[ATTW-L] CFP for CDQ Special Issue on "Infrastructure"

[Sarah Read]

Dear Colleagues:

We are delighted to invite proposals to a special issue of CDQ about the
ways that "infrastructure" is a keyword, methodology and technology in the
fields of technical communication, writing studies, design and allied
fields. 500-word proposals are due April 30. See the CFP below for more
details.

We look forward to your proposals!

Sarah Read, read3 at pdx.edu
Jordan Frith, jfrith at clemson.edu

*Special Issue Proposal: The infrastructures of communication, writing and
design*

Over the last two decades, the social sciences and humanities have gone
through somewhat of an “infrastructural turn” that has renewed focus on the
material and social infrastructures that make higher-level practices
possible (Appel, 2018; Sandvig, 2013). Scholars such as Susan Leigh Star
(Star, 1999; Star & Ruhleder, 1996), Geoff Bowker (Bowker, 2005; Bowker &
Star, 1999), and many others from social scientific disciplines began to
theorize the role infrastructures (both social and material) play in
holding the world together (Anand et al.,2018; Appel et al., 2018; Graham &
Marvin, 2001; Gupta, 2018; Harvey, 2018; Larkin, 2013; Mukherjee, 2018).
Similarly, more humanistic scholars such as Lisa Parks (2005, 2012) and
Nicole Starolieski (2015) explored the agential role communication
infrastructures play in shaping contemporary communication practices.
Across disciplines, the transdisciplinary infrastructural turn has raised
questions about how to study infrastructures and how to recognize their
importance to a wide range of social practices.

The infrastructural turn has also impacted writing studies (DeVoss et al.,
2005; Grabill, 2010), technical communication (Frith, In Press; Frith,
2020; Hart-Davidson et al., 2007; Read, 2020, 2019; Swarts, 2010), and
design research (Dourish & Bell, 2007, 2011; Vertesi, 2014). Researchers
have taken different approaches to the study of infrastructure within these
fields. Some research has shown how writing and design themselves can act
as infrastructures that are rendered mostly invisible but play an agential
role in shaping later practices (Frith, In Press; Frith, 2020; Read, 2019).
Other researchers have examined how specific material infrastructures shape
practices of writing and design (DeVoss et al., 2005; Dourish & Bell, 2011;
Hart-Davidson et al., 2007). Other research has explored how social
infrastructures, such as people involved in writing programs, work as a
base upon which larger university functions are built (Grabill, 2010). In
addition, researchers from outside these fields have done work to expose
the biases built into infrastructure that reify inequality and systems of
injustice. For example, Safiya Noble’s (2018) work has exposed how Google’s
search infrastructure reproduces racism and sexism in its results. Gebru
(2018) has analyzed how data infrastructures that feed into AI systems
reproduce inequality. And many other scholars have examined how built
infrastructures are ableist and exclude certain bodies. Finally, user
experience research in HCI has established links with infrastructure
studies both to theorize the user experience of different infrastructures
and to examine how buried infrastructure may impact the user experience of
interfaces (Vertesi, 2014).

While infrastructural research has shaped some scholarship in fields
relevant to the readership of Communication Design Quarterly, the research
remains most disconnected and spread across individual articles found in
separate journals. There is no centralized conversation happening about the
role infrastructures (both social and material) play in shaping practices
of writing and design. Consequently, this special issue will be one of the
first to formalize that conversation by bringing together diverse research
topics in writing and design that engage with questions of infrastructure.
This special issue will be an exploration of the role infrastructures play
in writing and design and will centralize a conversation that, at least to
this point, has remained somewhat disconnected.

We are particularly seeking articles that engage with scholarship that
engages with questions about how infrastructures shape writing and design.
The infrastructures could be social infrastructures; for example, research
could examine how design teams work as an infrastructural base that shapes
artifact for end users to engage with. The infrastructures could be
material infrastructures; for example, research could examine how the
increasingly ubiquitous deployment of remote work infrastructures (e.g.,
Zoom, Slack) structure work practices. Of especially urgent interest are
articles that address how infrastructures of writing and design function to
maintain, perpetuate, or potentially disrupt, systemic racism, injustice,
and ableism. We do not want to limit how authors understand infrastructure,
but we do hope authors engage with infrastructure as a concept, and the
editors are happy to work with authors to help develop conceptualizations
of infrastructure.

We are also interested in practitioner experience reports from industry
that provide firsthand accounts of how workplace infrastructures shape
technical communication and design work. Practitioners engage with and must
navigate multiple infrastructures each day, and practitioner reports can
provide another angle on how our disciplines can frame the importance of
infrastructure in our research and pedagogy.

*Possible topics*
Topics for this special issue could include, but are not limited to…

   - The design of infrastructures of various types
   - Infrastructures of user experience
   - Infrastructure of design
   - How infrastructures shape workplace communication
   - How social infrastructures shape the design process
   - The role writing plays as infrastructure (social or material)
   - How design and writing play hidden infrastructural roles in essential
   processes
   - Theories of social and material infrastructures
   - Infrastructures of systemic racism and injustice
   - Ableist infrastructures
   - Infrastructures for writing processes in big science and industry
   - Infrastructures of writing and design pedagogies and training

*Submission guidelines*
Proposals should be submitted by April 30, 2021 and should be no more than
500 words in length (not including references) and sent as an email
attachment in .docx format to jfrith at clemson.edu and read3 at pdx.edu. All
proposals should include submitter name, affiliation, and email address as
well as a working title for the proposed article.

Please include in your proposal the following information:

●      Type of proposed article: original research or experience report.
●      Connection to CFP: how does the proposal align with the overall aims
of this special issue?
●      Specific topic as it relates to infrastructure: how are you
understanding infrastructure as a concept/phenomenon?
●      Method of discussion: how would the proposed article go about
addressing this specific topic (i.e., report of empirical research,
theoretical or rhetorical argument, report of new process, case study of
organization, discussion of emerging technology, pedagogical approach,
practitioner experience report, etc.)?
●      Reader takeaway: what specific knowledge about infrastructure would
a reader of the proposed article gain by reading it?

*PRODUCTION SCHEDULE*

The schedule for the special issue is as follows:
April 30, 2021 (post-ATTW) – 500-word proposals (not including citation) due
June 1, 2021 – (for summer writing) Guest editors return proposal decisions
to submitters
January 30, 2022 (post winter break) – Draft manuscripts of accepted
proposals due
June 1, 2022 – Final manuscripts due
September, 2022 – Publication date of special issue

*CONTACT INFORMATION*

Questions about either proposal topics or this special issue should be
directed to Jordan Frith; jfrith at clemson.edu and Sarah Read; read3 at pdx.edu.

For References cited in this CPF, please see attached pdf document


Sarah Read, PhD
Associate Professor
Director, Technical and Professional Writing
Department of English *|* Portland State University
Vice-Chair, ACM SIGDOC
pronouns: she/her
read3 at pdx.edu

For info on the MTPW, check out our blog: https://psutechwriter.com/
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