Crafting wew Materialist Research Frameworks for Collaborative Response
Abstract
The recent HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana demonstrates how complex sociotechnical problems strain current conceptions of public problem solving, and how practitioners, including technical communication researchers, need methods that address immediate needs while supporting sustained responses to complex problems. The Scott County outbreak, and the trajectory of the needle exchange policies which emerged in its aftermath, show how attention to visible infrastructure, created through formal and informal cooperation in response to problems, creates opportunities for sustained, collaborative engagement with these and other sociotechnical problems. By integrating multiple kinds of expertise and embracing the complexities of working across disciplinary and community boundaries where language, methods, and expected outcomes may differ, technical communicators can better cooperate to address public problems by developing responses which speak to the underlying inequalities frequently associated with both public policy and technical communication. Drawing on new materialist theory, technical communication research methods, and participatory research design, I develop frameworks for research calibrated to the messiness of wicked problems. First, I use public documents such as press releases and health department guidelines to develop a case study tracing the recent trajectory of harm reduction policies in Indiana. Using the same data set of public documents, I use iterative coding and situated analysis to map the voices, shifts, and decision-making practices of multiple stakeholders. The initial results of this qualitative analysis are used as a basis for interviews with public health practitioners, community activists and scholars in related fields to consider differences in language, discursive practice, and methods for operationalizing knowledge. Rather than treating technical communication as a bridge between stakeholders, mapping the entanglement of methods for practice and research across disciplinary and institutional boundaries makes visible the embedded work of technical communication. Research practices that work to keep this infrastructure visible will help technical communicators better collaborate for response to the multiple exigencies of complex problems.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Dilger, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Climate Change|Epidemiology
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