Bell, S; (2018) Engineering with the Trouble: the Engineering Exchange at UCL. Presented at: Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Conference (ESJP) 13, San Diego, CA, UK.

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Abstract

In her latest book ‘Staying with the Trouble’ Donna Haraway (2016) makes the case for building new networks of kinship with other people and non-human species in the context of a geological era of unprecedented disruption, the consequence of dominant forms of capitalist industrialisation. Taking her title as a prompt, this paper reflects upon what this might mean for engineers. In particular it provides a framing from which to interrogate the experience of the EngEx at University College London since its inception in 2014. The EngEx was established to improve community engagement with engineering research. It was based on a two-way model of engagement, involving a co-production of research projects as well as a pro-bono engineering service. In its first three years the EngEx engaged more than 130 students, 45 faculty and staff, 170 community members and 20 different community based organisations. In 2017 it expanded to include local engineering consultancies in the pro-bono engineering service through a membership scheme. Projects have address topics such as demolition of social housing, air pollution, traffic congestion, green infrastructure provision, community-based infrastructure planning and the impact of river traffic on residential boat communities. The EngEx has delivered training courses for engineers, scientists and graduate students in community engagement, and for university faculty and staff in how to establish community engagement programmes. The work has been supported by funding from UCL, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Natural Environment Research Council. What does it mean to ‘stay with the trouble’ as a small engineering unit within a world-leading research university? ‘The trouble’ with engineering in the context of urban development is its uncritical service of the interests of developers, utilities, governments and other powerful interests. ‘The trouble’ for local communities is how to build and maintain relationships of kinship and neighbourliness in the context of constant change, particularly urban regeneration, the property market and growing inequalities. Inequality in urban regeneration manifests itself in many ways, including inequality of access to technical and scientific expertise. At the Engineering Exchange we have maintained the purposefully conservative position of the professional engineer. We are not activists. We provide professional engineering services and collaborative research on a pro-bono basis. Our clients and collaborators may be active in various struggles in our city, but our purpose is to provide fair access to technical knowledge, not to engage directly in complex urban politics. Our membership includes commercial engineering consultancies, who profit from urban development and we are part of a university that undertakes conventional engineering research in partnership with a range of industries, government agencies and the military. This then, may be to ‘engineer in the trouble’. We take a modest, yet epistemologically powerful position as professionals in service to our clients and society. We build professional, collaborative relationships with our local communities, which may be its own form of ‘kinship’ in a city of constant disruption and renewal. Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble. Durham and London: Duke.

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