IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 25

NICHOLAS
SAKELLARIOU

OPINION

The "X-Engineer": Engineering
Reflexivity and Identity Formation

W

hen confronted with increasing levels
of guilt and anxiety, people may begin
a period of re‑evaluation and renewed
intellectual quest. American engineers
underwent this experience during the late nineteenth
century. Shocked and concerned that the public's per‑
ception of technical work had begun to be character‑
ized more by its negative impacts on society than by
its heroic accomplishments, they attempted to define
themselves as guarantors of social good [14]. Thus
began in America and elsewhere the history of engi‑
neering reflexivity-an inquiry into the compatibility
between technology and human life.
Contemporary examples in which engineers have
not shied away from complex techno‑social issues
provide information about engineering reflexiv‑
ity's specific characteristics, and the actual effects
they have on making engineering practice socially
just. The readers of this journal will find it encour‑
aging that increasingly, practitioners believe there
is nothing "unprofessional" in thinking that consid‑
erations about engineering projects extend beyond
the spreadsheet and are influenced by subjective
value judgments.
The premise of this paper, which I owe to Gary
Downey and Matt Wisnioski from Virginia Tech, is
quite simple: In conditions of perceived technology
crisis, engineers contextualize themselves and the
contents of their work. This is similar to, but not quite
the same as Thomas Kuhn's assertion that "in peri‑
ods of acknowledged crisis... scientists have turned
to philosophical analysis as a device for unlocking
the riddles of their fields" [13]. Kuhn was referring
to internal crises; specifically, those involving elite

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2013.2249373
Date of publication: 14 March 2013

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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SprING 2013

communities of a handful of practitioners confront‑
ing the deadlock of a certain scientific "paradigm." In
contrast, technology crises and engineering reflexiv‑
ity are mostly due to "external" (i.e., non‑engineering)
influences. Engineering education is a key locus for
engineers to re‑contextualize themselves and the type
of work they perform [3].
It seems to me that in theory two types of engi‑
neering reflexivity exist. In reality, though, the dis‑
tinction is rather fuzzy or even non‑existent: On the
one hand, "egoistic" engineering reflexivity is a result
of the engineer's own striving to "restore" his or her
status in society and maintain a fair share in the man‑
agement of technology. This kind of reflexivity goes
back to the historical relationship between engineer‑
ing professionals, status, and social mobility. On the
other hand, "disinterested" reflexivity is a "deeper"
kind of reflexivity, one that is meant to go beyond
some of the structural barriers to socially responsible
engineering. To appreciate the evolution of the engi‑
neering reflexivity landscape in the English‑speaking
world, look at past and present activities of national
and international groups, such as the Engineers for
Social responsibility (New Zealand), the short‑lived
American Engineers for Social responsibility (who
helped create the International Network of Engineers
and Scientists for Global responsibility), and Engi‑
neering, Social Justice, and peace. Although for the
last twenty‑five years it has been primarily endemic to
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain, engi‑
neering reflexivity is presently becoming an "invasive
species" in the U.S.
An adjective I favor to describe the role of engi‑
neers in society comes from the work of an engineer
turned historian of technology, Eugene Ferguson.
Ferguson wrote in 1979 that engineers are "radi‑
cal because they [bring] radical changes..." [8]. As
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