The Rhetoric of Online Exclusive Pumping Communities: Tactical Technical Communication as Eschewing Judgment

摘要

"Exclusive Pumping" straddles the most common infant-feeding methods: breastfeeding and bottle feeding. Exclusive pumpers express milk and feed with bottles. Yet experts rarely recommend exclusive pumping, creating a need for information outside of formal communication outlets. This article argues that exclusive pumping forums are sites of tactical technical communication - operating as "anti-institutional" - and explores these forums as places of inspiration and support, as well as spaces where mothers seek to solve technical feeding problems while avoiding institutional judgment.