Engineering is all about providing practical solutions for practical problems, but often we forget to consider the broader context or the relationships of the people involved. Who has the problem, and who is offering to fix it? Who or what caused the problem in the first place? And what motivations lie behind our instincts to offer to help with particular problems?
One area where these questions are particularly relevant is in international projects, which engineers from the UK often become involved with at some point in their career. Whether it’s a service-learning trip during undergrad or decades long research partnership with a university from another country, it’s rare for the topics of power dynamics or colonial histories to come up in engineering discussions. And if they do, it’s often in retrospect or much later in the project.
But what if we got proactive about our roles in these systems and could learn to counteract them? In this event, we will hear from a fascinating range of guests on how study abroad programs are portrayed in marketing depending on what country they are held in, what a start-up is doing in Peru to guide communities to sustainability through a bottom-up approach, and how engineers can reframe their thinking about international community-based projects. We will discuss how we can ethically participate in projects the world over and avoid acting as white saviours.
Featuring fantastic speakers from across the globe, details below! And if this sounds like your thing, check the rest of our Ethical Engineering and Feminism events!
INTERSECTIONALITY AND INCLUSION IN STEM
FEMINIST ENGINEERING – KEYNOTE
The Ethical Engineering series has been made possible with the generous support of Strathclyde Alumni Fund. Learn more about them here.
Our speakers:
Zuleka Woods is a doctoral candidate in Planning, Governance, and Globalization and a Master’s student in public health at Virginia Tech. She has a master’s degree in Higher Education from Northeastern University in Boston. Her current research interest centers on race and power structures in international programs. Zuleka prides herself on being a community organizer and loves working with diverse populations to collaborate on efforts to secure social change. In her free time, she curates African stories to counter the too often voiced narrative of a “helpless” continent. She is the author of Ba-Ya: Play Cook, an anthology of short stories on gender-based violence in her home country, Liberia.
Andres Bustamante is a passionate and value driven social entrepreneur with over 12 years of experience in marketing and sales. He started his career in Toronto, Canada in experiential marketing and later transitioned into tech sales with Oracle and Salesforce. After returning to Peru in 2012 he started a small digital marketing firm and soon after co-founded EcoSwell. He leads the organization’s marketing strategy and digital systems, renewable energy projects and legal/administrative compliance. His natural ability to connect with people has also been instrumental in the organization’s strong community and corporate relations. Outside of work Andres enjoys surfing, traveling, hiking, reading and baking desserts. Andres holds a BComm in Marketing and International Business.
Dr Patricia Xavier is a water engineer with a background in both the private and public water sector. Her main area of research is into the social impact of engineers and engineering – critiquing how the methodologies adopted by engineers can sometimes run counter to the needs of communities they serve and reinforce structures of power that maintain inequality.