Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice and Crisis Communication During Disaster. FREE PDF DOWNLOAD or ORDER Hard Copy via Amazon
Winner of CCCCs 2026 Advancement of Knowledge – Honorable Mention award.
Photo Credit: Kishor Sharma (@kishor_ksg)
This book demonstrates how local knowledge and transcultural practices of recognizing, highlighting, and valuing marginalized perspectives during or after a crisis creates an opportunity for tackling social injustices in post-disaster situations. With grounded case studies of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake & 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, this book showcases how locals in marginalized and colonized spaces overcome disaster-created complexities via coalitional and transnational engagements. Ultimately, this project illustrates how technical communicators can perform Transdisciplinary research in disaster management to minimize the impacts of catastrophic disasters affecting the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Book Reviews:
Carina J, S., & Enoch, J., (2025). Review of “Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice and Crisis Communication During Disaster by Sweta Baniya,” Baniya, S. (2024). Transnational assemblages: Social justice and crisis communication during disaster. National Council of Teachers of English.. Peitho 28 (1). Doi: 10.37514/PEI-J.2025.28.1.06
As Baniya’s book prompts this kind of reflection, it also pronounces the power of crisis communication made possible through transnational assemblages to reach the marginalized, the ignored, and the unseen in disasters in a timely manner timely manners. As decolonial and social-justice research is currently
at the forefront of technical and professional communication, Baniya’s book serves as a fine example of a mixed-methods, multi-sited, and multimodal study that is mediated by the “self-reflexivity” of the researcher (39). Feminist scholars should pay close attention to how this book contributes to crisis communication and disaster studies by introducing non-Western methods of disaster relief sensitive to local communities and marginalized populations, which are made possible through transnational assemblages.
Enwerem, R. C. & View Profile. (2026). Review of “Transnational Assemblages: Social Justice and Crisis Communication During Disaster by Sweta Baniya,” Baniya, S. (2024). Transnational assemblages: Social justice and crisis communication during disaster. National Council of Teachers of English. Communication Design Quarterly, 14(1), 57–59. https://doi.org/10.1145/3794916.3794922
Ultimately, scholars, academics, and practitioners in communication design, technical and professional communication, crisis and disaster communication, scientific communication, and rhetoric will find this book highly relevant to advancing social justice–informed communication practices, research, and pedagogies. It also provides valuable frameworks for researchers and communication scholars engaging in global and intercultural contexts and offers timely insights into transnational communication design, network building for social justice, and technology development
Sweta Baniya, PhD 