in technical communication, and changing perceptions of Indian call centers. I am sure it will be of great interest to technical communicators everywhere.Thomas Huckin, Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Studies, University of Utah Miriam F. Williams and Octavio Pimentel edit an important collection in Communicating Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Technical Communication. The very term 'technical communication' suggests providing technical information, and it suggests 'deliverables,' such as tech manuals or templates. But in this collection, the technical information includes the impact of racism on the environment, on education, and on various forms of digital communication. 'Technical communication' is extended to the conveyance of and response to social justice issues, particularly those concerning racism. As such, this collection redefines the limits of technical communication to embrace all that is rhetorical, with contributors noting the ways in which racist preconceptions can be maintained through the technical and the ways in which those preconceptions can be challenged. This is truly a first, opening a door I hope many others will be willing to walk through.Victor Villanueva, Regents Professor, Washington State University About the Author Miriam F. Williams is an associate professor of English and director of the Master of Arts in Technical Communication Program at Tex