Elizabeth A. Appel

The hand that signed the paper: Exploring the identity and influence of the activist engineer in modern practice

The modern world is facing challenges of unprecedented complexity and urgency as a result of decades of unimpeded industrial development. In response to these challenges, there is a need to resist technocratic precedent and garner a new class of engineers that approach problems with sustainability and community centred perspectives. These wholistic problem solvers are modelled in the “activist engineer”, one who is critically reflective of their role in sustainable design and one who resists techno-optimism in favour of more honest and efficient solutions (Karwat et al., 2015).

While calls for reforms to engineering practice are plentiful in literature, there are limited studies into the uptake of such reforms into the daily workflows of practicing engineers. This study works to bridge this gap by combining literature review with practitioner interviews across the transportation engineering industry in the United States. The products of transportation engineers are the fundamental systems that people use to connect with their communities every day. The decisions of these engineers thus have profound economic, environmental, and social impacts. The omnipresence of transportation infrastructure reinforces the need to ensure that work in this sector aligns with sustainable development objectives.

The results of this study highlight that individuals require the desire for change, the knowledge of how to affect change, and the power to carry out change if they are to work as effective activist engineers. Cultivating the desire for change was found to be uniquely enabled by social associations and alignment with internal values. To harness the desire for change, reorientation of project workflows can provide opportunities for passionate engineers to exercise their power and carry out activism. At the institutional level, the unique confluence of political interference and capital pressure were found to be fundamental limiting factors to the integration of revolutionary rhetoric into engineering practice. To overcome such limitations, the participants of this study explained the role of insider language and creativity in advancing sustainable objectives. Rather than an organised, sequential, and structured transition, this study argues that the needed systems change in the transportation sector is originating in the small daily actions of practicing engineers seeking to more honestly fulfil their perceived professional obligations.