Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo - User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown: Biometric in Ghana’s Elections

Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo

User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown

Biometric in Ghanas Elections

Dr. Dorpenyo is to be applauded for highlighting an often forgotten issue of how technology issues in the Global South can inhibit social justice for users who rely on technology to participate in the democratic process. This is a timely and important material that will shape conversations on technology use in the fields of technical communication and rhetoric for a long time.

Godwin Agboka, Associate Professor of Technical Communication, University of Houston-Downtown, USA

User Localization Strategies in the Face of Technological Breakdown is a nuanced, insightful text that will be useful to technical communication researchers interested in theories and methodologies of localization, biometrics, and cross-cultural technical communication. A much-needed perspective from an important community that can completely transform the ways in which technical communicators think about technology design in both local and global contexts. This book makes powerful interventions in current conversations about decolonizing technical communication through social justice work.

Laura Gonzales, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at The University of Texas at El Paso, USA, and author of Sites of Translation: What Multilinguals Can Teach Us About Digital Writing and Rhetoric

Dorpenyos work provides technical communicators with a deep and very privileged look into the fascinating world of technology transfer in Ghana. The story he tells of how biometrics were adapted by Ghanas election officials and voters is a case study for how to conduct analyses of user localization strategies for our field.

Tharon W. Howard, Professor of Professional Communication and Rhetoric and Usability Testing Facility Director, Clemson University, USA

Dr. Dorpenyos unique perspective and robust analysis of the adoption and use of biometric in Ghanas elections illustrates how users adapted this technology for their social, cultural, physical, and political contexts using linguistic, subversive, and user-heuristic localizations. This work, situated at the intersections of technical communication, civic engagement, social justice, user experience, and localization earns its significance by pointing out the importance of election technologies in non-western cultures and providing us with rhetorical localization strategies to consider within cultural technical communication.

Michelle F. Eble, Associate Professor of Technical and Professional Communication, East Carolina University, USA

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