Call for Papers EJSP 13

Call for Papers
Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Conference (ESJP) 13
Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, University of San Diego
San Diego, US
Jan 25th to 27th 2018 
Valuing and honoring our commitments

ESJP 13 at the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, USD

The Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at the University of San Diego is delighted to host the 13th annual Engineering, Social Justice and Peace (ESJP) conference January 25th-27th 2018. This conference celebrates the commitment that USD and the Shiley-Marcos School have made through their RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) program to support the development of engineering students who are “changemakers” for social justice, economic development and sustainability on a global scale.

ESJP

ESJP was founded in 2004 by a group of academics who questioned the complex relationship that engineering has with social and environmental justice. In order to ensure that continuing and future practices were not explicitly or unwittingly supporting injustices but actively promoting justice, these founders began to discuss, with academics of other disciplines, practitioners, activists, students and local community members, what it means to be a just engineer. Since then, many individuals and groups around the globe have been attempting to enact these ideas in their engineering practice, their teaching and in their writings. In recent weeks, however, we have seen a new war on social justice. Many are dissatisfied with existing political and economic structures and an increasing poverty gap. Few know what to do about this, without causing further and unprecedented traumatic injustice. Hope of a just world seems even further away and we believe more than ever that we need to stand firm in our commitments to justice and equity. ESJP’s commitments can be found at this link.

As with all our meetings, ESJP 13 will be interdisciplinary by design and we welcome those who are able to help deconstruct our historical and current engineering practices, as well as those who are interested to work together to build alternatives. We welcome educators who wish to learn how to bring social justice to their engineering classes, together with those who are already doing so. We welcome students who wish to be socially just engineers in the future. We welcome in fact anyone, from inside or outside of academia, who values our commitments and wishes to join us on our journey. There will be no formal papers or talks at the meeting but sessions will all be engaged activities and discussions. We will also visit local community programs and see engineering and social justice in action. If you would like to contribute to the conference, please send a short abstract of up to 500 words, describing the topic for discussion, and the format required. Proposals can include any of the following structures and should be sent by email to Paula@esjp.org before June 1st 2017:

  • Workshop (engaged activities of up to one hour)
  • Panel discussion (four speakers of five min each plus discussion – one hour slot)
  • Individual paper (ten minute talk plus discussion – half hour slot)
  • Artistic contributions: poetry, theatre, interactive active art session, exhibition
  • You may also propose any other structure– be creative! Zines, photographic competitions, online events, dances etc etc

Due to our values base in social justice we wish to support access to the meeting for anyone who wishes to come and fits our aims and values. We welcome expressions of interest from those who face barriers in travelling to the conference. It is possible that we can include at least one session in Tijuana, Mexico and / or online sessions as appropriate. We will also have a sliding scale for the registration fee (cost recovery only) which will be based on ability to pay, and will be announced at a later date.