На конференции 4S в Новом Орлеане состоялась секция Центра STS ЕУСПб Engineers: Makers of the World or Cogs in the Machine?
В рамках секции были прочитаны доклады:
- "This Man Is Not Responsible for Anything": Engineers and Their Everyday Concerns, Liliia Zemnukhova, Irina Evseeva, European University at St. Petersburg
- Assessing the Past and Future of Engineering Judgment, Jonathan Weedon, Texas Tech University
- Facing “Agile” and “Project-Based” Organization: The Challenges of Engineering Work in France, Olga Lelebina, ISG International Business School
- Tales from the Field: Indigenous-Led Pathways to Technological Stewardship, Marisol Campos-Navarrete, Trent University; Mark Abbott, Engineering Change Lab; Arlene Williams, Engineering Change Lab; Melanie Goodchild, University of Waterloo; Dan Longboat, Trent University; Taylor Wilkes, Indigenous Environmental Institute, Trent University
- Responsible Engineering, Socio-Technical Systems, and Resilient Communities, Juan Lucena, Colorado School Of Mines
- Forest Fires and New Climate Regime: Interrogating the Production of Knowledge and Valuation of the Environment in Forest Engineers in Chile, Tomas Undurraga
О секции:
STS studies suggest that engineers gather heterogeneous entities in their projects (J. Law, M. Callon, L. Suchman). They make the technology work but also create a world around this technology (B. Latour). A new world entails the possibility of searching funding and political support, building a new social ontology and enacting necessary infrastructure. Each engineer turns out to be a maker of a new world.
However, such a picture contradicts the conventional vision. According to this vision, engineers usually rely on standardized procedures and act as cogs in large technological systems. As such cogs, they tend to be as far as possible from the public discussions of their projects. So, who are the engineers today? The world-makers or those who perform a set of standard operations as far as possible away from public discussions? Are there cultural differences in such perceptions of engineers?