Sweta Baniya, ‘Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice Oriented Technical Communications in Global Disaster Management’

In this talk, Dr. Sweta Baniya will talk about her forthcoming book Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice Oriented Technical Communications in Global Disaster Management. With grounded case studies of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake & 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, this talk will showcase how locals in marginalized and colonized spaces overcome disaster created complexities via coalitional and transnational engagements. This talk demonstrates how local knowledge and transcultural practices grounded in non-western and decolonial values prioritize marginalized perspectives during or after a crisis creating an opportunity for tackling social injustices in post-disaster situations. Ultimately, this project illustrates how rhetoric and technical communication scholars can perform transdisciplinary research in disaster management to minimize the impacts of catastrophic disasters affecting the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Dr. Sweta Baniya is an assistant professor of rhetoric and professional and technical writing and an affiliate faculty of the Center for Coastal Studies and Women and Gender Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Through a transnational and non-Western perspective, her research focusses on transnational coalitions in disaster response, crisis communication, and non-western rhetorics. Her forthcoming book Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice Oriented Technical Communication in Global Disaster Management explores transnational activism in the April 2015 Nepal Earthquake and 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Dr. Baniya’s scholarship has appeared in Technical Communications Quarterly, Technical Communications, Enculturation, Journal of Business & Technical Communication, Journal of Technological Studies among others. She can be reached at Email: baniya@ vt.edu or Twitter (@Sunkesharee)

Venue:
Room S226 and Zoom

Contact:
Liam Semler (liam.semler@sydney.edu.au)