The Historiography of Engineering Contexts

Andrew Jamison Aalborg University

Based on:

Mikael Hård and Andrew Jamison,

Hubris and Hybrids.

A Cultural History of Technology and Science

(Routledge 2005)

By way of introduction...

“A good technology, firmly related to human needs,

cannot be one that has a maximum productivity as its

supreme goal: it must rather, as in an organic system,

seek to provide the right quantity of the right quality at

the right time and the right place for the right purpose.”

Lewis Mumford, 1961

The Meanings of Engineering

meaning economic,commercial

social, professional

cultural, human

relevantcontexts

companies,corporations,markets

cities,nation-states, societies

movements,communities,cultures

story-line innovation construction appropriation

forms of contextual knowledge

innovation studies, economic and market analysis

science and technology studies, sociology and philosophy of science and technology

cultural studies, history of science and technology, technology assessment

The Story-line of Economic Innovation

also known as ”technological determinism”: changes in technology cause changes in society

Steam engines and textile machines give us industrial society

Automobiles and telephones give us modern society

Television and computers give us information society

Atomic energy and genetic engineering give us risk society

The internet and cell phones give us network society

The Story-Line of Social Construction

Actors create networks to make technological artifacts that satisfy social interests, or needs

An interest in mobility and individual freedom leads to the bicycle and the automobile

An interest in protecting non-human ”nature” leads to technologies of environmental control

An interest in exploring ”virtual” reality leads to an enhancement of human experience

The Story-line of Cultural Appropriation

The meanings of technologies come with use, and they are usually mixed, or ambivalent

Using machines in factories transforms the meaning of society and economy, but also destroys pre-industrial forms

Using automobiles and airplanes transforms the meaning of reality, but also destroys the natural environment

Using bio- and nanotechnologies transforms the meaning of life, but also challenges traditional values and ways of life

The Broader Context:Changing ”Modes” of Knowledge Production

Industrial Military Commercial “Little Science” “Big Science” “Technoscience”

Mode 1 Mode 1½ Mode 2 Before WWII 1940s-1970s 1980s-

Form of Knowledge disciplinary multidisciplinary transdisciplinary

Organiza- individuals and R&D departments ad hoc projects andtional form research groups and institutes networks

Dominantvalues academic bureaucratic entrepreneurial

From Little Science to Big Science

change in size and scale

mission orientation, external control

university-government collaboration

bureaucratic norm, or value system

new role for the state: ”science policy”

appropriate technology/technology assessment

Critiques of Big Science in the 60s

moral, or spiritual (e.g. Martin Luther King) against injustice, ”poverty of the spirit” for a new morality

scientific, or ecological (e.g. Rachel Carson) against reductionism, ”the abuse of the planet” for an environmental science

humanist, or cultural (e.g. Herbert Marcuse) against hubris, ”one-dimensional man” for a liberatory technology

The Moral Critique

”When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that

modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit

which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and

technological abundance. We’ve learned to fly the air like

birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas like fish, but we

haven’t learned to walk the earth like brothers and sisters.”

Martin Luther King, Jr

The Ecological Critique

”The road we have long been traveling

is deceptively easy, a smooth

superhighway om which we progress

with great speed, but at its end lies

disaster.”

Rachel Carson

“Technology has become the great vehicle of reification –

reification in its most mature and effective form. The social

position of the individual and his relation to others appear

not only to be determined by objective qualities and laws, but

these qualities and laws seem to lose their mysterious and

uncontrollable character; they appear as calculable

manifestations of (scientific) rationality.”

Herbert Marcuse

The Humanist Critique

Nordic Folkcenter for Renewable Energy

An Appropriate TechnologyMovement in the 1970s

The New Alchemy Institute Ark

From Big Science to Technoscience

change in range and scope

market orientation, corporate control

university-industry collaboration

entrepreneurial norm, or value system

the state as strategist: innovation policy

from assessment to promotion: ”foresight”

An Age of Technoscience

A blurring of discursive boundaries between science (episteme) and engineering (techne)

A trespassing of institutional borders between public and private, economic and academic

A mixing of skills and competencies across disciplines and societal domains

Contending Strategies of Knowledge Making

The dominant , or hegemonic strategy (mode 2):

commercialization, entrepreneurship, transdisciplinarity

The residual, or traditionalist strategy (mode 1):

academicization, expertise, (multi)disciplinarity

An emerging, or sustainable strategy (mode 3):

appropriation, empowerment, interdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity, or ”mode 2”

”Knowledge which emerges from a particular

context of application with its own distinct

theoretical structures, research methods and

modes of practice but which may not be

locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map.”

Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994)

The Tendency to Hubris

transgressing established forms of quality control ”a drift of epistemic criteria” (Elzinga)

transcending human limitations ”converging technologies” (bio, info, cogno, nano)

deemphasizing technological assessment lack of accountability and precaution

overemphasis on entrepreneurial values propagation of competition rather than cooperation

The Forces of Habit(us)

Technoscience primarily seen as providing new opportunities for scientists and engineers

Taught by reshuffling established scientific and engineering fields: multi- or subdisciplinarity

Politics and the rest of society left largely outside of research and education: ”outsourcing” of ethics

A continuing belief in separating experts and their

knowledge from contexts of use

“A discipline is defined by possession of a collective capital

of specialized methods and concepts, mastery of which is

the tacit or implicit price of entry to the field. It produces a

‘historical transcendental,’ the disciplinary habitus, a

system of schemes of perception and appreciation (where

the incorporated discipline acts as a censorship).”

Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004)

The Discipline as Habit(us)

The Need for a ”Mode 3” ora Hybrid Imagination

At the macro, or discursive level connecting technical solutions to societal problems

At the meso, or institutional level organizing sites, or spaces for collective learning

At the micro, or personal level integrating engineering and contextual knowledge

”Technology, Humanity and Society” in Aalborg

a part of Aalborg problem-based learning (PBL)

courses of lectures and supportive advising

component of first-year engineering project work

longtime, habitual difficulties in being accepted

but sometimes it really works!

ByTore Jesper AndersenChristopher DuunChristian HoltSimon Gade ThomsenTheis SimonsenUlrik Landberg StephansenAnders Bundgård Sørensen

A good example:

From the synopsis:

“This report concerns the problems with global warming

and investigates how dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC)

might solve some of these. The report starts from IPCC’s

Fourth Assessment Report and analyzes the current global

warming discussion. Next the possible technological

solutions to the global warming problem is briefly

described, and the DSSC is described in detail…. “

Schematicrepresentation of the operation principle

Experimentalapparatus for testing efficiency

Technology assessment,or SWOT analysis

A Socio-Cultural Approach to Problem-Based Learning

Problem defined as societal, or contextual

Contextual knowledge an integral part of the project

”Situated learning” of technical, or engineering skills

Ongoing interaction between the technical and contextual

A fostering of a hybrid competence, or identity