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This book examines Ghana's use of the fingerprint biometric technology in order to further conversations about localization championed by technical communication scholars. Localization, in this case, refers to the extent to which users demonstrate their knowledge of use by subverting and reconfiguring the purpose of technology to solve local problems. Dorpenyo argues that the success of a technology depends on how it meets the users' needs and the creative efforts users put into use situations. In User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown, Dorpenyo advocates studying how users of technological systems construct knowledge about the technology and develop local strategies to solve technological breakdowns. By analyzing technical documents and interview transcripts, the author identifies and advances three user localization strategies: linguistic localization, subversive localization, and user-heuristic experience localization, and considers how biometric systems can become a tool of marginalization.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Recovering the Lost Voices of Users in Localization.- Chapter 2: Biometric Technology: the Savior of a Risky Electoral System.- Chapter 3: Decolonial Methodology as a Framework for Localization and Social Justice Study in Resource-Mismanaged Context.- Chapter 4: Stories of Users' Experiences.- Chapter 5: Linguistic Localization: Constructing Local/Global Knowledge of Biometric Technology.- Chapter 6: User-heuristic experience localization.- Chapter 7: Subversive localization.- Chapter 8: You are not who you say you are: Discriminations inherent in biometric design.- Chapter 9: Conclusion: participatory user localization.
About the author
Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo is Assistant Professor of Professional Writing and Rhetoric at George Mason University, USA. His research focuses on election technology, international technical communication, social justice, and localization. He co-edited a special issue of
Technical Communication focused on technical communication and election technologies. Dorpenyo has also published in
Technical Communication Quarterly, the
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and
Community Literacy journal.
Summary
This book examines Ghana’s use of the fingerprint biometric technology in order to further conversations about localization championed by technical communication scholars. Localization, in this case, refers to the extent to which users demonstrate their knowledge of use by subverting and reconfiguring the purpose of technology to solve local problems. Dorpenyo argues that the success of a technology depends on how it meets the users’ needs and the creative efforts users put into use situations. In
User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown,
Dorpenyo advocates studying how users of technological systems construct knowledge about the technology and develop local strategies to solve technological breakdowns. By analyzing technical documents and interview transcripts, the author identifies and advances three user localization strategies:
linguistic localization,
subversive localization, and
user-heuristic experience localization, and considers how biometric systems can become a tool of marginalization.
