Dustin Edwards is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies and the Director of the Writing Center at San Diego State University. His research examines the unmet promises and lived harms of extractive technologies. More specifically, his work draws together how communities navigate the land, labor, and water struggles that have made large-scale computation and global connectivity possible. He is author of Enduring Digital Damage: Rhetorical Reckonings for Planetary Survival, which won the 2025-26 Computers and Composition Johndan Johnson-Eilola Distinguished Book Award. With Mél Hogan and Zane Cooper, he is at work on a second book, tentatively titled Critical Data…
Author: Funmilola Fadairo
Funmilola Fadairo
Funmilola Fadairo is a PhD student in the Language, Writing, and Rhetoric track within the English Department at the University of Maryland. Her research explores how technological and multimodal forms depict African sensibilities across time.
Though we may not realize it, data centers are an indispensable part of virtually all contemporary composition and rhetorical work. For example, any scholar who studies digital rhetoric or uses their iPhone to take pictures of archival artifacts for later analysis utilizes the power of a data center somewhere in the world. Data centers happen to be so peculiar that they need yet another veiled term, “the cloud”, to obfuscate the true narrative behind how this digital infrastructure works. Behind this supposed cloud lie buildings, rare earths in hardware components, heat exhaust, water consumption, and maintenance staff keeping this infrastructure…
My initial experience with computers began when my Dad bought our first family desktop, which we used to play Zuma games. When the adults complained that my siblings and I were getting addicted to games, we either switched to Marvis Bacon, as it was popular for teaching kids how to type quickly, or we found solace in Microsoft Encarta Kids, which exposed us to knowledge beyond Nigeria in multimodal forms. As a teenager, the first social media platform I interacted with was 2go, an app owned by Africans, which helped me frame questions on African digital agency and technology. These…