Everyday engineering an ethnography of design and innovation

A guide to the everyday working world of engineers, written by researchers trained in both engineering and sociology.Everyday Engineering was written to help future engineers understand what they are going to be doing in their everyday working lives, so that they can do their work more effectively a...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Vinck, Dominique
Other Authors: Blanco, Eric
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press 2003
Series:Inside technology
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: MIT Press eBook Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:A guide to the everyday working world of engineers, written by researchers trained in both engineering and sociology.Everyday Engineering was written to help future engineers understand what they are going to be doing in their everyday working lives, so that they can do their work more effectively and with a broader social vision. It will also give sociologists deeper insights into the sociotechnical world of engineering. The book consists of ethnographic studies in which the authors, all trained in both engineering and sociology, go into the field as participant-observers. The sites and types of engineering explored include mechanical design in manufacturing industries, instrument design, software debugging, environmental management within companies, and the implementation of a system for separating household waste.The book is organized in three parts. The first part introduces the complexity of technical practices. The second part enters the social and cultural worlds of designers to grasp their practices and motivations. The third part examines the role of writing practices and graphical representation. The epilogue uses the case studies to raise a series of questions about how objects can be taken into account in sociological analyses of human organizations
Physical Description:247 pages illustrations
ISBN:0585480907
9780585480909
026228555X
9780262285551