[ATTW-L] ATTW 2020 CFP

Sat Sep 21 19:38:26 UTC 2019

Dear colleagues,

We write to invite your proposals for ATTW 2020, to be held March 24-25, in
Milwaukee, WI. The call for proposals is below and is also attached to this
message. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to
me at shiversmcnair at email.arizona.edu or to Laura Gonzales at
gonzalesl at ufl.edu.

We look forward to reading your proposals and seeing you in Milwaukee!

Best wishes,
Ann Shivers-McNair and Laura Gonzales
Co-chairs, ATTW 2020

*Call for Proposals*
Language, Access, and Power in Technical Communication

*Overview*
Proposal submission deadline: October 25, 2019
The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) invites proposals
for papers, posters, and workshops to be delivered at its 23rd annual
conference. The ATTW conference will be held at the Hilton Milwaukee City
Center in Milwaukee, WI, March 24-25, 2020, immediately preceding the
Conference on College Composition and Communication. The ATTW conference
includes a plenary session presented by a local community partner,
concurrent sessions, research workshops, book exhibits, an editor's
roundtable, and opportunities for exchanging ideas and networking.

*Theme*
Stemming from early definitions of technical communicators as translators
who transform techno-scientific information for lay audiences (Slack,
Miller, & Doak, 1993; Weiss, 1997) to more recent acknowledgements of the
role that community expertise plays in leading scientific and technological
change (Blythe, Grabill, & Riley, 2008; Durá, Singhal, & Elias, 2013; Rose
et al., 2017; Simmons & Grabill, 2007), it is clear that language, access,
and power matter to the field of technical communication. Indeed, language,
access, and power are at the heart of our ever-expanding, increasingly
globalized work (Haas & Eble, 2018), which includes
- facilitating communication in risk environments (Boiarsky, 2016),
- building experiences and infrastructures for collaboration and
participation across languages and contexts (Batova & Clark, 2015; Potts,
2014),
- working against injustice through intercultural and international
knowledges (Agboka, 2013; Yu & Savage, 2013),
- developing critical power tools (Scott, Longo, & Wills, 2006),
- designing pedagogies that expand what counts as technical communication
and information (Banks, 2006; Del Hierro, 2018),
- critically examining agency in legal literacies (Hannah, 2010),
- centering disability and difference (Zdenek, 2018; Oswal & Melonçon,
2014), and
- intervening in equity and access in healthcare contexts (Frost & Haas,
2017; Kennedy, 2018; Teston, 2017).

Enacting our roles as agents of accessibility, social justice, and change
(Jones, 2016; Jones, Walton, & Moore, 2016), technical communicators can
leverage languages to build and break access and to foster and disrupt
established power structures (Jones & Williams, 2017; Kynell-Hunt & Savage,
2004; Williams & Pimentel, 2016).

While much of our work in technical communication has focused on language,
access, and/or power independently, the 2020 ATTW conference call invites
researchers and teachers in the field to make intentional connections among
these areas to recognize how they interlock and intersect (Crenshaw, 1990;
Medina & Haas, 2018). For example, we invite presenters to consider
intersections between and among language, access, and power in relation to
race and disability, risk and agency, healthcare and globalization,
user-experience and community engagement, and more. Through these
connections, we encourage technical communicators to use our 2020 annual
gathering space to build community and, as Cecilia Shelton (2019) argues,
"shift out of neutral," specifically by recognizing the material impacts,
consequences, and intersectional possibilities of the languages we use,
develop, include, exclude, and sustain in our work.

Our gathering space, Milwaukee, has a rich history of community making and
organizing. Stewarded by Indigenous communities such as the Potawatomi,
Ojibwe, Odawa (Ottawa), Fox, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sauk, and Oneida people,
who identify this land as the "gathering place by the waters" (Native
Milwaukee, 2016), Black and Latinx organizers have also described Milwaukee
as a site of important immigrant and migrant activism (Rodriguez et al.,
2000). At the same time, Milwaukee faces issues related to racial
segregation, wealth disparity, and racial profiling that impact the lived
realities of marginalized people within and beyond the city (Frey, 2018;
Spicuzza, 2019). Recognizing both the polarizing and communing potential of
language, access, and power, we invite you to join us in this place and in
acknowledging our positionalities and responsibilities as we develop better
relationships, possibilities, knowledges, and practices through our work in
technical communication.

*Questions to Consider*
We welcome a range of approaches that discuss your engagement at the
intersections of language, access, and power as an educator, practitioner,
scholar, administrator, civic advocate, and more. These discussions may
include, but are not limited to, the following:

How do you engage the intersections of language, access, and power in your
teaching, research, community engagement, practice, and/or program
administration?
- What pedagogical approaches engage the intersections of language, access,
and power?
- What theoretical and methodological frameworks engage the intersections
of language, access, and power?
- What service and community engagement models engage the intersections of
language, access, and power?
- What program models engage the intersections of language, access, and
power?
- What assessment approaches engage the intersections of language, access,
and power?

How, why, and when do you change or challenge approaches to engaging the
intersections of language, access, and power?

How have current cultural contexts affected the way we conceptualize and
engage the intersections of language, access, and power? Who and what have
such contexts called to the forefront, and whom and what have they
marginalized? Why and to what end(s)?

*Proposal Format*
Attendees may have only one speaking role, and proposal submissions must
specify one of the following formats:

Regular Session - Individual proposals: Individuals may submit proposals
for 15-minute talks on panels created by the conference organizers. These
proposals should be no more than 300 words.

Regular Session - Panel proposals: Groups may submit proposals for
75-minute panel presentations. These proposals should be no more than 200
words per presentation plus a 150-word contextualization/justification of
the panel (800 words max.).

Poster Presentations: Posters will be on display throughout the day with
special times dedicated for conversations about this work. Proposals for
poster presentations should be no more than 300 words.

Although we acknowledge that nothing is fully accessible, we also
acknowledge that access in any community space is everyone’s responsibility
and should be considered throughout presentation preparation. We ask you to
take this responsibility up at every stage of your participation in the
ATTW conference, from planning and writing your proposal to delivering your
presentation. Please also contact the conference co-chairs with any
questions, requests, or comments regarding accessibility preparations for
the conference.

Proposals should not include any identifying information, including the
names and institutions of presenters.

All rooms will have a projector. Please bring your own laptop and Mac
connectors.

*Submission*
Please submit proposals via Submittable at http://attw.submittable.com.
Submission deadline is October 25, 2019.

*Intended Audiences*
All teachers, researchers, community members, students, and industry
professionals interested in technical communication are welcome. Lower
registration rates are available for students, contingent faculty, and
community presenters. Additional registration information is forthcoming.

*Contact*
For additional information about this CFP and the conference theme, please
contact the conference co-chairs, Laura Gonzales (gonzalesl at ufl.edu) or Ann
Shivers-McNair (shiversmcnair at email.arizona.edu).

*References*
Agboka, G. Y. (2013). Participatory localization: A social justice approach
to navigating unenfranchised/disenfranchised cultural sites. Technical
Communication Quarterly, 22(1), 28-49.
Banks, A. J. (2006). Race, rhetoric, and technology: Searching for higher
ground. Routledge.
Batova, T., & Clark, D. (2015). The complexities of globalized content
management. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 29(2), 221-235.
Blythe, S., Grabill, J. T., & Riley, K. (2008). Action research and wicked
environmental problems: Exploring appropriate roles for researchers in
professional communication. Journal of Business and Technical
Communication, 22(3), 272–298.
Boiarsky, C. (2016). Risk communication and miscommunication: Case studies
in science, technology, engineering, government, and community
organizations. University Press of Colorado.
Crenshaw, K. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity
politics, and violence against women of color. Stan. L. Rev., 43, 1241.
Del Hierro, V. D. (2019). DJs, playlists, and community: Imagining
communication design through hip hop. Communication Design Quarterly, 7(2),
28-39.
Durá, L., Singhal, A., & Elias, E. (2013). Minga Perú's strategy for social
change in the Perúvian Amazon: A rhetorical model for participatory,
intercultural practice to advance human rights. Rhetoric, Professional
Communication, and Globalization, 4(1), 33-54.
Frey, W. (2018, Dec. 17). Black-white segregation edges downward since
2000, census shows. Brookings Institute. Retrieved from
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/12/17/black-white-segregation-edges-downward-since-2000-census-shows/
.
Frost, E. A., & Haas, A. M. (2017). Seeing and knowing the womb: A
technofeminist reframing of fetal ultrasound toward a decolonization of our
bodies. Computers and Composition, 43, 88-105.
Haas, A. M., & Eble, M. F. (Eds.). (2018). Key theoretical frameworks:
Teaching technical communication in the twenty-first century. University
Press of Colorado.
Hannah, M. A. (2010). Legal literacy: Coproducing the law in technical
communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 20(1), 5-24.
Jones, N. N., & Williams, M. F. (2017). The social justice impact of plain
language: A critical approach to plain-language analysis. IEEE Transactions
on Professional Communication, 60(4), 412-429.
Jones, N. N., Moore, K. R., & Walton, R. (2016). Disrupting the past to
disrupt the future: An antenarrative of technical communication. Technical
Communication Quarterly, 25(4), 211-229.
Jones, N. N. (2016). The technical communicator as advocate: Integrating a
social justice approach in technical communication. Journal of Technical
Writing and Communication, 46(3), 342-361.
Kennedy, K. (2018). Designing for human-machine collaboration: Smart
hearing aids as wearable technologies. Communication Design Quarterly
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Kynell-Hunt, T., & Savage, G. J. (2004). Power and legitimacy in technical
communication (Vols. 1-2). Amityville, NY.
Medina, C., & A. Haas (2018). Intersectionality. Association of Teachers of
Technical Writing Conference. Kansas City, KA, March 14.
"Native Milwaukee." (2016). Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. Retrieved from
https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/native-milwaukee/
Oswal, S. K., & Melonçon, L. (2014). Paying attention to accessibility when
designing online courses in technical and professional communication.
Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 28(3), 271-300.
Potts, L. (2014). Social media in disaster response: How experience
architects can build for participation. Routledge.
Rodriguez, J., Filzen, S., Rodriguez, S., & Nix, D. (2000). Nuestro
Milwaukee: The making of The United Community Center. Wisconsin Humanities
Council.
Rose, E. J., Racadio, R., Wong, K., Nguyen, S., Kim, J., & Zahler, A.
(2017). Community-based user experience: Evaluating the usability of health
insurance information with immigrant patients. IEEE Transactions on
Professional Communication, 60(2), 214-231.
Shelton, C. (2019). Shifting out of neutral: Centering difference, bias,
and social justice in a business writing course. Technical Communication
Quarterly, in press, 1-15.
Simmons, W. M. (2008). Participation and power: Civic discourse in
environmental policy decisions. SUNY Press.
Slack, J. D., Miller, D. J., & Doak, J. (1993). The technical communicator
as author: Meaning, power, authority. Journal of Business and Technical
Communication, 7(1), 12-36.
Spicuzza, M. (2019, Apr. 4). 'Racism is a public health crisis': Milwaukee
County leaders call for racial equity. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Retrieved from
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/04/milwaukee-county-leaders-proclaim-racism-public-health-crisis/3362685002/
.
Teston, C. (2017). Bodies in flux: Scientific methods for negotiating
medical uncertainty. University of Chicago Press.
Weiss, T. (1997). Reading culture: Professional communication as
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Williams, M. F., & Pimentel, O. (2016). Communicating race, ethnicity, and
identity in technical communication. Routledge.
Yu, H., & Savage, G. (Eds.). (2013). Negotiating cultural encounters:
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culture. University of Chicago Press.
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