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ABSTRACT
This article offers a theoretical intervention into the work on posthumanism in technical and professional communication (TPC), an intervention that encourages the field to recognize relationships between objects and users in different ways. Our intervention draws on the work of Deleuze and Guattari to reimagine how TPC tends to think about the concept of assemblage. We apply this other view in makerspaces, illustrating what it buys us for practice and theory in complex sociotechnical contexts.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Rebecca Walton, and her editorial team for their invaluable help with this article. Thanks as well to all of the research participants quoted and to Daved Barry and Eric York for valuable feedback on early versions of this work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Smith’s influential The wealth of nations (Citation1776) posited that in capitalist societies, individuals acting in their own self-interest lead to economic good for society as a whole, a process he described as guidance from an “invisble hand.”
2. These categories come from DeLanda’s explication of Deleuze and Guattari in Assemblage Theory (Citation2016, pp. 19-21).
3. The students were interviewed as part of a broader research project by Johnson-Eilola. All students signed informed consent documents that allowed use of quotations and images in publications.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Johndan Johnson-Eilola
Johndan Johnson-Eilola works at Clarkson University, where he teaches design. His most recent book is Solving Problems in Technical Communication (co-edited with Stuart A. Selber, University of Chicago Press, 2013).
Stuart A. Selber
Stuart A. Selber is a past president and fellow of ATTW. He works in rhetoric at Penn State. His most recent book is Institutional Literacies: Engaging Academic IT Contexts for Writing and Communication (University of Chicago Press, 2020).