Exploring the intersection of design research and community engagement, this book highlights the ways in which design and design theories can be used to address social justice issues and promote positive change in communities.
Contributors illuminate the theoretical, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions of design-driven methods in community-engaged projects, exploring their potential to address critical social justice issues such as ethnic and racial justice, gender equality, disability justice, cultural diversity, equity, and environmental justice. Chapters examine various aspects of community-engaged practices, including the use of design theories to fuel social justice work in community partnerships, ethical issues surrounding the use of multimodal resources and new media technologies, and pedagogies for promoting social change. Addressing the opportunities and challenges of design and design methods in community engagement, this collection offers suggestions for promoting social justice through technical and professional communication activities and pedagogies.
Investigating the design of community-engaged projects from a critical standpoint, this book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of Technical and Professional Communication, Writing and Composition Studies, and Rhetoric. It will also be of interest to administrators, community partners, and professionals working in service-learning contexts.
List of Figures List of Tables Contributors Series Editors' Foreword Acknowledgements Editors' Introduction: Social Justice and Multimodal Design in Ethical Community Engagement Part 1: Theories and Ethics in Designing for Social Justice Chapter 1: Community-Led Design: Building Frameworks for Equity and Justice Chapter 2: Deploying Design Justice in Environmental Justice Settings Chapter 3: Trust, Understand, Act: Using Visual Place-Based Research Methods to More Deeply Understand Community Perspectives Chapter 4: Eating to Heal: Using Design Thinking to Reconceptualize a Community-Engaged Project for Health Justice Chapter 5: Designing Ethical Constraints to Enable Flourishing in an Online Community Chapter 6: Incorporating Community Knowledge in Design: A Reflective Account of Designing Technology with Justice Part 2: Community-Engaged Design Efforts in Action Chapter 7: Beyond “Maintaining Status”: A Call for Distributed Responsibility in the Professionalization of International Graduate Scholars Chapter 8: What We Came Here For: Students Learning Local Civil Rights Rhetorics as Part of Kennesaw State University’s Primary Source Initiative, the #ATLStudentMovement Project Chapter 9: “Nothing about Us without Us”: Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) and the Challenge of Designing Activism for People with ME and Long Covid Chapter 10: Resisting the Datafication of Injustice through Collaborative Design and Translation in a Local Museum Exhibit Chapter 11: Revitalizing Endangered Language through Community-Led Design: The Wikitongues Approach to Preserving Linguistic Diversity and Cultural Heritage Chapter 12: Contemporary Chinese Grassroots Activism for Social Justice: The Chained Woman’s Case Part 3: Pedagogical Exemplars of Multimodal Design for Social Justice Chapter 13: A Kairotic Approach to Teaching Online Asynchronous Community-Engaged Technical Communication Courses Chapter 14: Designing with Care: A Cultural Rhetorics Praxis of Care for Digital Storytelling Projects about Reproductive Justice Chapter 15: A Pedagogy of Ethical Engagement: Preparing Students for Technical Communication in Communities Chapter 16: Inviting Disability into the Technical and Professional Communication Classroom through Service Learning Chapter 17: Pedagogical Approaches to Normalize Inclusive Design Editors' Outro Appendix 1: Glossary: A-Z Concepts for Community Engagement Appendix 2: Sample Course Syllabus
Jialei Jiang is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Composition in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Jason C. K. Tham is Associate Professor of Technical Communication and Rhetoric and Assistant Chair of the English Department at Texas Tech University, USA. His recent works include UX Writing (Routledge, 2023), Designing Technical and Professional Communication (Routledge, 2021), and Design Thinking in Technical Communication (Routledge, 2021).
Reviews for Designing for Social Justice: Community-Engaged Approaches in Technical and Professional Communication
“Designing for Social Justice is an insightful edited collection that highlights the transformative power of designing projects in collaboration with community partners. Jiang and Tham have assembled an essential resource that invites readers to engage deeply with communities, to design with empathy and intention, and to create ethical work that resonates with the lived experiences of those it aims to serve.” Nora Rivera, Chapman University, USA “Continuing to push the field of Technical and Professional Communication, Designing for Social Justice advances the important work of imagining how social justice can be a central component of TPC work. Jiang and Tham have curated an excellent collection that is doing the important work of bridging our academic spaces to the communities we aim to connect with and serve.” Victor Del Hierro, University of Florida, USA “Designing for Social Justice foregrounds the vital role that communities must play when designing justice-oriented approaches to wicked problems. Whether seeking to expand their knowledge of theories and concepts encircling design and justice or searching for methodological or pedagogical practices they might adapt for research and learning in professional, public, educational, and design settings, audiences will find chapters that enrich their understanding of ethical, sustainable, reciprocal, and just community-engagement. That is, most importantly, Jiang and Tham have offered us a book that might steer our field toward more critical praxis with communities.” Timothy Amidon, Colorado State University, USA
