Scholarly work usually characterizes engineers as politically and socially conservative individuals; instruments of the expansion of capitalism and neoliberalism. It also portrays them as supporters of both the State and the big corporations that employ them. This talk reports on an ethnographic study that documented the work of a group of information technology (IT) engineers in Colombia who decided to create a space of exception to neoliberalism in the form of a Non-Governmental Engineering Organization (NGEO). These engineers found that running their own NGEO provided them with some degrees of freedom to pursue social justice goals in their IT work in ways not usually found in the corporate or neoliberal governmental worlds. However, these opportunities do not come without outstanding challenges, such as funding dependencies from a neoliberal government, which create contradictions that hinder the pursue of social justice goals in the construction of information technology.
Richard Arias-Hernandez is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool. He obtained a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. His research has centred around the study of the co-construction of information technology and society, especially those constructions that aim to advance social justice in capitalist societies.
Select Articles and Books Available at UBC Library
Fisher, B., Green, T. M., & Arias‐Hernández, R. (2011). Visual analytics as a translational cognitive science. Topics in Cognitive Science, 3(3), 609-625. doi:10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01148.x. [Link]
Arias-Hernandez, R. (2004). Learning communities that build appropriate technology. World Futures, 60(1-2), 81-90. [Link]
Arias-Hernandez, R. (2008). Engineering the network society: A social worlds/arenas analysis of engineering in government and non governmental organizations in Colombia. [Link]
Arias-Hernandez, R., & Fisher, B. (2013). The “tunnel vision” effect: Structuring of attention and use of digital technologies in emergency operation centers. Paper presented at the 195-198. doi:10.1109/CogSIMA.2013.6523847. [Link]
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