User Localization Strategies In The Face Of Technological Breakdown: Biometric In Ghana’s Elections

Description

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. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Recovering the Lost Voices of Users in Localization (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 1-36 Biometric Technology: The Savior of a Risky Electoral System (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 37-52 Decolonial Methodology as a Framework for Localization and Social Justice Study in Resource-Mismanaged Context (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 53-78 Stories of Users’ Experiences (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 79-90 Linguistic Localization: Constructing Local/Global Knowledge of Biometric Technology (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 91-128 User-Heuristic Experience Localization (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 129-144 Subversive Localization (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 145-184 You Are Not Who You Say You Are: Discriminations Inherent in Biometric Design (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 185-200 Conclusion: Participatory User Localization (Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo)....Pages 201-219 Back Matter ....Pages 221-243