Transmissions : critical tactics for making and communicating research

Summary: "What does your research sound like? Do you yell or whisper it? How does it feel to wear it, close to the skin? Can you meter its rhythm? What games does it call for? Do you perform it? How do modes of making and communicating inform your practice, shape your stories and constitute your publics? These are some of the questions at the heart of this book. Social science's continued impact and relevance relies not only on what it says but also on how it tells stories about social worlds. The availability of digital technologies has expanded topics for study and along with it, the possibilities of circulating findings to different audiences in forms and formats beyond conventional talk and text. Yet, while creative new methods are gaining traction, with researchers and practitioners using a range of devices and platforms, debate and discussion about the tactics and techniques of transmission--how researchers make, curate and communicate their findings--have lagged behind their widespread use. This volume takes up the challenge to attend to other ways of "telling about society" (Becker 2007). The book comprises a collection of richly textured projects that share interdisciplinary concerns and critical interests in experimenting with new approaches for the purpose of showing and sharing research. Fifteen scholars discuss their tactics of transmission and translation of research. While each acknowledges the persuasive power of text and talk (this is a book after all), they critically reflect on less conventional forms of knowledge exchange in their fields, pushing against disciplinary edges-sometimes politically, often physically-through the unexpected use of creative combinations of materials, platforms and practice, pushing research and disciplines into new territories"--