Designs on development: engineering, globalization, and social justice
Designs on development: engineering, globalization, and social justice
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发展设计：工程、全球化和社会正义
DOI：
10.1080/19378621003604748
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发表时间：
2010
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
D. Riley
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dean Nieusma;D. Riley
本文批判性地评价了“发展工程”倡议，并试图想象更有效地结合社会正义目标的新的互动模式。近年来，在美国和世界各地的工程社区中，对工程开发的兴趣激增。虽然由于引导工程师关注全球经济不平等引起的问题而值得认可和赞扬，但许多工程促进发展项目对技术在社区发展中的作用的假设存在问题，并且未能解决指导（隐性或显性）大多数发展干预的经济和文化结构。本文采用案例研究的方法，得出了其中的一些假设，并展示了它们是如何阻碍社会公正目标的实现的——无论是在具体的发展干预的背景下，还是在工程作为一种专业活动的背景下。两个案例中的第一个涉及尼加拉瓜两所大学和美国两所大学之间的跨学科合作，重点关注产品设计的教育能力建设，并着眼于当地经济赋权。这里讨论的社会公正考虑包括个人和机构之间合作中的权力关系——包括什么构成有意义的社区参与——以及在市场上推出产品时假设的经济模型。第二个案例涉及斯里兰卡一个非政府组织的工作及其通过可再生能源技术促进社区发展的办法。在这种情况下，社会公正的考虑包括对项目决策的控制以及发展援助中固有的权力不平等问题。在这两种情况下，对技术功能的关注往往会掩盖社会权力失衡和认识论分歧，导致项目在不经意间扩大了社会不公正。
This article critically appraises ‘engineering for development’ initiatives and seeks to imagine new models of interaction that incorporate social justice goals more effectively. In recent years, interest in engineering for development has surged within engineering communities in the US and around the world. While worthy of recognition and praise for directing engineers' attention to the problems arising from global economic inequity, many engineering-for-development programs share problematic assumptions about technology's role in community development and fail to grapple with the economic and cultural structures that direct (implicitly or explicitly) most development interventions. Using a case study approach, this article draws out some of these assumptions and shows how they impede the achievement of social justice goals – both in the context of specific development interventions as well as in the context of engineering as a professional activity. The first of two cases involves an interdisciplinary collaboration between two universities in Nicaragua and two in the US focused on educational capacity building for product design with an eye to local economic empowerment. Social justice considerations discussed here include power relations throughout the collaboration among individuals and institutions – including what constitutes meaningful community involvement – and the economic models assumed when launching products in the marketplace. The second case involves the work of a non-governmental organization in Sri Lanka and its approach to community development through renewable energy technologies. In this case, social justice considerations include questions of control over project decision making as well as power inequities inherent in development assistance. In both cases, concerns of technical functionality tend to occlude social power imbalances and epistemological divergence, leading to projects that inadvertently extend social injustices.