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Short abstract:

In a case study of computer engineering in transition, a community developed a heuristic for systemic change. “Speaking the unspeakable” initiated healing and equity through feeling as engineering work. But desire for alternative expertise may reify engineering's gendered social/technical divide.

Long abstract:

This presentation presents emergent findings from participatory action research with a community of faculty, students, and alum enacting systemic change in a nascent department of computer engineering. Located at a public university in the United States, this department is uniquely positioned to articulate different visions of computer engineering amidst multiple far-reaching transitions within the university. However, attempts to actualize equity in computer engineering are still bound by organizational histories as well as expressions of race and gender.

Not only did the community set an objective to “speak the unspeakable,” but having “difficult conversations” emerged as an on-the-fly heuristic for evaluating the efficacy of systemic change during conflict. Synthesizing participant observation, interviews, and autoethnography, this presentation analyzes “the unspeakable” and its leverage for systemic change.

The “unspeakable” indexes a traumatic past and an optimistic future. Its definition is connected to shared experiences of trauma that came from previous organizational arrangements and experiences of engineering culture. “Speaking the unspeakable” indexes (1) the desire to heal, and (2) a willingness to break from dominant engineering culture. However, such a praxis risks reifying a gendered social/technical divide. Speaking about feelings became a crucial form of work that contrasted engineering work, but it also produced the need for expertise in caretaking. Women and social scientists became responsible for facilitating, “managing feelings,” and ensuring everyone’s safety (albeit as a praxis of caretaking). While caretaking provides inroads for critical interventionists, its contradistinction to the trauma of engineering culture risks reifying a gendered social/technical divide.