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- Convenors:
-
Rebekah Cupitt
(Birkbeck, University of London)
Elizabeth Rodwell (University of Houston)
Elizabeth Reddy (Colorado School of Mines)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-2B05
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
Engineering and design make broad promises on sustainable, socially-responsible change. Using cases from broad-ranging fields and case studies, this panel adds to feminist and applied STS practice and asks: how do we create a space for alternative modes of responsible change?
Long Abstract:
Engineering and design offer broad promises about sustainable and responsible change and studies of these fields therefore face challenges including identifying systemic bias, observing how structural violence is scaffolded and patterns of exclusion enacted through design, and providing critical insights and detailed accounts of the impact of engineered technologies on people's everyday lives. Speed of innovation, narrowly-imagined professional roles, lack of engagement with broader contexts, and the drive to generate profit mean that promises of sustainable and socially-responsible change repeatedly fall short. Will mainstream engineers and designers effectively destabilize the impossible charisma of solutions where “everybody wins”, the mythical “universal”, or the safety of the middle-ground? What role can STS researchers play in exercising care for people (characterized in detail, as well as the broader social issues). Who's job is it to factor in multiple, potentially transformative futures at the point of development and design?
This panel includes discussions of a variety of case studies that cover topics as wide-ranging as research on critical encounters with engineering and design in classrooms, ethnographic studies of engineering and design in practice, and histories of emergence of these fields and themes. We examine the everyday work of being part of transformative efforts to educate engineers and designers about socio-cultural perspectives on their work, inspiring broader conceptions of engaged and responsible action through critical practice, rerouting teams away from harmful decisions, repairing damage done by biased design, and creating spaces for play and imagination.
Panel presenters will share material from the environmental humanities, engineering education, arts-based research, cultural anthropology, critical data studies and more. All will address a core question developed in the context of ongoing conversations related to feminist, applied, and critical STS: how can STS scholars help carve out a space where alternative modes of engineering and design can operate?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 17 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses “instrumentalism” in engineering education. It draws on anthropological insights on how instruments like tools are formed by and come to form bodies and worlds, and outlines resulting insights for understanding and participating critically in classrooms.
Paper long abstract:
In engineering education, there is a substantial preoccupation with instrumentality of coursework. This orientation is the topic of significant discussion in engineering studies and STS more broadly as we seek to characterize and navigate the ways that we encounter, reproduce and undermine certain received forms of subjectivity and notions of knowledge.
In this paper, I consider how instrumentalism has cast education as a tool; a means to an end. I describe this as a double move: first, valuing direct and practical utility above all in coursework, and second, setting this value work within a particularly constrained and often techno-chauvenistic set of notions about what ends are worth moving toward and the means by which such ends might be achieved. I argue that we would do well to take the notion of the “instrument” seriously to better understand engineering education and the work of STS scholars and educators within it. I draw on the work of anthropologists to consider how tools are formed by and come to form the bodies of their makers, users, and the worlds around them to do this. Using my own teaching for reference, I demonstrate what thinking about instrumentalism from this embodied and material stance can show us about engineering classrooms and how STS scholars participate critically in them.
Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses the role of STS teacher-scholars in STEM education and the development of plans for An STS Teachbook: Recipes from our Science and Technology Studies Communities for Critical Pedagogies in Undergraduate Education.
Paper long abstract:
Many scholars in STS find ourselves teaching future scientists, engineers, and medical professionals far more often than we teach future STS scholars. This can make developing engaging learning opportunities challenging. Educators must create classroom experiences that promote critical approaches to science and technology for students often reluctant to critique the sociotechnical infrastructures they hope one day to join. The result is a host of creative curricula that have the potential to challenge and inspire students and even to enrich scholarship in STS. However, the politics of higher education lead to certain challenges: we lose track of insights generated in the classroom and fail to share this work broadly, leaving crucial labor of our community unrecognized. Further, the ways our knowledge is performed, produced, and circulated in classrooms and with students remains under theorized.
This presentation will address the authors' work to build a new resource: An STS Teachbook: Recipes from our Science and Technology Studies Communities for Critical Pedagogies in Undergraduate Education. This Teachbook will include STS scholarship and compile “recipes” for different learning experiences developed in our communities. We will preview the Teachbook, explore the organizing themes, and share several recipes (including an improvisational activity related to the social, political, and ethical dimensions of sociotechnical artifacts, and a framing activity using guided analysis of op-eds and maps). With this project, we build a resource to recognize our community’s labor, a tool to support our ongoing efforts, and a contribution to developing better understanding of STS in practice.
Paper short abstract:
Teaching design principles & methods and their standardised toolkits risk reproducing a fixed set of normative values which fail to align with the multiple student visions of 'designer' futures. What ethnographically-informed modes of design justice can we imagine and place in the design classroom?
Paper long abstract:
Becoming a part of the capitalist Silicon Valley dream has long been a student goal that educators on design programmes either embrace or rile against using agile, critical, socially responsible, or human-centred design frameworks. With its elitist culture and technocratic capitalist visions of the future, big tech still offers a brighter future for those that manage to make the cut. In the UK, international students see digital design as a pathway to improved socio-economic status, in contrast to a lifetime of exploitation and resource extraction which mainly benefits citizens in the Global North. However, teaching design principles and methods that champion standardised toolkits to students with a variety of goals, risks reproducing and codifying a fixed set of normative values in technologies that extend into its implementation and use. This paper uses a mix of ethnographic insights on how the design of video meeting technologies re-enact bias and a reflection on how well current design approaches such as speculative critical design and inclusive design address these issues. Considering experiences in the classroom, I question how well these existing methods work to create sufficiently expansive spaces in which students can engage with socially responsibile design, while also speaking to their individual goals and visions for their futures. Finally this paper looks at the different definitions of design justice that emerge among students and how to teach to these multiplicities as students become-with design methodologies.
Paper short abstract:
Biblio+ turns book searching into an engaging adventure. An interactive app offers a treasure hunt in AR within the library, with markers for orientation, discovering tools, resources, and information. Main goals are to enhance library services, engage and educate users, and promote the university.
Paper long abstract:
The "Biblio+" project aims to improve the library experience, turning it into an engaging and intuitive adventure fostering a deeper connection between students and their academic resources.
By envisioning the library visit as a treasure hunt, students become adventurous researchers exploring the library's resources like never before. With the help of librarians and a digital treasure map app, students embark on a journey to find books, aided by augmented reality (AR) technology. The project focuses on creating interactive digital pathways within the Central Library, enhancing library services, engaging users, and promoting the university's image.
Through the development of native applications and AR technology, the project offers a multifunctional app with four main features: Augmented Reality, Videogame - Archive, Interactive Map, and Virtual Catalog. The AR function allows users to interact with markers distributed throughout the library, providing information and activating multimedia experiences.
Technologically, the project leverages mobile device cameras and specially created graphic elements (markers) to create an immersive AR experience. These markers trigger specific animations and graphics, enhancing user engagement. The app will be distributed through major app stores and optimized for various hardware devices, ensuring accessibility for all users.
By implementing modular technology and adaptable branding strategies, the project aims to evolve alongside future developments.