ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a report excerpt in order to show the connection between technical communication and nonhuman agency, both in theory and in practice. It exemplifies the struggle inherent in writing about human and nonhuman actors: the investigating officer clearly identifies the shifting of agency between human pilot and nonhuman actors but portrays the human actor as the underlying cause instead of recognizing the equally complicit nonhuman actors. The chapter shows how Navy report writers identify nonhuman agency, and describes echo Moore and Richards in their call for technical communicators to address posthumanism's two strains: culture and complex systems. It employs several excerpts from a common type of accident report in the US Navy based on the Manual of the Judge Advocate General. The chapter builds on studies of technological accidents by urging technical communicators to craft reports that capture the complexity of issues of responsibility when both human and nonhuman actors exert agency.
